Annarchy

14 hours ago, Mother said:

I have a question.  Did you ever have snow filter through the windows and onto the bed in the night?  I did?  Tell us more about the house please?  Did you cook on the fireplace?  

Oh my, Mother… you brought back a plethora of memories…. I see editing is in order.

About Corky, her antics will be mentioned, as I go along. 4 years before her demise…..  and I’m barely on year one.  
 

Gosh, this has me reeling in memories….  It’s nice, but, at the same time, saddening that people have lost knowledge of the old ways.  
 

Yes, mother, we cooked on a wood burning stove, snow drifts in the bedrooms…. 
 

Let’s see how I can remember and document the process….  

Removed this:  

Wench crushed me between the next cow…. I couldn’t hardly breathe!  Yup, you guessed it, I did not like her, plus, she was dry! We couldn’t get any milk out of her.  Sadly, a couple of years later, she had a breech birth, refused to come in from the pasture.  The vet used a come-a-long to extract the calf…deceased, and she had to be put down.  A bullet between the eyes, then hung for beef.  Even though I disliked her, it was devastating to me to see she had to die.  It really tore her insides up.  

Until year 4…..

Ok, I already see what I need to edit.

Corky, the heifer, was with us for 4 years, so I need to revise that already….sigh.  
 

Year 1

We got moved into a tri-level house.  Bedrooms upstairs, kitchen, dining room and living room at ground level & a basement under the bedrooms.  We got the beds set up, and went out to chop some wood, with hand axes, from an existing pile, to stack next to the fireplace, centrally located between the floors.  Which became a daily routine.
 

Grandparents, herded 20 milkers, Holsteins, one heifer and one older angus with an huge udder, to our property, as we were digging post holes with a hand held hole digger and stringing barbed wire, around the area, close to the barn.  Mom used a ‘come-a-long’ winch to tighten the wire.  I would jump up & down on the post hole shovel, until mom came & stepped on it.  Lol.
 

Then, we spent a lot of time, cleaning the top of the barn, throwing spent hay & such out the back window, so it was clean enough to store fresh hay.  I remember the pile reaching up to the window sill… basement level to ground level plus up to the window.  Mom jumped into it first…disappearing into the pile, then we did.  I was buried under a story’s worth of hay & straw!  The laughter made the work seem worth it.  

Because the cows were used to being milked daily, we had to continue the process, even though the basement of the barn wasn’t cleaned yet.

The lower part of the barn was basically the same, cleaning, so the cows could come in, except we used a wheelbarrow to remove everything down to the cement, including the gutters, making a ‘manure pile’ next to the barn.  While we were scraping & cleaning, dad & mom tore down the stairs and rebuilt them with newer wood.  

Every morning, just before dawn, I would stoke the fireplace, draw a bucket of water and hang it above the fire, until it was warm, add iodine, then head to the barn around dawn.  The girls were usually crowding the door to get in and eat. Each seemed to know where to go…. Except that heifer!  The brat would always stick her neck on the outside of the stantion (sp), and wouldn’t move.  
 

Mom made us a little3 legged stools, under a block of wood, that we used to sit & milk with.  Each bucket was strained into the milk can, and we’d go to the next cow,  wash the udder and milk, strain, and do it again…

Cans like this…

My parents had made a contract with Kraft, to collect our milk, weekly, from the water cooler, we kept the cans in.

3 hours ago, Jeepers said:

But when it's hot there is only so much clothing you can take off.

That’s my line….

Introduction…

Born in Arizona, in the Sonoran desert.  Hot, doesn’t describe the heat.  Everything seems to wither up and die at 110° F +

At 6 years old, we moved to Michigan.  I remember mother, with her arm out the passenger window, making the wipers work, as we drove through a snow & sleet storm through the Rocky Mountains.  
 

We got to Great grandmothers house, and dad, cut our pants to make shorts…. I remember freezing at first, but as a 6 year old, we were active, and shortly forgot.  

