A Smelly Exercise - Cow Patties

Identify several smells that bring back memories. Since I am working on my grandparents, I am going to list several smells. Of course, the main one is . . .

1. the woodstove. I wrote about it for the taste exercise

2. fresh manure. I still smell that occasionally when I go to the farm

That's about it for now. Nothing else stands out, although there must have been foods, and the smell of warm milk and the cows.

I guess it will be

Cow Patties

It permeates the landscape, at least as far as the bottom of the hill. Processing cow dung for fertilizer is a way to reuse and recycle. I don't know how healthy it is, after all I hear about methane, but it sure made the vegetables grow in our garden. Nowadays, the barn is history, but the smell lives on in my memory, revived occasionally when our neighbours up on the hill do something with it. I'm not quite sure how it's done, although I seem to recollect a machine at the farm which was used. Perhaps I have blocked that memory. It's not a lovely subject, is it? But, truth be told, it's not a smell that I find offensive. It's a good, clean, smell to me. Mind you, I generally stepped around the patties in the field, but the odd crumbs that landed on my sneakers were rather gross. The cattle in the modern farm up on the hill never leave the barn or their paddocks, so the manure is contained. Being the clean, sanitary barn that it is, and being that they give tours of the milk room and host community games night, it is imperative that it is cleaned up. All of the people around are accustomed to the odour, and I suppose are rather nose-blind.

It's a smell I often smell as I step outside my air-conditioned car and make my way through the hay field that used to be a dirt driveway and manicured lawn. I know I have arrived. I am in the present and in the past. I am walking with my Dad (1922 - 2005) into the barn which housed the cattle stalls, watching him shovel cattle dung into a wheelbarrow. Sometimes he even put it in a box and brought it home in the car with him, to add to his garden. After all, it's only recycled grass and hay, for that's all the cows eat. It's a natural process; we are just used to wiping and flushing. But . . . I remember the outhouse. It did not have the good, clean smell of the cattle manure. It was a quick fix for a little girl who was to busy to go into the farmhouse and up the stairs.

This is a free write; it's rather "crappy" writing.

FYI - the smell that I now smell comes from close to where I am standing and looking down the hill at our farm, in my blog header photo. Well, it used to be a farm. It is to be cremated this spring. My heart breaks.

A TASTY EXERCISE

We are to describe a taste. We are to sit down with our ancestors to a meal. I did not sit down with my grandparents for many meals.  We children sat in the dining room , which I never saw used as a dining room except for the kids, at TV trays, watching Bugs Bunny. Often it was macaroni and tomatoes, which my family called "chop suey." Or baked beans. Always bread made in the wood stove. But there is one meal that stood out. My mother has argued with me in the past: oatmeal porridge tastes no different when cooked on a wood stove than on a regular stove. I beg to differ.

Gram's Oatmeal Porridge

I wonder if Mum thought I was daft. "Mom, Grammy's oatmeal tastes so much better because she cooks it on the wood stove." Mum told me there was no difference in the taste. I know there was. Now, in 2017, after watching commercials for a spray smell product, I know she was "taste blind." She grew up in that little farmhouse. Oatmeal porridge was just oatmeal porridge. Same, lumpy brown stuff as the oatmeal porridge a la hurry and eat it or you'll be late to school oatmeal porridge, or I couldn't think of anything else to make for supper oatmeal porridge - her oatmeal porridge specialties.

I grant her this: oatmeal porridge a la wood stove needs just as much brown sugar to make it palatable as does her two kinds of oatmeal porridge. Otherwise, it is just a bland, yucky, full of fibre mess. But Gram's oatmeal porridge, cooked on top of a hot morning fire, just tasted better. I'm sure it had a woody taste to it. I'd swear on the wonderful memories of that kitchen that it did. And, my cousin Bob agrees with me. And he knows, for he spent ten years of his life there, and he didn't go taste blind. Me, I was a weekend visitor with the folks and a one week a summer with my cousin Sue at the farm, girl. The thing about Sue was, she always got homesick. So, a day or two after her arrival, my uncle came up to get her and take her home. It was just me, Gramp, and Gram.

And the rooster. "Cock-a-doodle-doo," he called me when the sun peeked over the Graves Settlement Road. Here I was, lying on top of a feather tick, underneath a quilt made with the remnants of my ancestors clothes turned into rags, and over all, a tin roof: warm and cozy. But I could smell the wood stove, and I knew what was bubbling on top of that fire. I shivered out of my bed and carefully navigated my way down the teeny tiny steps and into my grandmother's kitchen. You want to know what made that porridge taste so good? It was having my grandmother all to myself porridge. It was being in my favourite spot in the whole world porridge. It was the anticipation of "helping" my Gramp with his chores and the animals afterwards porridge.

