Lucy goes to the fire and prepares the corn mush. While she is making breakfast she also cooks up some fry cakes for lunch.
Lucy lets the fire die out after making breakfast. The ashes are getting pretty deep in the fireplace. Once they cool she will put them in the ash hopper on the porch. Since the hopper is nearly full she makes a mental note to set aside a day soon for making soap.
Mid morning arrives and it is time to milk the family's two cows. One of the younger children holds the calf so that it can only nurse from one side as Lucy takes the milk from the other.
When she brings the milk inside she pours it into her wooden churn. It will take several hundred strokes of the dasher before curds form. Once the curds have formed Lucy pours off the buttermilk into a crock. She then will squeeze the rest of the buttermilk out with her paddles. Once the milk is gone Lucy will pull her butter press from the cold spring water and fill it with the freshly churned butter. The resulting design is pleasing to the eye and marks the butter as hers when she gets a chance to trade some. The buttermilk and butter will last a long time in the cool springhouse.
Around noon all of the children begin clamoring for lunch. Lunch is a simple affair consisting of fry cakes, a little jerky and nice cool buttermilk. Lunch is possibly the most pleasant time of day for Lucy. All of the children are together and she has a chance to do a little teaching. Schooling consists more of living skills than the three R's. Today she is showing the children what herbs she found in the forest yesterday. She explains what each cures and how to prepare them.
When lunch is over Lucy lights a new fire in the fireplace. To get the best cooking coals she selects good hardwood and lets it burn for several hours.
While the fire is burning down Lucy heads out to her kitchen garden. Her older children have taken on maintaining it, but they require a great deal of supervision. It would probably be easier for her to do it herself, but then the children wouldn't learn. The garden looks good this year. It is a small plot just outside of the house. The fence John built around it last year has kept the stock and wildlife out quite nicely. She hums happily as she picks some greens. It has been a long time since they have had any 'salat'.
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