Hey Travis,
Hello MikeW
I too enjoyed the pics and also look forward to seeing more.
Also tell us about the times when:
You had to get up in the middle of the night to add more wood to the fire.
We were told an "old saying" by a one of the first to homestead up there: You are as green as the wood you burn your first winter. Trust me <g>, after the first winter, when our son's toy that was filled with water, sitting two feet from a burning fire in the old cast iron heat stove froze solid over night, I learned all about bartering. I worked in a welding shop and we ended up with a stove that could burn up to 14 hours on a single load. We also learned all about chinking logs that winter.
We cooked on a century old wood cook stove as well as heated with wood. Come the second winter, the house was plenty warm all winter. Even with the better insulation (chinking) between the logs, the roof and floor insulated--and the house you see in the pictures was only 20' by 20'--we used 14 cords per season.
You had to go to the out house with a lantern so dim that you had to strike a match to see if it was lit. And it threw so many shadows that you could see all different kind of wild animals creepings up.(was that a stick or a snake?)
Ah, our kerosene lantern put out plenty of light. Even the kids were never afraid of the dark (thank goodness!). We would often go down to our neighbor's for an evening. This would mean walking home at some late hour, summer or winter. By star light, the sky was so full of stars, that even without a moon we could see 100 feet or more in front of ourselves. If there was a moon, it was like a strange daylight scene. Winter even with cloud cover one could see way out under the lower limbs in the woods.
Of course, if was a rainy season without a moon, it could be so black that we had to use the lantern. One of the really fun memories we have occurred during the first couple winters we lived there. In the picture of the meadow below the house, you can see our samoyed, Tundra (what else?). He would pull our groceries and whatever up to the house during the winters. If Kris, our son, was too tired to walk, we would let him go to sleep on the sled and tell Tundra to go home. When we would arrive at the cabin, Tundra would have pulled the sled onto the porch and be sitting there awaiting our arrival, Kris sleeping all bundled up in the sled.
You wished you had a cold drink of something.(No frig)
We had a large creek that ran across the property, about a 1/4 mile from the house. We built a spring box over it for the summer months to keep perishables cool. No worries about cold 7 months of the year.
You had to chop up little fire wood so that it would fit in the cook stove.
The wood shed held 16 cords, of which 2 was cut to length for the cook stove. Dina use to bake 4 loaves of bread twice a week in that stove. Best bread ever. But there was always the bits of kindling for either stove to chop. Heck, there was always something to do during the day. Night was pretty much spent reading or playing games or visiting the neighbors.
You had to throw out food because it spoiled, or held your nose and ate it anyway.
The only thing that ever spoiled was part of a bear one year. But it tasted a little gamey anyway
. But there was a lot of other game. Mostly moose, a lot of game birds (I taught Kris how to run a trap line for snaring grouse), some bear and deer. There was a lot of fish too, mostly trout, but also some bass.
About the times you went without something because you only went to town once a week.
:lol: . Oh yeah. At least for the first winter and following summer. I started a logging company and so was through one town or another often enough.
About the time when you had to gather up enough vessels to carry all the water you could or else you would have to drank out of the creek.
Had to? Actually, the spring we return to finish the house, I dug a 3' wide by 6' deep hole next to the house to keep a cooler in for, ah, refreshments. The following fall a spring came up out of that hole. Thereafter it would begin flowing about September and shut off about May. Coldest, best tasting water ever. Between those months we carried water from the creek. Every two days, two trips. During the summer when I could drive into the cabin, I would haul some barrels for laundry, etc.
Alas to be young again, full of vim and vinegar and to think you knew it all and be bullet proof
We didn't know everything then?
This has stirred up a lot of memories in a old man
Me too, actually. Unless, of course, I just made it all up...
