Food Storage - Setting Up and Learning

My food storage in 1999 was not on par with the preppers of YouTube fame but then, that wasn't my goal.  My goal was simply to have enough on hand to outlast our normally severe winter weather and not be stuck in a house full of kids and no supplies.  That goal has never changed but I have maneuvered through some detours along the way. 

It took awhile to convince DH to build some shelves in the basement of our 2nd farmhouse.  We had a wet basement in a 7-year-old addition built onto the century-old log farmhouse by the previous owners.  The drains had not been put in around the foundation of the house properly and the water marks were over 2' high on the basement walls and the insulation and drywall were rotted.  This addition had been built for the previous owner's son who wanted his bedroom in the basement for his teenage privacy.  He never did sleep there.

Even with the sump pump going steadily, we still had a few 'incidents' every year.  DH was afraid of losing some or all of the food but in the end, the water never rose above 3-5 ".  Also, all he could see was $ signs for both the cost of the shelves themselves and the extra food.  He finally built them and it took a while but he slowly began to see the usefulness of having them stocked.  We used new pine boards for the upright sides and melamine boards leftover from a previous project for the shelves.  The pine worked great but the melanine was not strong enough to hold much and we had to constantly put more wood underneath to hold the melanine up.  Lesson learned - no melanine again for shelves.

I kept a list of everything down there but I did that, I guess, for fun, just to see how quickly or slowly we went through things.  At this point in time in 1999 here, as there was no YouTube, etc. or anyone that I knew of who was doing this food storage thing, I was completely winging it, totally flying by the seat of my pants.  I had no idea whether or not I needed a list or would ever use one but I didn't want to get months into buying food and regret not having one.  Keeping that list was a good idea in the end as I still have it and will refer to it again in the future.

I learned that some things just don't keep that well such as pickles.  Not for us, anyway.  They were soft after only a number of months.  I learned that we don't like peas much as they would sit on the shelves for forever when the kids were allowed to choose the veggies.  I used that knowledge to determine how many pea rows to plant in subsequent gardens and how to store them after.  I froze them in little snack baggies for a nice size to add to soups, stews and casseroles instead of in a sandwhich baggie or large freezer baggie to use as an actual veggie for a meal.  We went through a lot more ketchup and maple syrup than I'd expected and therefore still make sure that we have lots of both.

More later...

Our 3rd Farmhouse

 This farm needed a lot of work in every aspect - house, barn, all sheds, every field, every fence row - and none moreso than the other.  We had been told by the real estate agent that the wife had left the husband 2 years before, the implication being that the entire farm had only been neglected for those 2 years.  Later, neighbors told us that she had been gone for 5 years but the reality is that this place had been neglected ever since the husband's parents moved in - appro. 1975.

DH and 2 of our sons came up 1 week early before we moved in to take the wall down between the tiny kitchen/dining room and the main living room.  DH needed to be in the basement quite a bit as there was hydro in the wall that needed to be looked after in the basement.  When he got to the basement, he realized that he wasn't going to get anything done on that wall for a while - he couldn't get through the basement until he cleaned it up first.   There was stuff down there that had been there we figure for at least 50 years.  An old chair had rotted against the wall and piles of old lumber had to be removed, one piece at a time. 

It had been so many years since wood had been burned down there (if ever) but there was firewood in one section. The only furnace was an oil furnace that was so old, it no longer worked and had to be removed.  2 old oil tanks that had been condemned also had to removed.  There was no more room for any other furnace or wood stove so we're not sure as to why there was firewood but after all those years in the basement, that wood certainly was dry and made some great fires that first winter.  Only problem was, these pieces were huge and each one had to be brought upstairs and chopped up. 

There were live wires hanging everywhere down there (and all over the whole house) and outlets and light switches (downstairs as well as upstairs) that did not work.  We're thinking that the owner fancied himself an electrician and we're shocked (no pun intended!) that we're all still here to tell the story.  My son found 2 nails through live wires, 1 through the board and batten in the garage and the other through the upstairs bathroom where they're renovating now.  He wasn't too happy about being shocked twice and I'm wondering how many cat lives he has left!

The strangest thing that DH found down there was what he found under the stairs - old boots, shoes and gloves.  Some went way back through the years, some were fairly new.  There were a large number of recent children's shoes that must have belonged to the owner's 2 sons who were about 13 and 15.  There wasn't much to laugh about with the whole situation of supposedly respectable people leaving years and years of their junk behind but he did have to laugh when he realized that the children's shoes got smaller and smaller the further back they went.  We figure now that even the children's mother (the ex-wife) was in on it.  They must have taken each pair of shoes as the boys outgrew them, set them on the first step and kicked them backwards under the steps.  How else could so many shoes end up under there in such perfect order of growing - and in full, matching sets?  Why not give them to second-hand clothing shops?

