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.
 

Poem

CRADLE QUILT

The quilt that cradled you
As sweetly you slept -
Did you trace its pattern
Of memories kept?

Captured in abstract
Circle and square
To cross-stitch distance
From Here to There;

A block of black velvet
From Granny's chair;
A first-day-of-school skirt,
Locks of your hair;

An ivory petticoat's clinging caress,
A taffeta whisper of wedding dress -
Cloth-binding a patch-work of shapeless things,
Created from chaos - and given wings.

June Masters Bacher - Escondido, Calif.

http://www.alidiza.com/

I cut this poem out of a magazine years ago and found it again recently.

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.

Sources of Heat #2

After I put the photo into yesterday's post, I couldn't continue.  No idea why but I'll continue now.  The gas heater in the photo looks very similar to our old one and yes, ours was a lovely brown colour, too!  It was 3-4 feet long and 2-3 feet wide so it was pretty much a piece of furniture.  The best part about it, besides the instant heat, was the height --- bum height!  Just high enough to lean your butt back against and talk about warm and cozy!  Well, at least it would work that way if you were already leaning when someone turned the heat up.  Many was the time, though, when someone turned the heat up first, then someone else came along and, unaware, took a seat!  Great fun to listen to them yelp, as long as it wasn't me!!  Kinda kidding.  Don't want anyone hurt!

In spite of the wonderful times spent with our gas heater, I still wanted a wood stove.  I blame Laura Ingalls for that, of course!  For setting my sights so high, for giving me such lofty ideas!  A wood stove in the city!  Indeed!  What was I thinking?!  Perhaps I was thinking that the world needs a little more of a pioneering spirit, a little more back-to-the-land spirit, a little more down-hominess, a little more down-to-earth-iness.  Nothing wrong with getting our hands dirty and nothing wrong with a little hard work to teach us to appreciate our resources - maybe I was thinking that.  No matter what I was thinking, I still blame Laura!

http://www.ashbusters.net/