Making Sorghum Syrup

Ma Ledford crawled out of the featherbed just as the rooster crowed.  If only she could sleep longer, but this would be a busy day.


Today the family planned to make sorghum syrup.  It would be a big job and she dreaded it.  At least it was Saturday.


She loved her children, but they ran her crazy sometimes.  It was like herding oxen to get them out of bed, feed them, dress the youngest ones and get them off to school.  Work never ended on the farm.


Bob Ledford helped as much as he could, but he worked seven days a week on the farm.  Ma fussed at him to rest on the Lord's day, but livestock had to also eat on Sunday.


Her brother, Luther Matheson, cautioned her about marrying a "poor dirt farmer."  But she fell in love with the handsome Bob Ledford.  After seven children, she never regretted living with him in the Matheson Cove.


This morning her legs and back hurt.  She was expecting a baby and couldn't help in the cane patch.  First of all, the blades had to be stripped from the stalks.  Then you cut them down and put them into piles, next cut off the seed heads.


Then the boys would load the cane and take it to the mill.  A mule pulled the pole that turned the mill.  Cane was fed into the vertical rollers like a washing machine.  Juice squeezed from the cane and flowed down a spout to the boiler where it was boiled from one vat to another.  You skimmed foam off the top until it came out a nice, clear brownish red color.


Ma dreaded the yellow jackets that swarmed when you made syrup.  Dozens flocked to the cane.  You had to keep them out of the syrup.  She hoped her children wouldn't get stung.  She would remind Bob to bring chewing tobacco to spit juice on the stings to draw out the poison.


Last year they made 90 gallons of sorghum syrup.  But with a large family, they would need that much.  It sure tasted good on hot, buttered biscuits. Making sorghum syrup took all day, but it was worth all the hard work.


by:  Brenda Kay Ledford