When he started the job that first day, DH had no idea that it would take 3 days just to clean up under the stairs.  That stuff under there went on forever and reached so far back that he needed a rake to reach it all.  He brought huge garbage can after garbage can, packed to overflowing, up the stairs, time after time which I imagine is why the stuff was still down there - they didn't want to do all that work.  I can't really blame them except if they hadn't put it all down there in the first place...

DH only had 5 days to work on the house because we were moving in then.  5 days seemed like a lot of time to get a lot done.  It was a 2-hour drive each way and after they'd done that for 1 day, I told them to take the mattresses (they were going to take some furniture along anyway, might as well be mattresses), packed them food for a few days along with mousetraps and sent them on their way.  At first they thought it a dumb idea - until that first night when they realized that they could work as late as they wanted, stop to eat whenever they wanted or not at all, didn't have that long drive home at night but best of all, didn't have to get cleaned up at the end of the day because there were no women around to tell them to.  I think that they were pretty much in a man's heaven ---except for the basement.  DH was serious about getting it done because of the mouse/rat problem (we weren't sure which it was at that point) and he didn't want to give them any extra hiding places in the basement.  After everything, the basement never did get completely done because as soon as we moved in, there were, unfortunately, other pressing worries. 

He ended up using the last 2 hours of the 5th day to take down the kitchen wall then drove the 2 hours home.  We were all pretty deflated after that and we hadn't even moved in yet.  We knew that this place had problems and we were used to farms with problems as we had always bought old farms with unfixed houses but this farm got us down before we even got started.  We've been behind the 8 ball the whole 2.5 years that we've been here.  I feel like we're a flock of Chicken Littles, running all over patching this problem before it breaks completely, fixing that problem so that we can keep using it.  The next few years will prove interesting, just to see how many of our dozens of projects get done!

Second Farmhouse - Bats and Renos

Hubby had hoped to leave renovating this house for some time in the future - the distant future, like maybe NEVER!  There was too much work in the barn and the fields to be spending time on the house.  The fields and the barns are where the money is made so it would be like a store owner or manufacturing plant owner saying that he would put off opening the store for a year or getting the plant up and running a year from now while he instead gets his house fixed up.  He would still be needing to make rent or mortgage payments, not have any income and any and all investors would be slightly pissed.  For generations, it seems that ALL of the money went to the farming aspect and none to the house.  Just look at the farmouses of the past century - the wives considered it a big deal to FINALLY get a washroom!

The upstairs bathroom and my toddler son's bedroom were definite must-do's but unfortunately, we had to add a third room.  Something flew past my head one night and scared the crap out of me and my screaming scared the crap out of the poor kids (ages 8 and down).  Hubby was in the barn and there was no way that I was doing anything to get in the way of that bat.  That bat was free to fly anywhere he (she) wanted.  Far be it from me to interfere!  Until hubby got in from the barn, that is -- and then he was even more scared the rest of us!  But being the man of the house and all that - ah forget that.  If he could have left that bat hanging somewhere, he would have but he didn't want to get woken up in the night from one of the kids screaming (or me!) and he didn't want to find it in our room in the night so he got brave and went after it. 

Like lots of people, he'd heard that a badminton racquet would work well.  Wrong!  After trying that method for a while, he gave up and grabbed a towel, swung it and brought the bat down quite easily.  Flushed him down the toilet and that was that -- so we thought.  Over the next few weeks, we got 10 bats and our housecat got 1.  The kids and I were hiding down behind the kitchen peninsula while yet another bat flew back and forth overhead and hubby was, of course, in the barn again.  We were down there praying that bats like to fly high only and never along the ground.  There was no use trying to hide in another room because bats can squeeze into any tiny space and besides, we wanted to know where the bat was when hubby came in because they can be hard to find if they land.   We would peek around the corner of the kitchen cupboards occasionally to keep an eye on his flying progress.  We found him on the floor being eaten by the cat (one good reason to run right out and adopt a cat from a shelter, as if eating all the mice in your house wasn't already a good enough reason!).  There's no way that the cat jumped into the air and caught him so we figured that the bat must have flown into the ceiling fan in the dining room and been knocked to the floor.  I still give full credit to the cat because if he hadn't been there, I would have had to do the dirty work and no thanks! 

I don't believe the old story that bats try to avoid people.  I'm quite convinced that 'our' bats loved to dive-bomb us outside, expecially if we were on the trampoline.  The kids didn't pay much notice to the bats outside but the first time that I got brave enough to jump on the trampoline near dark was also my last and no one can convince me that they were not after me!  Anyway, after 5 or 6 bats, we got to be old hats at bats flying around, we had stopped screaming every time we saw one and we learned to walk around with our heads held high (meaning we were looking up!) while scanning the ceiling and top halves of every wall.  I still get squeamish to this day however, if I hear anything resembling the sound that they make.  If you make 'fish lips' with your lips then make a smacking sound or put your lips and your hand and make a slight sucking sound (I know, I know - that sounds weird!), that's how bats sounded to me.  And I still hate them. 

