Saturdays have a smell.  Two different ones.  Both can cause me to go back to when I was a little girl living with my parents and three sisters. 

On the best Saturdays, Mama would cook a hearty breakfast.  We had to wait for it though. Daddy was always awake first. The rest of us would join him one by one, sleepyheads stumbling to the living room to watch cartoons. And to wait on Mama. She was usually the last one out of bed because she loved to sleep in on Saturdays.

She always started the meat first. If anyone in the house was still asleep the smell of the bacon cooking would get them up. As the sausage and bacon slowly cooked on the stove she mixed the biscuit dough. Her homemade biscuits were everyone’s favorite. She scooped the White Lily self rising flour into her favorite glass bowl then cut the Crisco shortening in with her fingers. She poured some buttermilk and sweet milk into the bowl and barely mixed it. Mom laid a paper towel on the counter, sprinkled it with flour and kneaded the dough. But only five times. She told us that if you did it more than that the biscuits would be tough.  

Once the meat was done and the biscuits were almost ready to be pulled from the oven she cooked the eggs. She let us choose how we wanted our eggs – scrambled or fried. We set the plates, glasses and silverware out. Got the juice and butter and jelly out of the refrigerator. My favorite part of the entire meal was my last biscuit.  As soon as the biscuits came out of the oven, Mom had one of us butter some. I saved my buttered biscuit until the very end. On one half I dribbled honey and the other smeared with pear preserves.

The other part of the best Saturdays was good hard work. All day in the yard and around the house the six of us would work until it was finished. Mom stayed inside to clean the house mostly. My sisters and I helped with any kind of yard work. Laying sod, planting and weeding the garden, moving rocks, picking up sticks and pine cones. But it was the weekly yard work, the mowing and weed eating that we helped with the most.  It was a big yard and it took a lot of the Saturday to finish it. 

And when it was done……the feeling of looking out onto the freshly mowed yard was gratifying. Even for a little girl. The green smell of the cut grass. The soft feel of it on my bare feet. Knowing our work caused that beauty. 

On the best Saturdays I sighed with satisfaction and ran as fast as I could through the yard. 

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.   

Colossians 3:23 NLT

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Smell You Later.”