I was raised on a dairy farm in upsate NY, 150 miles from the GW bridge. We didn't have electricty until 1954, we lived under lamp light. Our dog churned our butter, we did the farm work with horses. and milked our cows with a brigs and straton 5 horse power engine on a vac pump.
Mom heated her "Flat" on the kitchen stove, mixed her cakes in a bowl with a wooden spoon, collected the eggs in the chicken house, we heated the 14 room house with wood, both by the home comfort range in the kitchen and a pot bellied stove in the pilor.
I had a nickle a week allowance, which I always spent by placing it in the slot in the ice chest at the general store, that had a glass bottle with the orange crush in it, which I had to slide along the slot in which it hung, until it was relieced by a gate which was freed by the nickle.
I learned to drive by driving an army surplus jeep raking hay. I learned to fly in a army surplus J-3, and my first car was a 1930 Model "A" Ford coupe. I traded my 4H heffer for.
During grade school I walked down to the river road (2.5 miles)and went to school in a 1 room rural school with 1 teacher and 14 farm kids. And I still know them and see them every time I'm home.
Our entertainment was the big wooden cabinet radio, that had antenna on the roof, and a speaker the size of a wash tub. and a battery that was a glass box with the lead plates which was charged by a wind generator on the roof, we huddled around it listening to WDLA during the day, WGY at night. My daughter has the old radio still and it works.
Barb's and my favorite mag is now the "Country" which is all about farm folks. and great pictures of OUR country.
Ah, the good old days, lots of hard work by hand, and yes I do know what a sythe is and how to use it, my job each summer until I left home was to cut brush along the rock walls on all the hay fields, and that was where the rattlesnakes liked to sun themselves, and I was bitten 3 times in 2 summers.
Yikes.