It took us a while to trace their entrance hole into the house.  We knew by then that there were plenty of them living up in the attic but there were so many places in this old house where the lath and plaster was broken or missing that it was impossible to tell just where they were coming in.  The mystery was solved when hubby saw one actually come through one of many holes in the bedroom adjacent to the upstairs bathroom.  This entire wall had been covered by nice enough looking floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall cupboards and it was only when this bat came out from behind these cupboards that we found the holes (and the beautiful orange and green 60's wallpaper).  So this room also had to be redone at the same time as the other two so in the end, I guess I have to say thank goodness for the bats because now we were renovating a third room!

Sorry, no photos this time.  I figured that you could find your own repulsive photos of bats if you wish.  I just don't have the desire to look at them right now.  They still have that 'ew' factor for me!  I might have stopped screaming every time one flew by but...

Farm Memories

Remembering the farms of family friends takes me back to a different time.  A time with little TV and NO internet.  The only TV came from the old TV antenna and gave you only a few channels, usually 1 clear one along with a few fuzzy ones unless you had the 'rabbit ears' and then you might get 1 extra channel.  For the farm kids I knew, a few fuzzy channels wasn't enough to make them want to stay inside.

What's left of our old TV antenna tower being used to help support the stove pipe and the white internet dish(?) and also works well as a ladder to the roof.  Another era has left us. 

Help a bit in the garden, do a bit of yard work, help in the kitchen and the field...yeah, these kids had to help but there was plenty of time left over for fun.  I didn't know anyone with the proverbial 'swimming hole' but one friend lived right beside the river and I swear I spent the best 4 hours of my life there.  It was summer and we waded through the creek from their house down to the river with our rubber boots on.  The river was only about 1' deep so we followed it for a few hours.  Managed to get wet and cooled down along the way and dry off again before we were done (it was hot!).  Eventually the river dried up completely which was surprising as it could often be a raging torrent but it was late summer in a hot, dry year and just perfect for us.  We walked along the dry riverbed a while further then decided to head for home but we took a different route back.  We headed through the bush (woods), through sunny field after stunningly-beautiful field, stopping to chat with the cows grazing and finally, up my friend's back 'amazing laneway' that wound its way through their fields and back to the old farmhouse.  If there was a cloud in the sky that day, I didn't notice it as it certainly did not darken the beautiful, sunny day.

 http://www.photos.jibble.org/

Dry riverbed similar to 'ours'.  http://www.bigskyfishing.com/

The laneway was amazing because it was such an easy place to walk, through the tractor ruts, as opposed to a field.  It also held 'nature's treats' along its fences.  The obvious would be raspberries, wild and normal grapes amongst other berries but this was also my introduction to gooseberries.  Nowadays, I cannot imagine eating pie with 'green things' in it but my friends' mom made gooseberry pie and gooseberry jam (or was it jelly?), I ate both with great gusto, especially since I had helped her pick the gooseberries along the 'amazing laneway' and it was another of my best afternoons - ever!

 Old farm laneway.  http://www.geolocation.ws/
The old farm laneways that have remained unmannicured are the best as their old berry bushes and vines remain intact and can continue to produce for decades.

Gooseberries.  http://www.venturacottage.com/

Gooseberry pie.  http://www.forums.homestead.org/

Our Second Farmhouse - Previous Owners

Our 2nd farmhouse had been in the same family since the land was first bought from the crown.  The farmhouse was well over 100 years old and had been the replacement house for the original house and that first house would have been old before it was torn down.  The previous owner, F. M., had bought the whole place from his uncles when he was young.  He had to walk 44 miles (70 kilometers) to register it so that squatters could not take over.  I don't quite understand why his uncles didn't have to do this but it must have something to do with the Homestead Act and possibly the resale of the farm, not sure.  That must have been quite the walk with not much along the way except for bush, a few farms and maybe 1 very small town. 

When he was in his 60's, he wanted to retire but none of his 4 kids wanted the farm - typical story, unfortunately.  They had all 'fled' to the city as soon as they could.  One was a lawyer, one a doctor and one was allergic to everything so there was no way any were coming back.  The youngest daughter, C., had left for Vancouver years before and had wanted nothing to do with farms.  F.M. and his wife went to visit C. and mentioned that they were going to sell the farm.  Suddenly C. says, "Mom and Dad, I'm coming home to run the farm."  They were thrilled, she did just that for 20 years and was successful but my first thought would have been more like "After all the years of hating the farm, staying as far away from it as you can get - literally the other side of the country - are you sure you're really committed to it?" 

