The Corn Cob Bin

 Yesterday my mind once again whirled back to when I was a child on the farm. It was a cold and windy day that I remember. Beside our cookstove was a metal bin. My father would fill the metal bin full of dried corn cobs for my mother to cook and bake with. That's right! She baked beautiful angel food cakes, cookies as well as roasts and other goodies in an old cookstove with dried out corn cobs. 

This memory is from so long ago that it took me a very long time to even find mention of cooking with corn cobs. I found a picture from a website that sells antiques. This picture of a rectangular bin is similar to what my father used.

I also found a photo of a metal basket filled with corn cobs and one picture of a lady standing by her cookstove feeding the fire with corn cobs. She was a lady from North Dakota whose picture is now hanging in the Library of Congress. It was taken in 1940.  Isn't it interesting that this picture that is now a part of our American history is the only one I could find? This kind of cooking was common during the Great Depression. It was essentially free, but very dangerous because the cobs were dry and caught on fire immediately as well as created a very hot fire. But you see, none of this concerned me. What concerned me was, that one day my daddy came in and told my mama to find someplace for the cobs. He had to bring a calf into the house to save it's life. What? We barely were able to have a dog in the house let alone a cow. (I was about seven or eight. A calf was a cow.)

It seemed that my whole world changed that day. First my dad brought in straw and dumped it in the bin. Then he asked my mom to hold the door open. I couldn't believe my eyes. He put that ugly animal in the kitchen! Even my mother looked a bit dubious. She said, "I hope you didn't pay much for him. I don't think he's going to make it through the night."

Undeterred from my mother's negative attitude, he explained that he had already named him.; Two Bucks. He had paid two dollars for that calf at the sale barn. He thought it was a deal, my mother would have rather had the two dollars and not the calf. However, they were a team. She steadily kept the fire going with the corn cobs. Dad brought in warm milk from his milking. They put a little sugar in it and that calf loved it. He liked it so well, he started jumping and kicking around in that bin. I got out of there. I thought for sure he would get out and an unknown catastrophe was going to happen for sure. I think it's the only time I ever doubted any of my father's decisions.

Then it pooped! And pooped again. I now know that the calf had scours and both my parents knew it. By now my mother was not a happy woman. She called him by his first name which I can only remember her doing two or three times in my life. "Ray, the calf has to go." The calf did not go. My dad stayed up with it at night and it survived and so did our household. The calf grew to be an adult out in our field. This memory only popped up because I joined a Facebook group the other day. It was called Senior Citizen Friendship Group. They were talking about somethings they remembered when they were children, posted pictures of farm animals and suddenly I could just see Two Bucks in our old kitchen oh so many years ago.

So the moral to this story is two fold. When you think you remember everything from your childhood you probably don't until something triggers that memory and the second thing keep our history alive by telling your stories to your children, to your grandchildren to anyone who will listen. Just think; only one picture of a lady feeding the fire with corn cobs when it was done for years.