But most of all, the wood smoked oatmeal porridge tasted like wood smoke, and that's the smell of my grandparents.

Overcome

Starting over with my grandfather, Floyd O Holmes

First a little mulling. I don't think it's so prevalent now, but back in the day, parents often decided upon the career path of their children. I think of so many classical composers, whose fathers were dead set against them choosing the musical field. How awful it would be if they had settled upon the careers their father's chose for them. All that music that we enjoy, stifled and non-existant. But, I think, some of them paid dearly; both financially and in family relations, for sticking to their guns. So many had to take over the family business, or be punished in some way or other.

What obstacle did Floyd Orren Holmes have to overcome?

What did Floyd want to do with his life? What did he want to be? Mom thinks, a soldier. He so enjoyed his time in the army. That may be because he joined in May of 1918. Six months before the war ended, and he stayed in England. Could have been worse. My cousin thinks he would have loved to work in his saw mill. He loved the woods. What did he not want to be? A farmer. "Stupid beasts, cows," he thought. He did not act upon his thoughts; he treated his cows well. Just so you know. Except for one, but that was a poor aim.

On with the rough draft - that was the preliminary.

Charles, his father, sat Floyd down for a man to man chat: a very important talk. A command, actually. It had to do with his not getting any younger, and the fact that all the sons and sons in law left the area, and Floyd was the only man left, and someone had to take over the farm. Floyd knew farming well, he'd been doing farm chores for twenty years . He knew how to milk a cow and keep the milk sterile and send it along to the dairy for processing. He could reach under the hen and collect her eggs. He could help a cow or horse birth a calf or colt. He could harness the team and lead them where he needed to go. He could split a log and maintain the tools and vehicles necessary to run a farm.  It seemed only natural, since he was given the house, that he should take over the farm. But, Floyd hated the life of a farmer. Up early every morning of every day of every week of every month of every year, for the roosters crowed early from their perch to greet each day; the cows mooed from the barn to be milked;  the horses neighed to be let out in the pasture where the green grass grew.

He'd enjoyed his time with the military. He had no trouble, as a private, taking commands and doing what he was ordered to do. He enjoyed taking apart and putting together his rifle and shining his bayonet. He didn't mind taking a shot with it every now and then, although he preferred a ringed, bulls eye paper target to a live one. However, the war was over, his new bride awaited him, and his father needed help on the farm. He left that dream behind and came back home to Hillgrove.

The brook wended it's way from Anagance to the North River, where they amalgamated and gurgled off to join the Petitcodiac, passing right through the community of Hillgrove. Cows fed and milked and equipment tended to, off  Floyd would go, hiking about a mile up the Salt Springs Brook where his saw mill stood. From his pile of logs he picked out a long, straight one that he'd chopped a few days before, over the hill, and started sawing it into long boards to sell. How he loved the woods, and the grains of the wood, and the feel of the wood as he sawed it into pieces.

His train of thought, though, was not on his boards. It was his father's proclamation. "You have to take over the farm, Floyd. There's no one else." Floyd was a good son, an obedient son. He saw no way out of this predicament. There was nothing else for him to do but to become a farmer.

The busy little saw mill, like any other wooden structure left to it's own devices, began to deteriorate.  The roof sagged where once it proudly sheltered the walls below. Windows shattered in the cold winds that blew over the fields. Mould grew in the corners. Saws rusted. Walls imploded and fell into a heap. Alders grew in the  crannies. Finally, only the basement was of any purpose. It held the walls and dreams of a young man down the Cornhill Road, who did what he had to do.

Car Keys in my Story Box

I don't even have a photo of my first car, let alone the keys to it. The keys in the box are the keys to the zoom zoom I drive now. My little Mazda is a great source of frustration for me. Oh, no, not the car itself. It just fits Mom and I, and it took Cindy and I on a little jaunt last fall over to Maine, very comfortably. It's the dealers that drive me crazy. Crazy enough that I might sell my little silver lady.

Today, I will tell you about my first car. And, if you wish, you can tell me about your first car. I don't remember the cars in between, particularly, except the white Saturn that I smashed in a snow storm. It wasn't my fault, honest. The driver of the other car admitted that right off. I thought you weren't supposed to do that. Mind you, it would have been pretty obvious, had we left our cars in the accident position, but due to the whiteout conditions, we figured it would be best to move our cars off the road while we waited for a long twenty minutes for the police to arrive. We were both uninjured, but I know what a sore neck feels like. I liked that car. She was toast. But that's not today's story.