During her 20 years there, she married a local 'big' farmer, had 3 kids, ran a successful laying hen farm for 5,000 birds, divorced same said farmer, sold the farm to the first non-family member to ever own the place and used her share of the money to open a sewing store in town, again successfully and it's still going strong.

The new owner whom I'll call T.G. moved in with his wife and his brother moved in upstairs.   They were welcomed by the neighbours who thought that this couple had every intention of living there forever but instead they just wanted the timber.  They earned over $100,000.00 worth of wood in 1 year.  I don't quite understand this either, but according to the law, if you officially own the property and live in the house for 365 days, you pay way less taxes as it's your own wood that you're selling.  The neighbours knew nothing about this and when they finally figured it out, they were furious.  As one local put it, "T.G. raped the bush", which essentially, I guess he did.  7 years later, when we had someone in to assess the bush, he found 1 tree ready and 1 tree almost ready.  The rest of the entire bush was at least 5 years or more away.   He definitely was within his rights to sell his own wood and all of it too but people were bothered by the sneakiness and underhandessness of it all.  T.G. also did not bother to cut up the tops for firewood (not enough money, too much work?) and instead, just left it all to rot.  He didn't really clearcut but didn't mind running over any and all smaller trees to get to the tree he wanted.  He left paths through the bush 2 bulldozer-widths wide and didn't care about tearing up good farm fields with his 'dozer.  He also left dozens of piles of brush at least 20' high all over the fields.  As part of the deal, he was supposed to have those gone, completely gone, not piled all over the place.  At the urging of his lawyer, he did finally push all the piles off the fields and to the edge of the bush/fields, thereby tearing up more of the fields with his bulldozer.

http://www.orangutanprotection.com/

 http://www.thehumanfootprint.wordpress.com/

We purchased the farm from T.G. as of April 15 but agreed that he could stay there rent-free until June 1 if need be.  We had no idea that he had kept his other house the whole time and did not need the extra time to buy himself another place to live as he had led us to believe.  We knocked on the door one day to ask them something but got no answer so we decided to peek in the windows (I know!  You're not supposed to do that but we figured that since we did officially own it...) to try to get a better picture of the layout and where to put the furniture.  With all of the additions, we just could not remember.  Hubby heard a hum through the open window and instantly became furious as he was pretty sure that it was the furnace running.  It was May, over 90 degrees F. and it became obvious when we entered the house that no one was living there - there was definitely no reason for any more heat.  The problem with this was that they had agreed in the deal to leave the oil tank full.  This is now mandatory but at that time, it had to be in the agreement.  It was obvious at this point that they had moved out and were trying to empty the oil tank.  Thank goodness we found out when the oil tank was still half full and thank goodness the wife was actually nothing like him.  She gave us a cheque for the right amount and it actually did not bounce.

The worst he did though, was to his wife.  He went out, got himself a girlfriend and invited her to move in with him - with his wife still in the house and at first not knowing anything about it.  The worst of  all was that the wife also had cancer.  It was only a short time later that I heard that she had died.   I guess her jerk of a hubby was just making sure that he had another woman waiting in the wings.  About a year later, he was dead, too.  I guess what goes around comes around!

Because of this guy, the neighbours became sour on new neighbours and this was the atmosphere that we moved into.  We were nothing like him though, and we were there for 11 years.

One good thing that came from clearing out the bush was - blackberries.  I didn't know anything about blackberries but one day shortly after we moved in, there was a knock on the door from an older local farmer asking if he and his friend could go back in the bush and pick the blackberries.  He explained that after a lot of trees have been cut down, blackberries will show up for a few years.  He made enough Blackberry wine each year for the next 3 years to last his family for the year and always brought us a bottle.  I knew that blueberries could grow in an area that had been affected by forest fire but I didn't know about blackberries.  The things you learn!

http://www.alchemybaking.blogspot.com/
 

More of Our Second Farmhouse

This house was a brute to heat.  The original part of the house was a square, 2-story log house that was covered on the outside with white siding and on the inside with the icky, old lathe. 

http://www.builderbill-diy-help.com/
One day, just after moving in, my one-year-old son reached through his crib, pulled off some flowered wallpaper (it had been a teen-aged girl's room!) and exposed the ever-lovely lath.  Behind the lath were the 12" X 12" logs that were kept about 4-5" apart by stones and mudding (mortar, chinking).  This mudding was long gone, presumably eaten by the large numbers of mice that we were constantly contending with.  Through the empty space blew the whole great outdoors, in spite of the siding.  Much to hubby's dismay, it became obvious that we had to start the renovating a lot sooner than hoped for, as this room was certainly not the worst one.

