One summer while the older family members were making hay with the team of horses and wagon, when Naomi and I were little, we got the bright idea of hauling in our own load of hay. We filled our Radio Flyer wagon with hay, stomped it down, and hitched our dog “Bertie” to the wagon. That dog would not help us. She just laid down. Well that was another big disappointment in our life. We had to pull the wagon ourselves.
wagon
Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 38)
Now we come to the most important structure on the farm. The outhouse. A wonder of wonders. Stocked well with supplies of JC Penny and Sears Catalogues, the softest paper you could get on the farm! You may get locked in by a sibling who had it in for you. You may wish to tease city kids or nieces and nephews and lock them in for a good scare. You might wish for indoor plumbing when it is 20 below and you have to GO or when wasps, snakes and spiders visit your outhouse. You always look into the hole before you go to make sure old sneaky-snake is not there. You end up simply being glad you had the experience of an outhouse! In our community very few farm homes had indoor plumbing. We got our indoor bathroom shortly after I graduated from high school.
We had a huge woodpile south of the yard fence. We would fill the Radio Flyer wagon with wood and bring it in to the kitchen or stack it on the back porch. We also had to find wood chips for kindling. This was one of our chores as children growing up on the farm.