My first car was a Chevy Nova. Here's the thing. Cars, for me, should be functional and comfortable, and never stall in intersections like my Dad's white Chev Impala always did. I have a love hate relationship with new cars and their sensors. If the Impala had a sensor, I'm sure it would have lit up permanently. Oh yes, the Chevy Nova. I think it was a light green. I don't care what colour a car is, as long as it doesn't stall in intersections. But my Chevy Nova reminded me of it's cousin, a souped-up royal blue Nova with a handsome, ever-so-slightly scruffy blonde-haired driver about the same age as me, with a muffler that he could make loud or soft. I'd know it was coming down the street from way up the other end of Wellington, but to please the parents, it would purr into the driveway. Now, this was not the kind of feller that my folks generally took to, and it displeased them immensely that he did not get out of Nova Blue and push the doorbell to announce he was here to take me for a drive. I was so surprised that they didn't object to my getting into that car. I think they knew, somehow, that the relationship would go nowhere. And so did I. He had a childhood sweetheart; I knew about her. He married her and they are, last I heard, still together. I digress . . .

My Uncle Ralph worked for General Motors. He was always on the lookout for demos for folks, and he knew I was looking for a car. So when the salesmen drove the limit of miles on this green Nova (was it green? I am scratching my head), Uncle Ralph gave me a call. Would I like to take a test drive? You betcha, but I didn't even have my licence yet. Bought the car and couldn't drive it. I took my drivers test in it and passed; not the first time, as I recall. Paul and Bill went driving with me. I remember those three point turns with Paul. Just get out of one and he'd make me do another. I can still do a three-point turn, but I'll walk a kilometre rather than parallel park. Last time I parallel parked was the day I took my drivers test. That is Paul, below, and Impala when she kicked up her heels like the young filly she was. No stalling in those days.

I got my first loan at the bank where I worked, for about $4000, with an employee discount on the interest. Rates were high back in the day. Nova served me well for several years, but not long enough to put a baby seat in it. He never stalled in intersections.  I did not inflict any great damage to him, nor did anyone else. I don't remember who I replaced him with.

You never forget your first, do you?

Doll Clothes in my Story Box

My friend, Susan, put this idea in my mind when she shared a photo of her old cardboard suitcase. I had a similar suitcase, and so did my sister, when we were young, and we kept our doll clothes in them. I threw mine in, willy nilly, but for my photographic purposes today, I folded them all neatly. Elspeth shared an old suitcase, too. It was lined with beautiful paper or fabric, and held papers and photos of a previous generation. They don't make'em like they used to. Thank you for your memories. And I loved your suggestions of what my box might have contained: the silver, or the egg money. Who knows?

In my story box today, I put doll clothes. I have shared many doll stories, but probably not dolly's clothes. So, into my box I put samples. I loved my dolls. My girls, not so much, although Erin, inspired by a baby-sitter who was a porcelain doll and cabbage patch doll collector, liked her porcelain dolls.

Mom sewed doll clothes whenever we girls got a new doll for Christmas - we being me, my sister, Pat, and my cousins, Susan and Cindy. She used scraps of clothing from the clothes she made for us. A piece of clothing had to be in sorry shape before it went out into the trash. But, I digress. That is for another day.

Oh, the fun we had, mothering our "babies" and changing their clothes. Pretending. Do children pretend any more? Mine did for sure. And I did.

So, what apparel did I put into my story box today? I chose:

Two blue dresses of different sizes, made by Mom. There were big dolls and small dolls and in-between dolls. I loved them all.

A pretty dress made by Julie when she took sewing lessons.

A green sweater knit by me. I knit several doll outfits, as did Mom. Mom knit Barbie clothes as well.

A blue striped shirt. We three (Paul, Pat and I) had these blue striped shirts and shorts sets, as I recall, and there was enough left over for Mom to make a doll shirt to match.

A short nightie that I don't recognize or remember. It's made of flannel, as many of them are, and it's in the same vein as the baby nighties that Mom made for newborns, reminiscent of her mother before. She always embroidered along the neck. Many people made them longer, but she liked them short for ease in changing nappies.

A blue bunting bag,  a big pink nightie, and a pink with kitties on it nightie with a ruffle, made by Mom.

A sheet and quilt made by Grammy Vasseur for the doll bed that Uncle Rene made.

Did your dolly have clothes?

What will I put in my story box next?

My Story Box

I found an old box in the other house at the farm. It was dirty and gross and the top was all bubbly, and not in a nice way. I brought it home anyway, and took the vacuum to it. The main thing to do, initially, was to rid it of cobwebs and the wallpaper that lined it. Literally, and figuratively. What did it hold initially? There was nothing in it, so I don't know. Who made it? The tinker, Uncle Billy? Perhaps.

