By: Annette Draper
I remember the thrasher coming to our farm. All the farmers in the area came to help in hauling the wheat bundles to the farm. The job of the children was pushing the wheat to the back of the bin so everything fit. Every year we made wheat gum by chewing the wheat to the point of being able to blow bubbles. It was tradition. Later as flour was needed, a couple gunny sacks would be filled and taken to the mill to be ground.
I had been taught by example to store food and helped do it. One day I was looking at my children and had a very vivid realization of how I would feel if they were crying because they were hungry. It made me cry. I was not doing the things I’d grown up with to provide for my family. I began to renew my knowledge of canning and baking bread. We obtained our one-year food supply, which included a great deal of wheat.
Using whole wheat flour in bread, cookies and other baked goods and eating wheat cereals had become our regular routine. Still, I received a prompting to learn to use wheat. I thought I already knew. I was very involved in church and family life was very busy. I had all the usual excuses for not doing as I had been instructed. Because of procrastination, we experienced what I call, “The tithing in reverse principle.” Our income had not changed nor had our expenses; but we were very broke. It didn’t take me long to realize that what I had been instructed to do needed to be done now.
