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Nostalgia November 2016

Musings of an Undefeated Matriarch

A Well-Stacked Woodpile

By Sharon Kennedy

Magazines abound with stories and pictures from the past, lending a romantic nostalgia to a bygone era. Those of us who lived in that era must scratch our head and wonder how we missed all the beauty of growing up in the old days. When I turn the pages of modern magazines, I see cozy rooms decorated with lots of familiar antiques, but I’ve yet to see a functioning water pump in the kitchen or the upstairs commode.

By the first of November woodsheds should be well stocked and stacked to the rafters. There was a time when I never gave a second thought to the winter’s wood supply. In the old days, Dad depended upon his tractor and a buzz saw. There was no such thing as a fancy red splitter to do the job. As close as I came to helping was walking by the workers and holding my ears because I couldn’t stand the noise. Occasionally, I brought glasses of cold water or bottles of Black Label to Dad and a neighbor as they buzzed the wood that was headed for our kitchen stove.

A few years ago I bartered a splitter and filled my brother’s woodshed. It was early November and my gift of labor was his surprise birthday present. I had no idea how to stack wood, but I did my best. When he got home, I don’t know if Ed was more shocked at his full woodshed or at my stacking style. As a novice, I had criss-crossed every stick, unaware such an endeavor was a waste of space and time. He was thankful, though, because it was the first year he didn’t have to dig through the snow to fill his woodbox.

Now we have a system. Ed blocks, splits, and stacks the wood outside. When it’s dry enough to bring in, I lace up my steel toe boots and get to work. Years ago a friend told me I was a slow worker, but I was thorough. My theory is simple. If I labored any faster, I’d run out of work by July, leaving two solid months to idle away the daylight hours.

Unlike a grasshopper that can’t stay in one place longer than a few seconds before it jumps onward, I pick at the same job throughout the summer. I take the wood as it comes or sort through the top layers to find pieces of like size which makes it easier to stack. Each year I get better at my favorite chore, but one thing remains constant. I never know what will pop out of the woodpile. This summer yielded two brown garter snakes, a green one, crickets, slugs, ants, spiders, and one blue spotted salamander.

As the days get cooler, wood smoke will scent the air on calm autumn mornings as neighbors fire up their wood burning furnaces and my brother gets a fire going in his Heartland. Ed’s stove is reminiscent of the one in our old kitchen. His is much fancier than the Hotpoint Mom cooked on, but it brings back memories. Our cookstove burned every day regardless of the weather. In winter, it threw off enough heat to take the chill off the kitchen, but in summer we roasted along with our dinner.

Magazines abound with stories and pictures from the past, lending a romantic nostalgia to a bygone era. Those of us who lived in that era must scratch our head and wonder how we missed all the beauty of growing up in the old days. When I turn the pages of modern magazines, I see cozy rooms decorated with lots of familiar antiques, but I’ve yet to see a functioning water pump in the kitchen or the upstairs commode.

People collect items to display on barnwood shelves, but I don’t recall any such shelves in our house or displays of butter churns, wash tubs, or kerosene lamps. Such things weren’t meant for display. They were necessities. In the early days, if Gram wanted butter she milked a cow, got out the churn, and went to work. Prior to getting a wringer washing machine, Mom scrubbed our clothes on a washboard plunged into a granite tub. Kerosene lamps were called into use before the REA ran a power line down our sideroad.

There wasn’t one iota of romance involved in waking to a freezing house. Without insulation, there was nothing to stop the cold from penetrating the walls. Water froze in the kitchen pails, frost claimed our windows, linoleum floors were icy cold, and the trip to the outhouse sent shivers throughout our limbs and everywhere else.

Well anyway, my brother’s wood is in and we’re none the worse for wear. We have a few remaining outside chores to complete before the snow falls, but what doesn’t get done will have to wait until spring. Let the wind blow and a blanket of white cover the ground. We’re ready.

 

You know what I mean, don’t you?

 

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