My mother sent it off to be refinished, and it returned as a clean, lovely, shiny box, much like it must have looked when somebody made it. She wanted to have it for Christmas, so she could put some little things in it. Her wish didn't come true, as it came back in the new year. I'm sorry she was disappointed - not because I didn't get the little things in it, but because she couldn't put them in it.

She asked me what I am going to put in my box. I thought, perhaps, my crochet threads. But, no. I have a place for them. I thought of it last night. I get a lot of ideas on my pillow. Even though I have a new pillow, I still get the ideas, so it can't be the pillow, but the placing of my head thereon.

It is a story box. I will tell stories inspired by my box. I will encourage others to tell stories. Sometimes it just takes a little story to make somebody think of their story. But, mostly, I will think of it as my story box, so I won't be disappointed when nobody else puts a story in it.

What did I put in my box this morning? Stories. Other peoples stories. Some of my favourites, representing my family. I could do a lot with books, and I will, but for today, I'll just tell what stories I put in it and why.

In the back is Pookie. Aunt Phyl sent me this book when I was a little girl. Probably it had my cousins' names on the tag, but I know who really bought it, as they were as young as I was and younger. It's about a rabbit with wings, and a heart which breaks in two, but Belinda mends it with love and her work basket. 

Then there is "The Silver Chalice." A good read. There weren't many books in the Vasseur family, but I nabbed this one from the bookshelf in the den in the house in Grand Falls. 

Next, in red, is a "Happy Hollisters" mystery. Those Hollister kids bravely solved many mysteries with no help from adults, and entertained me for hours.

 "Rose Under Fire" comes next. That is the last book I read. Was it a good read? Yes. Was it a happy read? No. Did it have a happy ending? How could it?

"Anne of Green Gables." Love the Anne girl and her many books. But her journals - five edited books of them. Oh, how sad.

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." That came from my Moore grandparents bookshelf, which I have, and has Gramp's autograph on the fly leaf. A good old read. And many memories of that book shelf, and Gram scoffing, "those books are too old for you." I wasn't reading them. I was the LIBRARIAN. 

"Wee Sir Gibbie." My favourite author, George MacDonald. I have a large collection of these leather books on my bookshelf in my bedroom. They were generally scanned from the originals, and include many paragraphs in the Scots, which I have learned to read considerably well. They make a very handsome shelf, as well.

"Keeper of the bees." Gene Stratton Porter, a naturalist from another era, and a writer of novels about same. I have many of her books. 

"Kazam." From the farm, with Gramp Holmes "Floyd" written in the fly leaf. A good book about wolves.

"Heidi." Such a beautiful book.

You can hardly see it, but "Cinderella" comes next; a very old Cinderella. It was in the desk in the kitchen at the farm. Along with other children's books.

The little turquoise book is my grandmother Holmes one year diary. Those who knew her get a chuckle from this diary. "No visitors today. Cindy and Greg were here." Bless them and those who visited often enough that they were not company.

Next is my Grandmother Moore's date book, with 1907 written on the front. In it are mostly birthdays and a few deaths.

Last is my Grandfather Holmes's New Testament. Inside it says, "Presented by the Canadian Bible Society (British & Foreign Bible Society) to the Canadian Soldiers in the war of 1914. 'Be strong and of a good courage.'" Gramp wrote on the next page, "Pt Floyd O Holmes. 1st Depot. Battalion. 10 Platoon. Camp. Sussex."

I could have added many more, but my box was full.

I think I will have fun with my box. Join me if you wish. What will I put in it next?

"If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief." - Franz Kafka

Shaky Leaves

Freewrite - May 6, 2015

Having very little to go on in the relationship between 1. Isaac Holmes and 2. Nathaniel Holmes and 3. Samuel Holmes Sr, I thought of an idea. Whether it will bear any fruit or not, I do not know.

We tie these three men together with the 1760 Muster Roll of New York Volunteers for the Seven Years War. Nathaniel (son of Isaac, proven) of Bedford (yes) appears on the Muster Roll with Samuel. N is 37; S is 16. Both are from Bedford. This is the only link we have. Its not a whole lot of proof.

My idea is this. I have a list of men who were mustered from March to May, 1760, with William Gillchrist as their Captain. I will enter each man in ancestry, see if they have a shaky leaf, and see if any who do have a story as to what happened to them.

I would really like to know what their company accomplished, if anything, but google is barren on Captain William Gillchrist.

Let us see. I shall try to remember to report back.

Reporting back: I have been working on the list. It's not as helpful as I hoped. In fact, my only hope is to keep on going.