Yesterday

Started by Redoverfarm, January 08, 2012, 01:29:25 PM

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Redoverfarm

As I sit and ponder my life often my thoughts go back to the way it was.  Not neccessiarly to the ice age but maybe to my grandparents (deceased) time frame.  Sometime I think it would be good to go back there until reality sets in.  Just imagine if I did what would that be like.....

Your workday started well before sun up.  Lighting a kerosene lamp to find your way around to the woodstove and firewood stacked on the porch.  Get the fire going in preparation of breakfast.  In the meantime you stagger toward the barn with the lantern so that the cow can be milked but first a slight delay to the outhouse to sit upon a splintered  seat with the temperature of around 30 degrees.  While there the animals are fed and the eggs are gathered in the chicken coop and the milk cow(s) are milked. Not the microwave foods we have grown to be accustomed to but actually cutting off a few slices of cured ham, pealing potatoes and frying eveything including the eggs that were gathered on the day before.  Of course coffee should be included with water sitting in pail that was gathered from the well near the barn the day before and placed in a ground giving percolator.  OK breakfast is finished and the daylight is peaking up from the hill in the east.  Time to again make the trip to the well and draw water in a pail to wash the breakfast dishes.

All clothing is washed in a tub with the only agitation is that of the washboard and the bar of lye soap.  The hand wringer just doesn't wring the water out completely as the new spin cycle does. But alas no electric.  Hanging the clothes on the clothes line with wooden clothes pins.   

Depending on the time of year determined the work that needs to be done on this day. In spring and summer growing crops is a necessity. Potatoe's stored in the root cellar with canned goods, apples, parsnips, and other assorted foods.  But the ground needs to be plowed. Of course no tractor and plow for this job but a 15 hand horse and a set of single plows and assorted cultivators.

There is always a need for firewood.  The cookstove used all summer does not mean "getting the winter supply of wood in" as it burns all summer.  So take the 15 hand horse, chains, crosscut saw and axes toward the woods.  But in passing you notice that a string of fence needs repaired.  Will mark that on your list for later in the day or tomarrow.  Drag the fallen tree to a landing for easy access.  Again cutting each block the right length to fit in hte fireplace and stove.  Cross cut saw buzzing to the tune of a wooden wagon load.  Back to the woodshed. Unload the wooden blocks.   It is getting too hot in the late morning hours to split wood with the axe and wedge.  Unharness the horse and lead it to the creek for water.

Lunchtime is upon us.  Back to the woodstove again, carring wood and heating the morsils left from breakfast with a few extras.  Nothing is ground up in the garbage disposal in this house.  After lunch hauling water again to wash dishes.  While sitting at the table your mind wonders again to what chores need to be done.

Summertime hay season is upon us.  Gather the 15 hand horse again and head to the horse drawn mower and manage to cut a portion of the hayfield.  Now that the sun is beginning to set the horse is led to the creeks for a drink and ultimately to the barn.  After brushing and curring he is let out into the corral. Tomarrow or maybe the next the hay will be dried enough to dump rake and gather up on the wagon (by pitchfork) and ultimately be hoisted into the barn for the winter feed of the cattle and horses.

Supper again requires the fire to built in the cookstove and for supper a portion of canned beef, vension, rabbit, pork is on the menu.  Again another trip to the cellar to retrieve the neccessary indegredients for a meal.  Gather another bucket of water to wash the dishes after supper which is put into the water tank of the cookstove to heat.  After the evening meal is done and a cup of ground laidened coffee is drank. A short time to think what was accomplished today and what lays ahead tomarrow.  Afterwards the dishes are stowed away and a brief relaxation by the fireplace is in order.  It is often this time that that comes to mind that I would even ponder to go back to that time .  No electricity for reading and the lamp is lit to read some in my favorite book.  Tomarrows work is planned. The firewood that will need to be split, the hay that will need to be stacked and hauled, the fence that needs to be repaired, the potatoes that need to be dug along with the beets and parsnips.


Now that 8:00 PM has arrived it is bedtime.  Tomarrow is a new day.


MountainDon

No thank you.

You forgot about the once a week bath in the galvanized tub. And who's the lucky one who gets to use the water first?
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.


Redoverfarm

Quote from: MountainDon on January 08, 2012, 01:48:06 PM
No thank you.

You forgot about the once a week bath in the galvanized tub. And who's the lucky one who gets to use the water first?

Yes Don there was alot more like having to clean the manure out of the barm but I thought I would leave that for someone else to reminisce about.  I am sure there are some with enough tenure to add.  It was good times for those who knew nothing else but for those who have been spoiled it was a heck of a life to have to lead.  Lets hope we never have to revisit that era.

NM_Shooter

You know what though?

Not sure I'd want to live 100 years in the future either.

-f-
"Officium Vacuus Auctorita"

peternap

I've thought about the same thing John but I had the benefit of being born in an area that was 50 years behind the world. I clearly remember those things.
Some were inconvenient, some downright tough...especially the bitter cold in the morning before we fired the coal burning potbelly stove.

The wood cook stove in the kitchen warmed the rest of the house nicely.

The Johnny house was ....quaint! :-[

But some things were priceless and those years are my most fond memories.

Nothing was wasted. Whatever was left over from meals went to slop the hogs. Even if a jar or can was thrown away, it was used as fill in a low area.
There wasn't much government looking over your shoulder and what we learned about nature didn't come from TV.

I remember trees full of Redwing Blackbirds, quiet mornings, clean air and water, springs I could drink directly out of next to the Shenandoah River, neighbors a half mile away you could count on in an emergency, homemade ice cream at church socials and old women with goiter because they refused to buy table salt.

I've found a happy meeting place I think.
I have solar, wind and a little hydro to power things. I pump water to a holding tank and have DC pumps to the shower, kitchen and toilet which only uses a pint a flush.
I have a composting septic system instead of a Johnny House and wood heat. The Aladdin Lamps help with the heat a lot and give off more light than the LED's.

I have a Tractor that I can feed about anything that looks like Diesel.

To use one of my illustrations that few people understand....I forge knives but I use propane, however, I know how to use wood or charcoal.

I don't remember who said it but:
You can't live in the past but the past can live in you.
These here is God's finest scupturings! And there ain't no laws for the brave ones! And there ain't no asylums for the crazy ones! And there ain't no churches, except for this right here!