Our first house there, was a 2 story home.  As you walked into the front door, to the right was the living room, to the left was the kitchen.  Directly in front was a cast iron potbelly stove…..

The stairs to the bedrooms was behind the stove going up over the kitchen.

 Our bedroom windows were covered in plastic.  My sister and I would huddle up under the blankets, at night, to keep warm.  Late fall in MI.  The snow storms would rattle the plastic, as we watched the ice crystals develop on the plastic.  In the mornings, after a snow storm, there would be little drifts of snow around the base of the window.   

When I mention “we”, it references my older sister & I.  Brother was less than a year old… plus he was “daddy’s boy”. 
 

They bought the 80 acre farm land, next to my grandparents 180 acres.  We moved the next spring.
 

The water, inside the new house was a hand pump, in the kitchen. A lot like this….

I remember having to ‘prime’ it to get water.  Basically, taking a few cups of water, we kept in another bucket and pouring it into the pump to remove the air pockets, and get the water flowing.
 

So, I begin my story, on the farm, at 6 years old….

(Don’t expect too much from me…. I’ve never taken an adventure into my past like this…but, I will try.)

Jeepers, I find that same attitude with the Ladies of the CoC.  Most are in their 80 & 90’s, but tend to focus on complaints, rather than sharing their knowledge and experiences of ‘the old days’. 
 

I was born in this town, my grandparents bought this house new, when he retired from the navy, after WW2.  Mom brought me here, when they released me, after I was born.  
 

I was 6 when we moved to MI.  80 acre farm next to my grandparents 120 acres.  No running water or electricity.  Nice out house, or a ‘Thunder bucket’ in the winter.  Yeah, BTDT.

The constant work, was an everyday routine.  Stoke the fireplace, first thing in the morning, fill a bucket of water, with iodine, warm on the fire. Take it to the barn.  Lock the cows in the stansions (sp) drop a couple bales of hay down from the loft, spread it out and add some grain for them to munch.  Wash their udder, milk, strain the milk into cans, and do the next cow.  Carry the cans to the water cooler, clean gutters and release the cows.  Feed the pigs, & chickens , collect eggs, then, get ready for school.  Come home & do the animals again.  If chicken was for dinner, catch one chop its head off, pluck & clean it.  
 

We culled the calves, the males were castrated, making it a steer, harvested the following year for beef.  Bartered with a neighbor to borrow his bull, each year.  We weren’t allowed in the pasture when the bull was there.  Lol, he had a nasty temperament.  Sometimes, he’d escape from his farm, and we’d find him in the pasture, doing what cows do.    Darn farmer would always try to charge us for that ‘service’. Lol.

Dad would get a couple deer every year, we’d process them, like the cows, including, waste not, want not, leather from the hides.

If’n I wrote a book, it would be boring, I’ve summed up 90%, just in this one post.  Not including scavenging, harvesting all the fruits & veggies.  Canning, fermenting, dehydrating, and storing all of the food.  I think my mom was a genius.  We never got sick…. 

Interesting thread…

Books, nope.  Sorry, I can’t help you with that resource, mine were my Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother….

We had 20 milking cows, 100 chicks a year, pigs, turkeys, and 2 acres of garden, 80 acres of foraging, and a lake on Grandma’s land for fish.  Blackberries, raspberries, currents, sumac, strawberries, black caps, & red caps, cow slips, maple trees for syrup, beech nut, walnut trees, cherry, plums and an apple and peach orchard. 

We traded dent corn, at the town feed store for flour, sugar, salt and a few luxury goods, like TP.  Ha!  Beats the heck out of corn husks.  

We dehydrated and canned most of the spring and summer.  Canning on a wood burning stove, baking bread, churning butter, making cheese, all for the winter months.  Michigan is cold in the winter.  Our pantry, which filled the basement, was stacked & packed in the fall and sparse in the spring, when we began the process all over.  
 

Hard work, every day, but, I still cherish the memories….  

lol, I should write a book….  Not.

