The Butter Churn

After reading a story I wrote about our grandmother, my cousin Shirley, told me something about her mother, my Aunt Ruth, that shows that while my aunt was a beautiful, petite woman, she was also a strong woman, like her mother before her. My Aunt Ruth has always loved horses. I have a number of pictures of her, and quite often she is with horses. Some people are just amazing with horses…seem to know what they are thinking even. I believe that my aunt was one of those people. In fact, I’m pretty sure she loved most animals. She is also pictured with dogs quite often, and they seemed to be best friends. Not everyone has the gift of being so good with animals, but she certainly did.

Aunt Ruth thrived on the outdoor life. She loved life on a farm, and growing much of their own food. They had a place outside of Casper, Wyoming when I was little, and she had a garden that took up about 3/4 of an acre. Like her mother before her, she taught her children to help care for that garden, and help with the 100 or so chickens she raised every year for butchering. They hunted and froze wild game as well. Not only did my aunt and uncle teach their children how to live off the land and love the outdoors, but to have fun doing it.

As I said earlier in my story, my Aunt Ruth loved horses, but I also think there might have been a bit of an inventor in her. When the work was done, my aunt came up with a great new invention I’ll call The Butter Churn. What?? You don’t think my aunt invented the butter churn? Well…I think you just might be wrong. Let’s just see. My cousin, Shirley tells it like this, “When there was time she would let us take the horse out to ride and she would give us each a quart jar of cream and while we were riding we would turn that cream into butter. She said that was the easiest way to do it but I can tell you it wasn’t that easy on our arms. That was a lot of shaking. But the best part was no additives and no preservatives, and boy was it good butter.”

I know, you might say that there is no proof that she was the one to invent that, and you would be right, but there is also no proof, that I know of, that she didn’t, so I’ll just stick by my story that my Aunt Ruth invented a new and, in my opinion, very interesting, although maybe not easy way to churn butter. And since I really like the taste of real fresh butter, I can totally imagine just how good it was. I just wish I could remember it, because I’m quite sure I must have had some.