Getting the Household Ready for Winter

Winter in New York. 

It can be very cold and very snowy! 

You have to be prepared for possible power outages

and have food supplies. 

So the pantry cupboard is full of the Old Farmer's Wife's canned goods. 

Peaches and green beans, corn and applesauce, tomatoes, tomato paste and tomato juice.

A summers work from the Old Farm garden.

And stash of dry goods is always on hand. Sugars and flour and salt.

The Old Farmer goes out and comes home with 5 or 6 bushels of potatoes.
(He once mentioned the Spud King being the biggest grower of potatos, 

his brother thought it was a hilarious joke. The Old Famer, very offended, 

assured him it was a real farmer's moniker, he would not joke about a thing like that :  )

These went in the outside stairwell he basement, cool but not freezing.
And as it got colder out they would be covered with a heavy blanket.
And deeper into winter what was left was moved 

into the potato bin in the basement proper.

The corn crib was full and hay in the barn

 for the farm animals. 

Coal was loaded into the basement coal bin.
Altho a lot of work a coal furnace worked 
when the power is out too! 

Storm windows were pulled out 
and washed and changed out with the screens.

The winter clothes came out and were sorted.

All the clothes were laundered,
 summer ones put away and the winter

ones put out or donated if outgrown. 

Now the family was ready for winter on the farm.

Time to Plant the Garden

Well here it is towards the end of  May.
We started thinking garden at the Old Farmer's House at the first of the month.

And we had weather cold enough to snow in Western NY.
This is why safe planting time there was mid May.

"If you plant peas on St. Patrick's Day, 
and then it snows on them; you will have a bumper crop."
Perhaps the peas and onion sets are in early, they will survive. 

Soon the carrots, beets, swiss chard, kohlrabi etc will be planted

We would eagerly go out each morning to see if any had sprouted.

Then the squashes, tomatoes,
 and the corn at the north end of the garden. 

After the tomatoes are planted we would go out the next

morning and see how they were doing.
The Old Farmer would point out where one
was chopped down like a little tree
The damage was from the "cut worm".
It would eat through the stem just above the ground level.
You would loose a few each year and if you had extra
plants you could fill in. This only happened the first few
days before they "hardened" up.

The Old Farmer had nice straight rows in his garden. 

It was a big garden, he kept a line rolled up on two sticks in the barn.

Each spring it came out and started the first row, the line must have been

100 feet long! Then each row after he moved the line over 2 feet, more
or less depending on what was being planted. 

After the line was set he would go down along it with the hoe
and make the furrow in which to plant the seeds.  

I will never forget The Old Farmer taking me out to the new garden

after a heavy shower. It had been very dry.
He said that he supposed I thought we had a good rain now
and the garden was well watered. I agreed. 

The he bent over and flicked over a bit of dirt with his finger.

Only the thinnest bit on top was set, underneath was still dry dusty soil.  

Christmas 2017

Getting the Old Farmhouse in Shape for the Winter

The Old Farmhouse needed a bit of work from time to time.
Painting those fancy corbels was tricky! 

( The ornate decorative brackets under the eaves. )

One Old Farmer's Daughter remembers

 being on the roof where they overlapped
with the Old Farmer 

  reaching to paint them.

Of course in places you could put a ladder

on a porch roof, which made it much easier. 

A blessing was the Old Farmhouse 

having permanently colored shingles.
They were cement asbestos, 

very rigid and stonelike.

Every fall the screens were taken off 

the old windows and storm windows 

put in their place. 

And vice versa in the spring. 

No triple tracks back then.
And think about all the storage space

this took in the off season too! 

 The Old Farmer's children's job was to wash them prior to installing for the season.

This one picture shows the corbels and the siding

and some of the many windows needing to be changed spring and fall.

Shift Work and Children's Games

The Old Farmer had another job. 

He was a printer by trade. 

But his heart was in farming. 

The printing trade was learned through a series of steps.
You started as an apprentice, running and toting for

the master printer. When you had learned all the ins and outs

of the materials and how they were used you moved up to
Journeyman. Then maybe you assisted in loading the ink
and paper rolls. learning to run the presses.
 

  

There was a lot more to this than you might think.
You had to get the ink flowing evenly.
To do it right you ran a test page checked it and adjusted as necessary.
If you just ran it and waited for it to get flowing as it went
you may have wasted a lot of ink and paper in the process. 