31 minutes ago, Mt_Rider said:

relatively hot" compared to some of y'all!

Yes indeed….over 100° by 10 am….  In the shade!  My vehicle said 118°. Meh, anything over 105° basically feels the same….HOT!!!  Lol. Typical summer in AZ.  

Home…….  
 

I’m in TX. Text message said, water was out for our whole town, at home, around 10 am. DH sleeps until 1-2 pm….  He woke up from the text message, phone call & messages the city sent, and UPS/FedEx…’bark, bark, bark’ Storm just can’t contain himself when he hears those trucks.  
 

DH said there was enough ‘trickle’ to fill their water bowls and a bucket to flush with. Text message said the water was restored by 4pm.  
 

Yeah, Jeepers, NO water….      Don’t you wish…..  Just joking, Sweetheart…..  

So, I got a large bag of grass seed, to fix MIL’s front yard.  Neighbor used weed killer that killed a large area in the middle of her yard.  Spread the seed and began to water the area, to ‘set’ the seed.  A big black dog, thin, came to the wall by her yard, looking at me, but went on down the street.  Didn’t think much of it, then.  Until, I was getting ready to water the area, this evening.  Saw it again…poor puppy…thirsty, looking lost….by the time I was able to get outside, (mom locks the doors & security doors & I had to put my shoes on), it had wondered up the street.  I set a water dish by the road, hoping it will find it later.  Broke my heart.  

Just for that, we might flood!  

Jeepers, since you are in Noah’s boat, could you send me some rain?  It’s been officially 4 months, since we’ve had some.  
 

Just kidding….monsoon season is coming and the cicadas say 2 more weeks before we start to got hammered….  

Home is 118°, here in TX 112°. A bit cooler.

 for my friend, she’s from the east and dealing with this heat, with only a swamp cooler….    

Wow!

(((((((snapshotmiki))))))))

Heading to TX today………….

Take care….

On 7/13/2023 at 9:26 AM, Jeepers said:

Ugh. I got my freezer from Home Depot too. Also my garage door opener. So far, so good. Although nothing was installed in a slip.  LOL.  I still need to figure out how to attach the bottom feet thingies on the freezer to keep it from being pulled across the garage floor when I open the door. 

Oh my Jeepers!  That’s exactly what is happening!  Good grief!  Yikes!  I filled the new one up with everything from our older one…exactly as we had it in the older one, however, I was thinking it was similar, heavy stuff went into the basket at the bottom…..  DH upped the temp, 10° F. I’m good with that.  He used my Coleman thermometer, I carry in my BOB 

Nope !  Nada! &  Nooo!  The bottom basket fell out on my feet, and wouldn’t hold on the side bars, they are supposed to be designed to hold it up!  Arg!  I want my other freezer back!  Which, I cleaned the seals, and let it dry out, today.  Apparently, it was iced up.  Took 2 days to quit leaking, plus some of the internal seals were misaligned.  Fixed now, and it’s spotless. 

 

Went to the store, got our supplies, we needed replacing, came home, & began putting stuff away.

Wow!…..

I had to move all the ‘heavy’ stuff, meat, etc, up, and put stuff like veggies into that bottom drawer, so it doesn’t slide out, anytime I open the door.  I’m so disappointed.
 

Still, I can NOT believe how tightly it is sealed, without a locking key!  Yikes!  Even full, it is almost more than I can do, to pull the door open!  It slides…. 

Wow, Kappydell, that’s nice to hear thing are looking up, sounds like you will have your hands full of eggs soon & a canner full of roosters..  

Yikes Miki, I hope your stone passes quickly…  God knows…

Looking forward to seeing the pics, Ambergris!

LS, hopefully he will be able to work.  Movement seems to help pass those stones.  Kidney failure & dialysis sucks too..BTDT, more than I would admit.