When we were first looking at the farm, we could see that the buildings were not in great shape but we were not too worried.  We were young(er), figured we could handle it and besides, with 5 young kids, ages 1 year  to 8 years old and our other farm now sold, we needed a place, like, yesterday.  We couldn't really afford any more time to look around.  I was just happy that there was an upstairs bathroom!  Yeah, excited!  I can't help but laugh when I watch all the renovating and relocating shows and everyone wants their own bathroom.  "Yes, I like this house but where's the 4th or 5th bathroom?  We'll just have to keep looking."  Sigh!!  I'm not laughing at the people.  Hey, I'd like my own washroom, too!  I'm laughing at the idea of any of these people having to live in any of our old houses.  You could easily run a series of "Survivor" in any old, not-fixed-up farmhouse and see how many contestants are still standing at the end of a week, let alone 11 years.

Well, the upstairs bathroom was there but was not a joy to use.  The bathroom was over the back stairs and a wooden box had been built over the headway space in the bathroom.  This space could have been better utilized as shelves but instead could not be used as anything except a seat.  Have a seat while someone else finishes using the toilet, perhaps?  I was excited to move in anyway and had one day only to clean without the kids so I went at the old cast-iron tub to clean it and immediately destroyed the cloth.  The finish on the tub was long gone, very rusty and impossible to clean.

http://www.valdosta.ebay/
This tub looks almost as bad as our tub except this one's for sale for $60.00.  If only we'd had internet back then - we might have known how rich we were.  Had no idea that we could possibly sell that old thing and maybe some other things, as well -  starting with the old sink as it was in the same condition.

There was a hole in the floor in front of the toilet that I was kind of afraid of.  The toilet was built up at least 2 inches and this worried me, too.  Some toilets are built up higher in order to help the elderly and handicapped and I chose to believe that this was the reason every time one of us had to use it.  But the holey floor in front...  It turns out that raising the toilet was actually an attempt to keep the toilet on the second floor!

http://www.accessibleconstruction.com/

The stink pipe was in the corner behind the toilet, completely exposed.  A bath towel had been neatly folded and stuffed in between the pipe and the wall.  We couldn't imagine what it could be holding up or keeping in but it was a strange thing for someone to do without a reason.  It was a strange enough thing to do WITH a reason!  We were quite sure that if we pulled it out, the stink pipe would fall down, fall through, fall over, fall somewhere so we left it alone until it was time to reno.  Later during renos, we learned that the stink pipe was fine and it's still in use today.  I guess they ran out of storage room for their towels?!  Because of all of these things, plus the fact that there was no insulation, we were convinced that this room needed to be done at the same time as our son's room - both way before we were ready to tackle them.

Sidenote*
This is the stink pipe in our 3rd farmhouse.  The photo was taken a few minutes ago and the reno was started right after New Year's, 2012.  I know, more renos, more lath, more dust.  Sigh!  But that's another story for another day! 

Our Second Farmhouse - Running in Circles!

This house was massive - 3,000 to 3,500 square feet - but because of its layout and age, the size did not resemble any grand house of a century ago or even large modern houses.  It was well over a century old but was in 3 parts and each joined in their own haphazard way without any thought to the overall flow.
 
The main entrance was through a side porch that extended along half of one side of the house.  You entered through a screen door that did little to keep the cold and snow out and 5 feet straight across the long but narrow porch from the screen door was a more solid wooden door that led into the kitchen.  This was the only door of the 2 with a lock - a bathroom lock!  I felt really safe and secure...NOT!  I also felt really cold as you could see daylight around the door.  Because the two doors were straight across from each other, the air just blew straight through into the main house.

From the porch, you walked into what was the first addition, added on in the 20's or 30's.  This contained the kitchen and back stairs that led up to an ancient bathroom and 1 bedroom.  The kitchen led into the main hallway of the original house that ended at the main set of stairs.  I always thought that old houses with 2 sets of stairs were so cool as only old houses had back stairs.  I had no idea how much fun kids could have running up one set of stairs and down the other.  Or how many heart attacks I could have worrying about them getting hurt, especially when their selectively-deaf cousins came over (not that my own kids weren't selective!). 

Just in case the two sets of stairs weren't enough fun for the kids, there was more.  When you stepped into the hallway from the kitchen, you had a choice of 3 doors - the one to the right leading to a huge living room that ran the entire length of the original house, the one to the left that led into another huge living room that was equally large and one just ahead and a little to the right that led to the basement.  Straight ahead, the hall ended as there was a closet blocking it, facing the other way.  You had to go through either the room on the left or right, as both rooms had another door.  These doors led to the entrance to the closet, to the main stairs and the front door.  Both of these rooms also had a third door, one leading to the kitchen and the other to the dining room.

So all told, the kids could run in at least 6 circles, counting the 2 sets of basement stairs.  Talk about nuts!  Later, we closed off the door to the old basement steps and just used the newer stairs in the 2nd addition.  That slowed the kids down a bit.  We closed off both doors into the living room on the right and just used the door from the dining room. That slowed them down a lot more.  We took one doorway out of the other large living room to the left and left 2 doorways in so we could turn this room into 2 rooms.  Blocking all these doorways meant that we could no longer get through to the front door or stairs unless we took out the closet.  This gave us a nice, long hallway with lots of light...and really slowed the kids down!