And learning to use colors!
The Old Farmer was a Master Printer.

Well the point of this story from the Old Farmer's Daughter's
point of view was how he always made time to play a game

with me before heading off to shift work in the afternoon,
or when getting home after a night shift before going to bed
for the day.

It was often chinese checkers. Or cards.
We played war where when two cards you each put down matched...

the first person to shout war could confiscate all the cards down on the table.
The first person to run out of cards lost. 

And our personal family game, Jud.
Named with a shortened family members name.
This was an abbreviated game of rummy with just
4 cards instead of 7 and you made your sets of 3 or runs. 

I hope all children can have these fun memories of their fathers.
They seem like little things but are big to the children.

Woolly Caterpillars and other Signs

Summer is winding down.
We are starting to watch for the geese to be flying south for the winter.
We check the Wooly Bear Caterpillars to see how large the band is,
are they more brown or more black, will this tell

us how bad winter will be? 

What other signs did we look for on the farm?
Most seem to foretell rainy weather.

The Old Farmer's Wife liked this one...
Red sky at night, sailors delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

Then does it follow that rain before 7 clear by 11.

Or a ring around the moon means rain soon.

One time The Old Farmer killed a large snake in the yard.
He threw it over the fence saying it would bring rain.
I don't remember if it worked ? 

 
He also taught us that if the cows lay down in the field
rain was on the way. And if the tree leaves flip over
on a particular tree in the back yard, 
I think it was a basswood.
so that the light undersides were showing 
rain is soon to come.




Or if all the insects and birds go silent, something is up.
A storm on the way or a predator
 may be in the area.
(of course you might be the predator
 in question!)
If you stay still awhile and they start up again you were the problem.
But if they stay silent something is amiss.
Now crows will sound an alarm
 if there is danger.
 Crows are very smart.

Unexpected company

Company was a part of life at The Old Farm

Neighbors might stop by to say hi. 

Strangers sometimes stopped to ask if they could

pick the daffodils that grew wild across the road. 

And sometimes relatives arrived unannounced.

Communication was not what it is now. 

Yes the Old Farmer had a phone.
But "long distance" cost $$$. 

And people used long distance pretty much only for emergencies. 

So you might get a postcard in the mail

that says we'll be there tomorrow for the weekend.
Or you might not, the cousins might just show up! 

Company was always welcomed with warmth.
Coffee? tea? Let us take your coats and bags....

The girls will sleep in together and you can have their room. 

And once in a while one of us girls would get invited

to go back from whence they came for a visit and sightseeing. 

And that would be an excuse for another visit

when The Old Farmer and the rest of the family
came to pick us up!

Family Reunion

Every August we had the big family reunion.

Most of the relatives lived within an easy drive.

It was held at the park on the lake.

This reunion wasn't a complicated affair.

Everyone knew to come that particular Sunday in August.

Everyone brought a dish to pass.

Everyone chipped in on the meats, sodas and beer.

Ice in big galvanized tubs.

The men grilled the hot dogs and hamburgers.

Drank beer and played horseshoes.

The children ran around and played tag...or jarts. 

The women sat and visited. 
Sounds kindof normal, doesn't it? 

But now families live so far from each other this is not so common.

The picnic was set up next to the big open area in the back of the park.

That field was for the big move up baseball game.

When the Old Farmer got up to bat everyone moved way way back.

He would put it the whole length of that field between the roads.

All the cousins yelled, uh oh, move back, move back, back to the road!

The town had amusement parks with nickelodeons and rides.
Some of the kids would sneak away to play before eating,
or after eating. Sometimes we forgot the time and got in trouble.

The BIG Eclipse

 

We are eagerly anticipating the great solar eclipse of 2017!

It is crossing the whole of mainland USA. 

Will it be clear? Will it be cloudy :  ( ?

This is a big event for children and should be a family event.

With at least one parent involved.
The children will remember it their whole lives!
I promise. 

I still rememeber a solar eclipse when I was young.
The Old Farmer and his brother were very excited

to share this event with me.

We were at Grandma's house in the garage.
The Old Farmer's brother was "smoking" glasses
to make them "safe" to view the eclipse.
Actually this technique is not recommended now! LOL

Another case of  "how did we survive the 50s" 

But the event came to pass, we all took turns looking
and it is a memory that will last forever. 

