Been thinking back lately, to when I was a tot, three or four years old. My grandparents lived on a farm in Shelby, Nebraska, and I was lucky enough to spend my summers at that idyllic place.
Waking up in the morning meant hearing the roosters crowing and the windmill clanking, plus the soft noises of all the other farm animals waking up.
The house was a simple, square two story place, downstairs were two rooms, a long kitchen with a very long farm table and a parlor. Upstairs were two bedrooms. The kitchen had only Hoosier style cabinets for storage, and I can't remember if there was a pump on a counter for water, but it seems like that was the case. Grandma taught me to make cookies, biscuits, cakes, and cook most everything she did. The long table was because they fed the crews that helped with planting and harvesting. Neighbors made the rounds an d helped each other out during those times. That was when we spent the day cooking so as to feed all the many extras. The second downstairs room was a parlor, we didn't spend much time there so I have no good picture of that room. Except for the table with the family Bible on it.
The bedrooms were just that, a bed and a dresser. and under the bed a chamber pot. Oh yes, no plumbing, no electricity, just lanterns and an outhouse down the yard a ways. That part was not a good memory, there were always snakes in the bottom of the "holes", and old catalogs were not comfy toilet paper.
Grandad was up at dawn and out doing the chores, and if it was the time, working the fields. He plowed with two horses and a walk behind affair that dug the furrows. It was many days work to prepare all the acres. He also spread manure from the barn, that he raked up over the winter and saved. Once every seven years, each field laid fallow, to regenerate.
In the spring, the place was alive with new life, one day Gramps called me out to the yard and showed me new baby chicks. He asked me to hold out my hand, and he sat a tiny yellow fluff ball on it. It was soft and cute, but then it did it's thing on my hand and after that I was not a big fan of chicks.
My favorite of all the babies were the many kittens. I used to sit on the wooden sidewalk in front of the house with lapful of tiny baby kitties, loving every one of them. Gramp had a favorite he called a Maltese. Haven't heard of them in years but it seems they were kind of grey.
The old windmill turned and pumped a tank of water for the livestock to drink. In the tank were huge gold fish, Gramp called them carp, they were pretty and flashed in the sunlight. Always wondered how the critters could drink that water, but they didn't seem to mind.
When the work of the day was done we sat on the front porch and rocked til dark, then went to bed. The things I learned there were a shaping part of my life. I actually won a first place ribbon for muffins one year at a school contest, using the recipe and method Gram taught me. The recipes were simple but very good.
Living with wood burning stoves, kerosene lamps, no running water or plumbing never seemed to be a problem, and at the end of each day was a feeling of accomplishment, for all the tasks that had been done. No problems sleeping, you were tired, but a good tired. No one ever seemed to be sick or complain of aches and pains, it was a good way of life. And somehow, gas prices, earthquakes, wars and all the things that are part of our daily lives now never entered the picture, of course with no electricity we didn't even have a radio, so news was not a part of life. Maybe thats a good thing. We relied on each other and our faith in God to make life what it was. How nice it would be if a little of that peace could be found today.
I hope Gram and Gramp are rocking in chairs somewhere in heaven and that one day we will b together again.
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