Too many doors.
http://www.craftster.org/

The old stairwell at the back of the Delaney House

http://www.62ndstreet.blogspot.com/

Our Second Farmhouse-Controversial Hedge!

Our second farmhouse had a massive evergreen hedge around it that was at least 10-12 feet high and 6 feet thick.  Even though I'd always wanted to live in the country after having grown up in the city, I still unknowingly approached everything from a city frame of mind.  I should have been thrilled upon seeing this huge windbreak but instead, all I could imagine was lots of flying and creepy-crawling insects, moths, bats, mice, etc.  I really like all of these things...NOT!  And the hedge was dark and looming, blocking the light from the front windows.  And...it had not been looked after for many years.

The first year, I planted the garden behind one section of the hedge.  The next spring, I went to do the same thing and noticed that the hedge had died and turned brown for at least a foot in. A few years before this, when a small evergreen bush that I had planted was dying, my sister-in-law had told me that tiny red spiders were killing it and without chemical spray, it would die for sure.  Well, I didn't use chemical spray, even though it was common and completely legal then.
 
Back to the hedge - within a number of days, it had died at least 6 feet in.  Again, I was not going to use chemicals and we did the only thing we could think of...we pulled it out, that section at least.  We looked at the other section which was at least twice as long, went across the front of the house and turned in an "L" shape to come up to the house.  We decided that we would keep it but cut it down to 3 feet high in order to let some light into the house and front yard and we would do what we could (we knew nothing about hedges, trees or gardening, for that matter.  Only what we stumbled upon!) to let it grow up again a little healthier. When we did this, however, we realized that there was nothing of the hedge left below the 3-foot mark so we took it out, also.

Shortly after all of this, hubby asked the previous owner, who still lived next door, where the septic tank and drilled well was (he never found either!).  While he was at our place looking, he noticed all the hedges gone and freaked!!  He was so mad and did not hesitate to let us know!  We explained about how it was dying...he didn't care.  We then explained about how there was nothing left on the bottom 3 feet.  He stopped, thought for a minute, then said that part was likely his fault because they had stored wood in the bottom 3 feet of the hedges in order to dry it.  Year 'round and for 40 - 50 years.  But he stayed peeved at us forever after that and never forgave us.

For me, it was really hurtful because everwhere I've lived, I've always left everything just as the previous owner had it for up to 5 years, as much as possible, (whether I liked it or not didn't matter)because they usually came back for a visit and I did not want to upset or insult them.  So for me to want to get rid of the hedge was a big deal and I did worry about his reaction.  I certainly did not expect such a strong one!

To some degree, I do understand him, though, because the owner who lived there for the previous year had taken out the white picket fence so that he could drive across the lawn right up to the house.  The white picket fence and the hedge had both been there for decades and I'm sure he (the original owner) was watching the slow disintegration of his life's work!

http://www.nyceducator.com/
The way our hedge should have looked or perhaps the previous owner thought it looked!

http://www.gizmodo.com/
How I REALLY want my hedge to look!

http://www.geograph.org.uk/
This is more like our hedge.
 
Within the next few years after that, we visited the West twice (Saskatchewan) and noticed how many farms had either a windbreak of trees or hedge or a combination of both.  Since I'd grown up in the city and the tall buildings were all the windbreak we needed, I had never spent any time thinking about trees or hedges or their value (even though the nickname for our city was 'The Forest City'.  You'd think something would have registered but no.  In fact, when I would hear 'Forest City', I used to wonder what city they were talking about!  Duh!)

Field windbreak.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/

 An Iowa windbreak (shelterbelt).
http://www.iowapf.org/
I understand a lot better now, why the old guy was so angry with us.  I understand much better what we lost when we took down our already-existing windbreak and I understand better the benefits to pioneer and current homesteaders.  Anything that keeps our houses warmer, keeps the dust and dirt in the fields where it belongs instead of blowing away and possibly provides us with food in the form of berries is ultra important.

Rabbiteye Blueberry hedge that will grow to 8-10 feet.

Raspberries that will grow 4-8 feet.

Thornless Blackberry that will grow up to 6 feet.

http://www.fast-growing-trees.com/
Cranberry that will grow 8-12 feet.

Elderberry bushes are described by wiki as reaching from 9-26 feet.
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/
Saskatoon Berries, also known as the Saskatoon, Serviceberry, Sarvisberry, Juneberry and historically as Pigeon Berry can grow up to 26 feet and sometimes 33 feet.  I mistakenly thought that it was named after Saskatoon, Saskatchewan but instead, the city was named after the berry.  They are found in Alaska, western Canada and the western and north central U.S.