If planning to view this year 

please invest in eclipse safe glasses.
Or use a pinhole camera, quite effective. 

Put a pinhole in a
piece of paper and shine the sun 

through it onto another

smooth surface/paper. 

Adjust distance to focus.
You may want to practice

 this before the eclipse so you are ready! 

Here is a great page with time, location information.
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2017-august-21

ghosts in the house

The Old Farmer's house was a big old farmhouse.
The original part where the kitchen was was pre civil war.
A later huge addition was added in the late 1800s. 

 The original house was largely unrestored by the Old Farmer.
This is where his son slept. He had a big old bedroom
with low ceilings and low windows.
There was a door in the back going into a storage area

and the ladder to the attic space. (setting the mood)

 
As a child
this Old Farmer's Daughter 
often heard footsteps and creaking 
noises back there. 
When no one was home 
that should have been there. 

The back stairs were narrow 
and turned at the top.
There was an unfinished room at the top

with floorboards missing. 
And a small nook closet with no door
and an old racoon coat!

Another time when taking a bath 
someone made noises outside the bathroom window! 
I think I know the culprit altho at first 
I was a bit concerned.
That one we can chalk up to real people!

We learned to live with the noises of an old house
as nothing untoward ever happened. 
The spirits were benign...

The Living is Easy.....

...or not.

It is hot hot hot! 

 I remember The Old Farmer taking me out to the garden
after a heavy shower. It had been dry for several days.
He says "Do you think that rain helped the garden?"
Of course I did, it rained hard!
He reached down and flicked off the top of the soil
and only the top 1/8 or less was wet, the rest dry and powdery!



 The weeds are winning the garden wars and
The Old Farmer works overtime hoeing
in the evening and on his days off.
We all do. 
Sometimes on a hot summer evening
when working up a sweat
and we were all hot and tired
The Old Farmer would load us up
in the old Chevy and we would head around the corner
(a country corner of about 1 1/2 miles!)
to the ice cream stand.
We thought it was a treat for us, which it was,
but also that big milkshake
was a big treat for him too :   )

Summer Recreation Programs

What to do with these kids in the summertime!

The Old Farmer, and most of the rural folk, were active in the volunteer fire department.

Whenever the siren went off they all hopped in their cars 

and headed over to the fire department

to see where to go and get the trucks on the road. Day or night.

But this story is about the summer program for children.

Mothers would drop us off in the morning.

We would find our friends and get into the toy room.

This farmers daughter and her friend would get the pogo sticks 

and play on the front sidewalk.

Organized activities were braiding vinyl cord into whistle lanyards 

and making plaster bowls in stone parking lot, 

decorated with strategically placed stones.

Twice a week we got to go to the local swimming "lakes" or  ponds
to have swimming lessons and fun. We had to have a buddy for safety
and periodically the leader would blow a whistle and we had to hold hands
with our partner and hold them up. Hopefully there was never someone 

without a partner. Happy to say this never happened in my experience.
 

There also was a church program for two weeks in the summer. 

A long bus ride would deliver us to a centrally located church.

We got religious instruction and discussion. And mass. The older kids played ball.

The younger may have raced and played tag. And we juice and cookies. 

The Old Farmer's Daughters would enjoy sneaking off to the corner store
for a snack we would savor while sitting on a ledge on the front of the stone church.

We were bad   : 0

The Poker Game

At the Old Farmer's house, once a month we had
his in-laws over for dinner and the bi-weekly card (Poker :  ) game.

 Every other two weeks we went to their house. 

Us cousins spent the afternoon playing.
It was out one day a week we had a treat, usually potato chips and dip.
Sometimes pretzels. Dip = sour cream and french onion soup mix.
When at the cousin's house, in the big city, we could walk to the corner
to get and ice cream. And our Aunt always made the best spaghetti.

The card game lasted late into the evening.
It was a serious battle for pennies.
When a diversion was called for Uncle would jostle
the table to shake over everyone's neat stacks of pennies. 

Everyone would boo and fuss at him! 

We young'uns would  lay upstairs in bed and listen to the fun.

At the end of the night all the pennies went into the
toy safes or tin boxes ready for the next game.

