Re: Hot water
GolfSteve in Calgary
>Hi Moses,
Thanks for the reminescences. I wonder how much of us are attracted to handtools or the dark side because of our warm experiences of a simpler (but harder) way of life? Perhaps from our Grandparents, or perhaps from our past. I'm 36 years old...too young to typically have experienced life preceding WW-I, but my grandparents still live that life.
My Grandmother (Baba in Ukrainian) is around 84 years old. She survived WW-II as a forced labourer in Germany (and my Grandfather (Gido) survived deserting the Russian army only to be captured by the Germans). They came to Canada in 1948 with literally $5 in their pockets with my two-year-old dad in tow.
They lived on a stone infested farm in rural Manitoba and raised three kids. The second kid was born in the grainery shed they were living in at the time, and the third kid was born in the one room farmhouse.
Up till now this sounds like the typical rags to riches immigrant story, but my Grandparents never moved into the modern world. Baba is now about 84 years old, she still lives (by herself now) in the old shack of a farmhouse - it's a log cabin, insulated with clay and straw (as I've heard a thousand times; the clay and straw were mixed together by my Baba's bare feet, then hauled by hand 1/2 a mile to the house). The logs are now covered over with asphalt shingles. She still heats and cooks with woodstoves, and has no running water - neither hot nor cold. She gets water from a well two miles away, hauling it up pail by pail and taking it back to the farm in cream cans.
My last memory of my Gido is of him standing on the tailgate of a pickup truck, backed into the ditch by the well, with snow up to the top of the wheel wells. He was 74 years old at that time. He was drawing water from the well, bucket by bucket, in -30�C weather with no gloves on....a much tougher breed than the soft grandkid trying to help by making sure the rope didn't get tangled up and wondering how I was going to get the truck out of the snow filled ditch. He died of a heart attack - and no wonder because for breakfast every day he ate three home-grown eggs fried in a 1/4 cup of home-made lard. They only went into town about once every two months, and then they only bought flour, salt, sugar, clothes, and during the depth of the winter they would splurge on an orange or two.
My Grandparents just never moved into the modern world. They were raised as Ukrainian peasants, and they remained that way their entire life. Everything was hand-made. I remember watching Gido make a rolling pin from a chunk of firewood one cold December evening, scraping it with a piece of broken glass. We were all sitting on milking stools made from a chunk of firewood and a few sticks with the wood stove roasting beside us. I remember spending one incredibly hot, fly infested day, straightening recycled nails (no nails have ever been thrown out on this farm; there's now about twenty five-gallon pails full of nails that Baba and Gido have pulled, straightened, and saved for when they might need them). I remember picking stones and tossing them onto a sheet of 1/4" steel that was being pulled by "Babe", the old black work horse, I remember cutting grass with a scythe, killing pigs and chickens, pickling or canning cucumbers, apples, raspberries, headcheese, mushrooms, and baking bread.
What a rich experience for a kid now living in the city. I'm sad that my child won't get to experience this (hidden gloat - my first born in now six weeks old and is the cutest baby in the world. Anyone who thinks their kid is cuter gets a punch in the nose :-) )
Here's a picture of Baba doing her wash last summer. She collects rain water off the roof of the house and uses a wash board to wash the clothes. They gave up milking cows several years ago - thus the margarine container. It really pains Baba to now have to buy cream and butter in the store. She actually rants and raves about how much she hates margarine (she had to eat it during the war), so I'm not sure how the margarine container got into the picture.
Cooking dinner on the old wood stove. She bought that stove, used, from a local farmer in 1952. She thought it was very old when she bought it, but I've never tried to find out how old it is. The old washbasin on the stove is always filled with water, providing a ready source for warm washing water. As a kid I used to bathe in that basin.
And eating dinner at Christmas time last year. That plywood six board stool would probably fetch $150 in a local antique store as a "hand-painted, hand-made Ukrainian footstool found in rural Manitoba"...That old woodstove is my favourite memory of growing up. It's perfect for sitting on and warming up after being outside - just don't lean against the flue pipe. The curtains over the door on the left separate the bedroom from the main room. The newspapers on the floor are to wipe your feet on ... it's a farm so you're expected to wear your shoes indoors and Baba will give heck if you take them off.
ps. the blue Makita flashlight under the woodstove is needed to find your way to the outhouse during a blizzard. Thank heaven for modern conveniences...as much as I am nostalgic for that old lifestyle, I know that modern life is much more comfortable.
And a final shot about 12 years ago of Gido (on the left) cutting wood with about a 36" diameter saw blade mounted to the front of the tractor.
