Fall farm work continues at a field in Elburn.
Has anyone seen the PBS "House" series? The one entitled Pioneer House (or was it Prairie House) was quite interesting. The men really loved the physical outdoor work of farming. One woman claimed that her husband had literally become a one-man firewood chopping machine.
The women were all in agreement that their lives as pioneer farm women were lonely and the daily work was drudgery. They longed to be in the outdoors with the men and children.
I remember my aunt's tasks on the family farm in the Florida panhandle. My uncle milked the cow and she churned butter in a large glass jar with wooden paddles. After they butchered a hog she cured the meat and each morning sliced some bacon off a large slab. She also cooked an ENORMOUS midday meals for the farmhands. The table was covered with home cooked snap beans, meat, potatoes, squash and homemade biscuits.
4 comments:
I think the ladies in the TV show were lonely because they were used to a high level of interaction in today's society. I remember my mom spending hours upon hours in the home in addition to working out in the yard and corrals with my dad and we kids. She never seemed lonely nor complained about it, it was her life and she loved it. She loved fixing those big meals, growing the vegetables, canning all the foods. She was just a ranch wife. She did what she needed to indoors but never failed to get outside each day, if only to accompany we kids on our chores and to sit and talk and laugh in the 4-H calf pen. In many ways I envy the simplicity of her life, something I don't have in this time or location.
It almost looks like the man in the photo has really long legs.
Long line of wood cutters and farm life on my mother's side o' the family. A friend of mine since high school runs the dairy barn and farm at the local state farm for the developmentally delayed/ MR adults. On occasion I accompany him to a dairy related farm meeting dinner often held at Grange Halls. I enjoy it and feel somewhat reconnected to my roots. Farm works is hard work and I think a man (and his family) is better for it. I'm going to link to your blog. Thanks..
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