Trilliums, Dogtooth Violets, and Jack in the Pulpits. Oh My!

   The Old Farmers Daughter,
     
               I loved roaming the fields and woods. 

             
                       The snow melting in the spring,
                      
                                   running off into the pond or creek.

                              

                                                     The new growth sprouting.   

 The front woods is where the sun set. 

Here was the tree with the "3 J's" carved on it. 

At the back of these woods was a small natural spring,
 a little beauty spot I liked to visit. 
There was a deadfall where the ermine lurked.
Squirrel were abundant.




 Jack in the Pulpits would be found.
Early in the spring you would find 
dogtooth violets snuggled up 
to the base of trees.

 The back woods were behind the swamp.
 There were huge old vines

and on the far side old barbed wire 
grown into the trees. 

  

    This is where the

trilliums flourished.

 Huge patches of giant trilliums.

 Mostly in white and a few purple mixed in. 

   There also were ironwood trees. 
The Old Farmer said they were so named for the obvious reason,
 they were like iron. You would be hard put to cut one down.

Of course I had to put this to the test. 
 I was quite handy with the hatchet

having cut down lots of small trees. 
So I tackled an  ironwood tree with optimism. 

   Which soon turned to a pessimistic attitude.

 The Old Farmer was right.
Why would I even question his wisdom! 
But, we learn through experience.

Raising Pheasants

Spring projects are in the air.
The Old Farmer's children were all active in 4-H.

One spring project, in conjunction with the game department, 

was raising pheasant chicks to replenish the fields for fall hunters. 

Hunting was and still is a big part of farm/country life.

 

There was an old building 

on the farm,

 about 10x10 feet square.
It had been a smokehouse back 

in the days they would

preserve meat for the family. 

Smoke would be channeled
into the building from 

an outside source 

and infuse the fresh ham 

and bacon with smoky flavor 

and preserve them. 

 The inside of this building was remembered as being quite black and sooty.
The Old Farmer and wife tried several uses for it over the years.
It was thought it would be a good playhouse for the Old Farmer's children.
This did not work to well as they (the children) came out sooty :  ) 

At one time rabbits were kept in it. 

When the pheasant project came along The Old Farmer moved

the building away from the yard, built a fenced area behind, and 

the interior was whitewashed. 

The big day finally arrived and a box with 30-50 baby chicks arrived, days old.
At that age they were kept in a small enclosed circle with a heat lamp above. 

As they grew the area was enlarged until they were old enough to go outside. 

As they neared 6 weeks of age plans were made to release them into the wild. 

This involved catching them, putting them into a portable chicken coop, 

and driving out into a field to release. This was usually supervised by a game warden.
One year it was thought we could release them at the pen area which backed up

to an old orchard that was quite overgrown. Unfortunately they stayed close

"to home" and many met unfortunate ends at the hands of local cats and dogs. 

This release method was not repeated.

Spring Time on the Farm

Spring is the time of new growth and new life.

Springtime on the farm - that usually looks like a new vegetable garden, 

uncovering the perennial flower gardens, and litters of puppies and kittens, 

mostly kittens!  With one ‘official’ house cat (an outdoor cat with indoor privileges) 

and many barn cats, kittens were guaranteed.  

(An unintended double exposure that turned out well, the cat with
house privileges is in the middle)

Always the kitten litters were lovingly placed into an old cardboard box 

padded with clean rags.  Then the mothers could jump in 

 and out with the kittens safe in the box. 

 And sometimes there was sharing as the mother and kittens 

and an adoptive mother were all in one box! 

 Occasionally the barn cats found a spot so deeply buried 

in the stacked straw bales they we didn't see the kittens 

until they were old enough to be running around.  

 There was one time when the ‘official’ house cat came up to the door 

 from being outside, wanting to come in the house carrying a mouse in her mouth.  

Of course that was not allowed.  As the cat became more insistent and frantic, 

we could see it was not a mouse but a newborn kitten!  

So immediately a box was prepared and the kitten put in.  

Then the mother led us to the rest of the litter in a dark corner in the basement 

of one of the barns.  She couldn't rest until all her kittens were safely ensconced

 in the box in the house.  Then she was happy.

By Guest Blogger today, with thanks to the other Old Farmer's Daughter