I’m on vacation this week, so I thought you might enjoy a visit with Rose’s barnyard companions. Feeding and watering of these critters would be solely her responsibility. And, truth is, she’s a bit more attached to them than a farm wife ought to be.
Continue readingFarming
Small farmers had a busy life, even in 1930.
Give me rhubarb…
I have a thing about rhubarb pie.
It’s deep-seeded, to be sure, since I haven’t had a bite of that particular pastry since I was a child. My paternal grandmother made them. She died when I was ten. [1]
So when the LitForum‘s Writer’s Exercise [2] for March was to “write a scene in which the emphasis is on the consumption of food. Make use of the senses of taste and smell. Complement those senses by also drawing on sight, feel and mood. The MC [3] in this scene has stopped whatever he/she has been doing before and is pausing for a moment,” I knew immediately mine would be about rhubarb pie.
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How does your garden grow?
I’ve never been a gardener. In fact, I usually tell folks that “I don’t kill plants; I just make ’em wish they were dead.”
So, it’s fitting that, as I plan what flowers I’ll be planting this spring, I’m thinking about Rose, who also wasn’t much of a gardener.
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When your plow is a pencil…
Old Ike once said, “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.” [1]
Of course, he wasn’t talking
April showers bring…
It’s raining today. So my mind is on April showers. The old children’s riddle comes to mind: “April showers bring May flowers, but what do May flowers bring?”
I started reading the 1929/1930 Iowa farm wife’s diary I have. You won’t believe what those showers brought to the farm… Continue reading
A little cow humor
Harold finds this hysterical. But then, humor was much simpler in 1930.
B is for…
Rose has been feeling a tad sympathetic with all those on the receiving end of this late winter / early spring snowstorm. She knows just how that feels… Continue reading
On Death
Pardon me while I get maudlin…
Yesterday, I read this in the 1930 diary I have: Had 16 little piglets today, but the old mother laid on 4 and killed them.
This made me sad. Especially if you’ve seen the cute piglet pictures I posted here. But it also got me thinking about how common death is, especially on a farm. And especially in the 1930s.
Well, it’s not a giant leap from cute piggies dying to human mortality… Continue reading
Can’t you smell that smell
Forgive me for the Skynyrd earworm.
I have this wonderful reference book, Never Done: A History of American Housework, that I’ve been reading. In the chapter “Fetch a Pail of Water,” the author talks about all the things for which our ancestors had to haul water to accomplish. When I came to the part about baths, I stopped. It seemed like way too much work! Continue reading
Fire!
Feb 15, 1930
Nice day. Got colder in PM and eve and snowed some. Twenty below about 8AM but warmed up a lot during the day. Rex Ward’s house burned about 10AM and Mon and the boys went up there. They saved the things that were downstairs but lost what was upstairs and down cellar. The folks got back here about 11 and then we went up home for dinner and spent the PM. Snowed quite a little in the night.
from The Diaries of Lottie Price, 1914-1986
Until today, I had never considered that Rose might worry about fire. So I started looking for information on fire trucks and firefighting in the 1920s.
Let’s just say that Rose’s best hope is to not have a fire. (Well, that would be true of all of us, wouldn’t it? 🙂 )
Taylor MacDowell 