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woodpile

Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 43)

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The chicken yard was on the south side of the yard, also the woodpile and chopping block (used to chop wood and chicken’s heads off).  We would gather kindling, and carry in split wood with the red wagon.  Daddy would split the wood just the right size to fit in the wood burning kitchen stove.

The west pasture land was full of rocks and goat weeds.  We had to help pick up rocks for days and put them in piles.  The goat weeds were terrible and we had to pull them for days and days.  One day we were pulling and Lolly felt dizzy so she got to stop.  It was very hot and she may have had too much sun.  Another time in that field, she got bitten by a scorpion.  It was under some rocks and boards that she was working around.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 38)

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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.