Giant Bunny Rabbits.

I love raw cabbage. It is a favorite snack of mine.
I like getting a head of cabbage and cutting a hunk out of it to eat.
Back many years ago when I was boy of about 12 my Grandma kept a small vegatable garden. Mostly is was beans, onions, radishes, tomatoes, corn, brocolli, potatoes, and cabbage.
Now I loved growing radishes and onions. The bigger the better.
And It seemed to me the longer they grew the bigger they got.
So I figured everything was that way when growing.
When the cabbages started getting big enough, I would go down into the garden and get down on my hands and knees and take bites out of the cabbages. I thought if I didn't pick them they would keep growing.
This went on for some time with me munching like this.
One day me and momma was in Grandma's house visiting and Grandma mentioned that there must me some monster rabbits in our garden judging from the bite marks in the heads of cabbages.
Momma told her that it wasn't rabbits, it was me.
And I had to give up my garden munching.

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Another great idea.

My Grandfather was a farmer. So my dad was raised in a farming family.
And every year my parents have a garden.
One year we ended up with a huge bumper crop of potatoes.
Digging all those potatoes by hand was hard work.
And noboby wanted to peel them all for canning.
So my dad came up with an idea to mechanically peel potatoes.
We had an old electric concrete mixer. My dad got a 5 gallon bucket of small sharp rocks and washed them real good and put them in the mixer. Then he put a bucket of potatoes in the mixer with some water and started it up. Seemed like a good idea. Let the sharp rocks grind the skins off the potatoes. Wrong. After about 30 minutes of turning we shut it off and emptied it. The rocks and ground the potatoes up to nothing. We got nothing out but rocks and water. We gave up after that.

Pooh Bear

Homesteading to me means: self sufficient. But when I was growing up it ment something else. It ment hard work.

To have my horses I was responsible for caring for the beef cows. I was the youngest of 5 children. We usually had, on the average, 7 black angus. We didnt have running water in the barn so carrying bucks of water for 7 cows and 2 horses in winter was a challenge. I also cared for the chickens as that was my chore as a child and I just habitually did it anyway. I could go on forever with stories.

My friend who couldnt have a horse would ride mine. We would come home past dark and my parents would say "your so grounded!!" but next morning everyone was fed and cared for and of course I was gone on my horses again. lol

I used one large mean steer to help with chores. I cut a hole in the barn wall to toss the manure from the cows. I had a huge trailer on a riding lawn mower on the otherside. I would fill the trailer. I would drive the lawn tractor through the pasture where the mean steer lived. He would chase me back to were I dumped the manure. I would get him mad and unhook the trailer. he would flip the trailer over for me. I would chase him enough to rehook the trailer and boogy out the gate...lol I never had to unload.
He tasted good too...lol

I used to have a buckboard buggy. We put many miles on that buggy. My friend and I would take all the older neighbors for a ride in it. We new many old ladies that lived alone. they would see us and invite us for lemonade and homemade cookies. We tied the horses to their porch and listened to their stories of childhood. But when we came with the buggy they loved the ride.

I think, I am a little busted up from my childhood. I did way too much work for a small girl. But I had fun getting every injury. My parents didnt know much about horses. So the horses I had were mean. they didnt know that and I would never tell them for fear of coming home and finding them on a butcher truck, as I did once with a stalion I had.
I mentioned good memories but there are just as many sad ones. The loss of a loved horse is terrible to a young girl who devotes her life to them.
Marie

MR:
The book will be much more your own creation, if you gather the stories firsthand through interviews, rather than asking people to write for you.

Just a suggestion, from a professional journalist.