The thornier the hedge, the better.  It might not keep out all 4-legged creatures but might help against the 2-legged kind!

http://www.123rf.com/

Our 2nd Farmhouse

I don't think that there's such a thing as an old farmhouse without a story to tell and our second farmhouse was no exception.  Because they usually date back over a century, there's no way that the rooms would not reverberate with peals of laughter, shouts of anger, bedtime stories and the spilling of tears...if only they could talk.

Stories come out slowly, usually out of necessity.   A question like "Where's the well?", asked of the original owner who had continued to live next door for over 20 years.  We found out about at least 2 wells, one a dug well out in front of the house that we knew nothing about and the other a fairly new drilled well that no one knew the location of.  The dug well had 2 pieces of cemi-circle shaped cement over top to form a circle.  An old full-sized hand pump stood over the centre and because it was not bolted down, we assumed that the entire affair was ornamental.  We were quite surprised when the original owner (he had sold the farm to the previous owner who had only stayed a year) told us that not only was the well real, it had never been filled in, had been in full use as the only well until just a few years before and he thought we should get it up and running again.  No thanks.  He and his family had paid a lot of money for the drilled well for a reason and we weren't going backwards. 

And you know that we just had to go right out and drop a pebble between the 2 pieces of cement, just to test it.  I was quite disappointed to hear the 'ping' of that pebble hitting water and probably made it even more attractive to the kids because of all my warnings to stay away.  They thought the 'pings' were exciting!  It was a few years before we got that well filled in.   

http://www.windmill-parts.com/

Because of my fear of wells, having 5 small children under 8 and the location of this well being about 10 feet from the house, this wasn't exactly welcome news.  We had purchased the farm when there was snow on the ground and did not get to walk over the land until spring, so we did not know that right behind the barn and quite close to the house, was an another open, dug well, wide enough for a man to stretch across full-length and still fall in.  No one warned us about either dug well, so, of course, I was not impressed.  We managed to get that first well filled in right away, only to find out a year later about the other dug well by the house.
 

Our First Farmhouse

I love old farmhouses in spite of crooked floors, bats in the attic (literally!) and being super cold.  They have a history that usually spans a century, were built with the superior integrity that modern home-owners can only dream of and the wood trims and doors are amazingly beautiful!  Our first farmhouse was bought in 1988 from the S. family.  They bought it from the Crown in the 1800's and had been the only family to ever own it.  Mr. S. had died 13-14 years before from cancer and Mrs. S. had continued on for almost 10 years, milking the cows, morning and night, alone.  She had 5 kids but none who wanted the farm.  Well, one son did but he was the 'running-around, drinking, ex-wives and kids all over the place' kind of guy (her description) and since dairy farming is way too intense for a non-committal kind of person, she didn't trust him to do anything except lose the farm. 

I'm sure that she thought long and hard before listing the farm for sale.  A century family farm, the only home that she and her husband had ever lived in and the only home her now-grown children had ever known.  After having it listed for a while with no luck, she went ahead and bought a house in town anyway and now had 2 mortgages.  This went on for 2 years before we came along and 'rescued her'.  It was a good deal for both parties but I couldn't help but feel that something had been lost when a century farm is forever lost to the original family.

The original building in the 1800's had been a log cabin.  Years later, when they could afford it, the family had added a large addition that they called the 'summer kitchen' or 'back kitchen'.  It was used for cooking on the wood cookstove during the summer to help keep the house cool.  I think I'd like a summer kitchen, too!  One night, shortly after moving in, we could hear a meowing under the floor.  Totally confused, we hunted high and low for the source and took up the old floor boards to discover a well right under the room.  This would have been used to pump water up to the sink and yes, I'd like one of those, too!  Talk about convenient...water at your fingertips, no going outside to the well and no hydro! 
Anyway, the cat that had just been 'donated' to us by friends (every newly-wed couple needs a cat, they said...Uh-huh!) had fallen down the well and was meowing so pitifully.  We had no idea what to do so we slid a 10 foot board down into the at least 20-foot-deep empty well, hoping the cat would figure out the last 10 feet for himself.  He didn't.  We then decided to lower a basket, hoping he'd jump into it.  Yeah, right!  It even sounded absurd at the time but what to do?!  Then we accidentally knocked a piece of wood down into the well and that cat shot up and out, flew past us and was gone, leaving us in fits of laughter!  And now we had to repair the floor, find the hole where the cat got through in the first place and fix it and continue to worry about the cat getting in there again.  Years later, when we tore that part down, we finally filled the well in.  Needn't have worried, though...the cat left well enough alone after that!  I've heard of 'moving like a bat out of hell' but not 'moving like a cat out of a well'!  They are quite similar!!