 I worked on, organizing my transferred pictures for a while.  Midnightmom, there was a lot on the old computer, I didn’t want to transfer, and was concerned, if I connected them, I would get stuff I didn’t want.  Old vs new…. It just took time, with a 36 gb. thumb drive. (Thanks to the PTB for sending me a thumb drive I could reformat. LOL)

So, the new freezer was delivered on schedule, 9 this morning.  Home Depot had a sale, including free shipping for a unit as big as ours.. $600. They pulled it out of the truck & started to remove the box, but I stopped him…’no need’,  I can use the cardboard, plus I didn’t want it to get scratched up going through the back gate & obstacles to get it to the back door. They wanted to install it, but, that too wasn’t feasible, because the old freezer was full & running.  And DH didn’t want them to see his ‘business’ room.  They left happy not to have to install it, plus told me Home Depot will come, free of charge and take the old one.  Wow, I didn’t expect that, except it still works, so, it will be our backup.  I got it out of the box & plugged it in, instructions said 4 hours.  At 108°+ outside, & it turned off in an hour & came back on 2 hours later for 1/2 hour!    
 

Once DH got up, we removed the styrofoam base, after we got it in the house.  I stepped on my skirt trying to cut the styrofoam base in half, & ended up working in just my slip skirt.  Lol….
 

He was worried I wasn’t transferring the food quick enough, but, good grief, 1/2 was put into ice chests, I had brought in, cleaned & cooled off!  A lot went into the frig, top shelf freezes anyway.  I only had to discard one garbage bag of frozen food dated 2016-19. Because the seals were broken on the vac sealed bags. 2017 tamales were pitched, because his mom gets us 3-5 dozen, fresh every year… Yikes.  The only other stuff I pitched was ‘fat/lard’ from smoking hams & other meats… he doesn’t need that in his diet, at all!  
 

Whew!  A lot of work… had to clean the floor under the old one, before sliding the new one in there, because a desert toad had gotten in the house and lived under it, for a couple of weeks, before we discovered it and caught it…. Nasty, sticky pee…. It was coming out at night and using the dog water dish….    And we wondered why the pups had the pukes so often, during that time, poor babies.  
 

So, the new freezer is, slightly larger, weighs a lot less, empty, and, is supposed to keep its cold temperature, even up to 110° outside temps.  We put the internal temperature to the coldest setting, without hitting the “Turbo” cool…. 

Also, defrosting an 11.5 lb. brisket, to cook tomorrow, if it’s unfrozen by then..should be, I hope.

Dinner is done & leftovers put up, dishes are done and I’m bushed…. Tomorrow is another day….  
 

Jeepers, I hope you have gotten all your $ from BoA…they just got hit with a tremendous amount of fines for fraud…

OK, all, I think , all my pictures are transferred to the laptop.  Deleted 40,000+ files & folders on my desk top...ran defrag...its working quicker than it ever has... especially since I downloaded Mrs S from GoDaddy...several years ago, so we could be here.......  58,000 files!!!  No wonder the computer was sloooooowww!  Been watching the screen saver cycle through my photo files....  thinking about revising my "blog" with a plethora of pics... just to keep them here... and share... replacing many that disappeard when I got deleted.....  nuf said...  many are gone forever.... but, we shall see how much I am able to add..

Still trying to 're-learn' how to use a keyboard, since most of the time I have been using my tablet... but I have dropped it a few times, arthritis, and it has some glitches in some of the program I use....  So, I don't want to trust it now....plus, the darn thing is over 10 years old....

Ouch, Miki…will antibiotics help?  Even oil of oregano?

Glad you’re GS is doing better…. LS.

Mt_Rider, it’s inspiring to hear how you are improving…keep it up Lady!
 

