Tom Jaynes
654 Woods Fern
In the summer of 1972 we were avid RV'ers. On this trip, we were visiting a camping site in Pine Mt. Georgia. Carolyn and I were wandering about in the woods. There was a blanket of ferns covering the ground. I dug up a small one to take home.
The fern has been a part of our family ever since. That was 36 years ago, and it has been in this old cast iron wash pot for 27 years now.
Cast iron wash pots were ubiquitous in the cotton mill villages. Every house had one of the them in the back yard. It has three small iron feet. Everybody back then made their own soap - lye soap.
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Etymology:
Middle English, from Old English lēag; akin to Old High German louga lye, Latin lavare, lavere to wash, Greek louein
Date: before 12th century
1: a strong alkaline liquor rich in potassium carbonate leached from wood ashes and used especially in making soap and for washing ; broadly : a strong alkaline solution (as of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide)2: a solid caustic (as sodium hydroxide)
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Almost all my kinfolks worked in the cotton mills, and Monday was wash day, always. The pot was filled with water and a wood fire was made under and around it. Wasn't long before the water started boiling. Add some powdered lye and throw some clothes in there. The lye began to foam and bubble. The agitator was a broom handle, the perfect tool for churning the clothes.
Anyway, you get the picture. But there's lots more to washing those clothes, but not here. :)
Now you understand where the wash pot began, before it was transformed by me into a fern pot.:~)
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PS: This RV campground is only about 3 or 4 miles from what is still known as the Little White House, "Warm Springs, GA.
This is where president Franklin D. Roosevelt went to treat his crippling polio. He suffered lots more than he ever let on, but was adamant about forbidding all photographs that showed his wheel chair.
It would be great if he were here to show these young upstarts how to get the country going again, creating jobs, and get people out of the soup lines. They needed paying jobs, and he did that. We are in very near the same predicament today, as when he was faced with a country going bankrupt. The
Great Depression. Familiar ring to it?
WT
654 Woods Fern
In the summer of 1972 we were avid RV'ers. On this trip, we were visiting a camping site in Pine Mt. Georgia. Carolyn and I were wandering about in the woods. There was a blanket of ferns covering the ground. I dug up a small one to take home.
The fern has been a part of our family ever since. That was 36 years ago, and it has been in this old cast iron wash pot for 27 years now.
Cast iron wash pots were ubiquitous in the cotton mill villages. Every house had one of the them in the back yard. It has three small iron feet. Everybody back then made their own soap - lye soap.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old English lēag; akin to Old High German louga lye, Latin lavare, lavere to wash, Greek louein
Date: before 12th century
1: a strong alkaline liquor rich in potassium carbonate leached from wood ashes and used especially in making soap and for washing ; broadly : a strong alkaline solution (as of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide)2: a solid caustic (as sodium hydroxide)
------------------------------------------------------------
Almost all my kinfolks worked in the cotton mills, and Monday was wash day, always. The pot was filled with water and a wood fire was made under and around it. Wasn't long before the water started boiling. Add some powdered lye and throw some clothes in there. The lye began to foam and bubble. The agitator was a broom handle, the perfect tool for churning the clothes.
Anyway, you get the picture. But there's lots more to washing those clothes, but not here. :)
Now you understand where the wash pot began, before it was transformed by me into a fern pot.:~)
------------------------------------------------------------
PS: This RV campground is only about 3 or 4 miles from what is still known as the Little White House, "Warm Springs, GA.
This is where president Franklin D. Roosevelt went to treat his crippling polio. He suffered lots more than he ever let on, but was adamant about forbidding all photographs that showed his wheel chair.
It would be great if he were here to show these young upstarts how to get the country going again, creating jobs, and get people out of the soup lines. They needed paying jobs, and he did that. We are in very near the same predicament today, as when he was faced with a country going bankrupt. The
Great Depression. Familiar ring to it?
WT