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"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." We didn't hear those words quoted when we were growing up, but our parents, and most everybody in Summerfield, lived by that philosophy.

We'd never heard of recycling but we did plenty of it. On washday the water from the wringer washing machine, as well as the water in the rinsing tubs, was carried in buckets to water the flowers or any new shrubbery or trees that needed to be watered.

All food scraps were used to feed the dogs, cats, pigs and chickens. We never bought cat food or dog food. Daddy took corn to the mill to be ground into flour, cornmeal or feed for the horses, cows and chickens. Leftover meat scraps, bones, etc. were given to the cats and dogs. Fruit and vegetable peelings were given to the pigs or chickens.

When a chicken was killed for Sunday dinner, the small chicken feathers were saved, washed and dried. These were used to make pillows or, many years ago, feather ticks for the beds. These went on top of straw ticks and kept people very warm in cold weather.

It took a long time to save enough feathers to make a feather tick. I guess that's why lots of people left "feather beds" to relatives in their wills many years ago. Mama always saved a few of the larger feathers to oil the sewing machine with.

All the food scraps that weren't given to the dogs, cats and chickens went into the "slop bucket" for the pigs. I think we gave the pigs corncobs left from cutting off corn or from corn on the cob. The pigs gobbled it up like it was good.

We even recycled leaves in the fall. We bagged them up in guano sacks and put them in a dry place to put in the little shed inside the pigpen for the pigs. The leaves kept them warm during the winter.

Even the manure from the horses or mules and chickens was recycled. Before fertilizer was used widely, the manure from the stables went onto some of the big fields. The chicken manure was used in the garden and around the flowers. Nobody had to tell you that the men had been spreading manure that day! Your nose told you.

A long time ago, nobody bought flower seeds or plants. Neighbors shared seeds or plants with each other. I've heard them say that if you said "thank you" for the plants, they wouldn't grow! Mama had a green thumb and loved to grow flowers.

At church, the flowers were almost always homegrown. At the Baptist church, Mrs. Lela Carter usually arranged her own flowers or occasionally flowers from the garden of someone else.

She always did such a good job. I remember one Thanksgiving she used a hollowed-out pumpkin and filled it with flowers and leaves. It must have been unusually pretty; it stood out in my memory.

Even the Sears catalog was recycled. After you got a new catalog, the old one went to the outhouse to be used as toilet paper. If you had newspapers, they were used the same way.

Clothes were passed down to the next younger child until they were too ragged to patch or to wear. Then the buttons were cut off and the scraps of material were used for patches or rags.

The best scraps went into quilts, which kept us warm during the winter. You could look at the quilts and remember which scraps came from a dress you had worn.

The buttons that were cut off garments were saved in Mama's button can. Different people used different things to keep buttons in. I think Mama's was a gallon-sized lard can.

Sometimes the buttons were used over and over for new dresses or shirts. If a button was missing from a shirt or dress, you went to the button can to find a matching one. Sometimes it had to be a near match!

A few years ago, I made Christmas gifts for my family from buttons that came from Mama's button can.

I glued buttons onto calico material in the shape of the first initial of the last name of all my brothers and sisters and married nieces and nephews. They were framed in shadow-box frames so they all had some of Mama's buttons to keep -- and the buttons were recycled once more.