Saturday, cleaned house.  Had to clean under the frig, dust bunnies and dog hair clogging the coils.  Couldn’t quite reach to the back, but, DH gave me an extension… and then, I cleaned all the top, back, & sides of the upright freezer…it wasn’t turning off!  Now it does, but, he already measured it and has a new one coming on the 12th.    Yikes!  I need to figure out how to empty it, let alone where we are going to set the new one, until it freezes, (our electric system won’t let me plug it in the kitchen, without blowing a circuit breaker, it will need a long extension cord to find another plug), so I can transfer the food… plus, now that the old one, 20+ years old, is working again…he wants to keep it as a back up.  Which means, more than likely, I will need to create a place for it in the stuffed shed!    Especially, since the outside temps… morning…4 am -6am, before the sun crests the mountain, 80°+. Then, steadily rising to 100°+ by 10 am.    By noon & afternoon, we are pushing 110°. Soooo, I will definitely need to, ‘get it done’ early in the morning.  
 

I got a touch of heat exhaustion, when I cooked/smoked the brisket, and am still trying to stay out of the heat…   Now, he wants me to cook the other one, he got me a box of hickory chips and a roll of butcher paper….how thoughtful…..  
 

Guess what he got me for my Bday……?

…..a shovel….for the garden…. A SHOVEL!   It IS high end tho…. Nice platform for the feet, and all metal, black…yes black, handle….  I guess I will be using gloves…. Hot! Hot! Hot!    Maybe I might spray the handle white…….. Isn’t it the thought that counts?    (Even though I already have 4 other, working shovels…). 

Spent the last few days, transferring all my files, from my old desktop computer to the newer lap top.  Good grief!  10-15 minutes to copy onto thumb drive, 1-2 minutes to transfer to the newer laptop.  Go figure.  I’m almost done, just need to double check, that I got everything.  Then, I will need to delete much of it off the old machine, so mom can watch her news.

Dinner is done, beef enchiladas, made with leftover taco meat, refried beans, from leftover beans when I make moms bean soup & some Mexican rice….  Next, is putting leftovers up & doing dishes…..  
 

Ha!  Darlene thinks I’m young.. .  Meh..what she don’t know…. Because I am still waiting for my hair to turn white…. Good grief, do I need to turn 90 before it changes?   

Jeepers, I see myself in the mirrors, in the house or the reflection, in the windows or on the vehicles.  DH is mentioning he notices.. ..   so I’ve been acutely aware…but when I have done too much the day before…I really don’t notice…until I see my reflection,      Sigh…. Sucks to get old….

Stamps went up!  Yikes!  Darn it….  Wow….  I use a lot…. I don’t like bill bay on line, I mail my checks & business paperwork.  Sigh…  Last batch I got was, .60¢  forever stamps …  
 

Glad your GS is doing well, Littlesister.

Rice cooker corn bread, Ambergris?  I don’t have one! Usually cook it in the oven…. 

Gosh, Jeepers, it looks like they can start fixing your water mess… 

Miki, jalapeños!  Awesome, I got one… at least the plant is surviving the heat.

MM, DH has been commenting I am bent over a bit when I walk, tough with back problems and injuries… been watching myself in anything that reflects my image & “trying” to stand up straight…. Ouch, gives me leg cramps, even with my exercises…. 
 

Becca_Anne, still looking forward to those pictures you took…….

Little sister, it’s very convenient you are getting rain, something we pray for around here…. Sprinkles only do so much, especially when our water sucks…. We don’t drink it…at all.  
 

So the brisket is off the grill, resting for an hour, before I cut it, God willing we will get a money shot.  DH sent me a video, how to cook it, without cutting off the fat.  It said, fathers, grands and greats, never cut it off…so I followed the recipe…. I normally don’t do YouTube, & had to pause after each step….  5 am, got the coals lit, prepared the meat, put it on at 6, @ 275° with chunks of hickory…. Every hour adding charcoal and more, soaked hickory…

3, added the last of the hickory, then took it off at 4.  Letting it sit, in the house, and will cut it in a few minutes….  I hope it comes out good…never done it that way before….

So… off the grill……

…and first slices…..

He was impressed.  ‘No trim’ recipe…here’s the YouTube he had me follow…