Grandpa found his pump frozen during the winter of 71. Grandma, in a safe warm house, chronicled him carrying a bucket down the hill to gather water in the creek in a series of photos. He would have been 72 at the time.
1971, Iowa, no running water in their house and I never heard them complain about it, but I imagine they did on days like this.
One of the neighbors thought I was crazy for working on the deck during the past couple of weekends of mid-twenties. Since I can't stand on the pond in the summer, this time of year is my only opportunity.
I think of my grandparents and their situation 40 years ago, and I think I can handle carrying 2x6s up the hill to the pond. Grandpa had a much steeper hill to carry his load.
Iowa winters are killers. Dad lined the inside of our outhouse with feed sacks and put straw bales around the outside of it. He ran a wire out to it, and we would plug it in before we went out to run an electric heater on cold days. Water for the cows and pigs had to be thawed every day during cold snaps. We had a wood-fired tank heater for the milk cow. Dad lost all of his baby pigs to cold one winter. I don't know how we survived.
ReplyDeleteIt makes one appreciate what we have now, doesn't it? And we are better prepared if society goes belly up.
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