This back kitchen was in pretty poor shape when we moved in.  The floor planks had been nailed directly onto the floor joists - no subfloor of any sort.  Over time, the floor boards dried out and left slight spaces between.  When I swept, the dirt from the crawl space 2 feet below came up through, making more mess than before.  Old windows and no insulation meant freezing cold and I mean freezing.  I placed a bowl of water on the edge of a heat vent that was actually working.  The water froze solid.

On the far side of this room was a door that led to a woodshed.  This woodshed had a walkway that was level with the rest of the house but the rest of the room, where the wood was kept was actually about 5 feet deep.  That would hold a lot of wood but at the time, all I could see was the mess.  Old wood chips, dirt floor, and I assumed, lots of mice.  We didn't use it as we didn't have a wood stove, just a wood furnace in the basement and we stored our wood in the basement.  Now I realize the value of a dry, indoor place to store wood .

At the end of this walkway was another door that led outside to the clothesline stand...or so we thought.  Underneath the stand was what seemed to be a carved-out half log, about 4 feet long.  Hubby pulled it out, debated for a while, scratched his head a while longer, gave up and slid it back in.  We found out later that its original purpose was not that of a clothesline stand but instead, was an outhouse!  It was likely quite modern for that time as you did not have to go outside (it had walls and a roof at one time).  It was still freezing out there but there was no wind, no rain and best of all, no snow.  The carved-out log was actually the 'toilet'.  After people had done their 'business' for a number of days/weeks, it was the father's job to slide it out then empty it.  I think hubby washed his hands extra after that!!  As much as all families would have look forward to the 'new' indoor washrooms, perhaps the father of this family did so a little more than most!

As bad as this summer kitchen seemed to be to us, it had at one time been the pride of the neighbourhood.  Our neighbour, D., had grown up next door and told us that when he was small, all the wedding meals, summer BBQ's, get-togethers, etc. were held in Mrs. S's summer kitchen, at least the food prepping part.  She had the best back kitchen around, he said, and I'm assuming because it had heat for cooking, water and lots of space, all rolled into one.  Oh, and it had a handy 'toilet, too! 

Anyway, after the family saved up for more years, they tore down the original log cabin (shame!) and built a double-bricked, 2-storied farmhouse onto the summer kitchen.  This was the 100-year-old building that we moved into.  We took down the summer kitchen and added a new bathroom/laundry room, living room and garage.  I hope that this tradition of tearing down one part then the other part doesn't continue, though, because the old, red brick house is next in line and it would be a shame to lose another old, red brick farmhouse.

http://www.123rf.com/
Not ours but somewhat similar.

http://www.nps.gov/
Not our house but very similar.  The summer kitchen was the whole back addition where the lady is standing, with the woodshed and outhouse continuing to the right.

http://www.education.boisestate.edu/
A kitchen hand pump that I'm assuming is similar to what must have been in our house.

Our First Farmhouse

When I got married over 20 years ago, I finally got my wood stove...sort of.  The old farmhouse we moved into had a wood/oil combination furnace.  It wasn't hard to run, even for a newbie like myself but it must have been a lot older than it looked.  It only held it's heat for just over an hour, after 1.5 hours, there were only hot embers left and after 2 hours, nothing.  I've read online that 6-12 hours is more the norm.  Even replacing the bricks inside didn't help but this furnace always threw out good heat.  It warmed the entire 2 full storied old house really well, even before we insulated, just as long as you  went down to the basement every hour. 

This became a huge problem for me when we had 5 kids over the next 7 years.  It became impossible to get to the furnace every hour with 5 very small children upstairs.  I had no problem going down when they were all asleep but when they were all awake, it took less than a minute for one of them to topple an infant out of a sitter, fall off a chair, table or countertop (which they'd never be on if I was there), hit each other with any number of items, fight like the dickens and hurt each other ... it just wasn't worth it to try to keep the fire going.  I just turned on the oil instead.

Hubby would come in from the barn for lunch after 3-4 hours of milking the cows in an old tie-stall barn and have to start the fire over again.  After 3-4 more hours of barn work in the afternoon, he'd have to it again at supper-time and guess what...!  After 3-4 more hours of doing the evening milking, he'd have to again start the fire.  Needless to say, he got tired real quick of this, really annoyed and tired of paying for oil he didn't really want.  And neither of us wanted to get up repeatedly throughout the night.

For my part, I didn't really like the oil heat.  Sure, I was happy and grateful to be warm, especially with small children but the off and on, off and on, off and on of oil can't begin to compare with the nice, even heat of wood.  You warm up, cool down, over and over and we would shiver while waiting for the furnace to 'kick in'.  The biggest downside to the furnace, whether you used wood or oil, was that it required hydro.  In a power outage, you had no heat.  Thank goodness we had a generator!

http://www.air-tech.ca/

A very similar furnace to our old one but probably not as big.