Seven Seasons

On Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore, an area of the Pocomoke Forest is centrally located between the towns of Pocomoke, Princess Anne, Fruitland, Salisbury, and Snow Hill. Within that forest are many farms that have been handed down through the generations. In the early to mid-20th century, those family farms required many hands to grow and harvest foods such as corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, and watermelons that were sold at local auction blocks. But the sun has set on the family truck-cropping farm of the 1940s - 1960s. The converted mule drawn planters being pulled by a tractor is no longer seen. Family members working together in the field swaying this way and that while bending over tall tomato vines, tossing watermelons, or hand-shucking corn have disappeared from the landscape. No one sits backed up to a Home-Comfort making wreaths at Christmas or renders hogs in January. Grandmothers no longer stitch quilts or make bonnets to cover family heads or patch clothes using a treadle sewing machine. That treadle machine now sits idle as a gentle reminder of Grandmother’s efforts and Grandfather’s flatbed truck sits rusting in the woods. Yet in the minds of those who remember, even though the work was hard, there is a picture of how to self-sustain through tough times.