Helma's growin' a little tobacco "just for fun,"
and proudly displays his overloaded pear tree.
"They'll sweeten and soften in a couple weeks or so"
By Bob Weaver
Rowel's Run resident Helma Starcher and his wife Tink are among hundreds of Calhoun families that routinely try to keep ahead with their food supply, raising a garden every year throughout their marriage.
This year, Tink canned 100 quarts of tomato juice and other garden varieties, a healthy and tasty experience for those long, cold winter days.
Tink is the kind of grandma who joys in cooking for her grandkids and great-grandkids, the melt-in-your-mouth country stuff like biscuits and creamed tomatoes.
Grandson Kenny Starcher, who is on his second tour in Iraq, always orders them up when he comes home. In fact, all of Helma and Tink's children visit their home place frequently, just like families used to do.
Helma, a retired state highway department employee, revels in things that grow from the soil, from a large vegetable garden to fruit trees.
Helma and Tink's cellar holds some delights for cold
winter days. Tink uses plants and flowers on the front
porch of the old Elsworth Kerby house, about 100 years old
This year, just for fun, he planted some tobacco. "I remember how they use to dry it and twist it," for human use, he said.
He proudly displayed the canned products now housed in his dug cellar.
"You don't have to worry about how this stuff will taste, and it doesn't have a bunch of stuff in it, natural," Helma said.
Helma and Tink's house was built by Elsworth Kerby about 100 years ago, including the old cellar, which Tink gracefully adorns with lots of hanging flowers and plants.
"It's a really old place," she said, "We feel right at home and hope to spend the rest of our days here."
"If we can just keep those deer out of the garden, we'll be OK," Helma concluded.
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