[Granville-Hough] 12 Jul 2009 - Sunday

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:43:19 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Sunday - 12 Jul 2009

Somebody Might Come (AKA Sunday, Day of Rest and Planning).

To explain life on a subsistence farm before the days of running water, 
telephones, and electricity requires the reader to exercise some 
imagination. I suppose there are still parts of Alaska and Canada where 
life might be just as basic, but I doubt one could have experiences with 
cattle and mules like we had. To understand how we lived, I will start 
with Sunday, as we did no ôworkö on Sunday. I guess it would have been 
the same for any farm family in or near SullivanÆs Hollow.
We got up at daylight, year round, hearing the sound of the coffee 
grinder reverberating through the wall of the entire house, while my 
father ground a portion of coffee beans for breakfast. (We, as children 
were not allowed coffee; and as a consequence, none of us ever became 
addicted to it.) We got dressed and ate breakfast (big ôboyö biscuits, 
molasses, butter, refried cornbread, a glass of milk, and eggs.) Adults 
had fat bacon, but I never cared for it.
Then we went to the barnyard (the ôlotö) and let the mules out of their 
stables and watered them, then shooed them down the stock lane to 
pasture. By being first, they would not harass the milk cows. We then 
milked the three or four cows we normally had freshened. While milking, 
we gave them some hay or shucks to keep their mind occupied. We got each 
calf on a rope to suckle until the cow let down her milk, then tied the 
calf near the cow until we finished milking three teats. Then we let the 
calf finish the fourth teat. With the cows milked we herded the calves 
and smaller stock to the calf pasture across the road, then sent the 
cows down the lane to the main pasture, following the mules. On the way 
to the barnyard, we had opened the Chicken house door so the barnyard 
chickens (mostly mature and setting hens) could spread out and do their 
work. With the barnyard empty, we could clean the lot (remove all piles 
of cow manure out in the open so they could be saved for fertilizer.) By 
the time we got back into the house with the milk, my mother would have 
cleaned up breakfast and put all the slop into buckets, which we took to 
feed the hogs. She would also have fed the cats, and opened the second 
chicken house door to let out the main chicken flock. Of course, we had 
to do the same things every day in the week, except sending the mules to 
pasture. It had to be done by school bus time, generally by 0730, during 
the school year.
Then it was weekly bath time for the younger children. As we got older, 
we took cold baths at night, but we certainly on Sunday got a big bucket 
of water and went to some secluded shed and took a bath, frequently the 
woodshed next to the smokehouse. There we could splash at will. You took 
a bath, because, who knows, Somebody Might Come!! By 0900 we were ready 
for company, dressed in clean Sunday clothes, or ready to go to Sunday 
School. It was 2 and » miles to Concord Baptist Church, and we could 
find enough interesting things along the way to make it an hourÆs walk. 
When Sunday School was over at 1130, we would get home in time for 
Sunday dinner about 1230. Indeed, when we got home there might be 
visitors, Grandpa and Grandma Richardson, or some more remote family member.
The main meal of the day was dinner. My mother as well as Grandma 
Richardson, cooked only twice daily, breakfast and dinner. At night, we 
had a cold supper, from the remainder of the midday cooking. (Other 
people did not do it this way, but I never had either a hot or heavy 
supper until I left home.)
As soon as I learned to plow and plant, I joined with adults in ôwalking 
the crops.ö On Sunday afternoon, you walked all about, looking at each 
crop and talking about what had to be done. Soon I learned exactly how 
many rows or acres I could plow with each implement. Some forms of 
cultivation required two trips per row, one on each side of the crop, 
and others only one trip. So on Sunday afternoon you did a basic time 
and motion study, determining just how long it was going to take you and 
your mule to do what had to be done. By the end of Sunday, you had the 
next week mapped out, day by day, field by field, with priorities to 
more needy crops.
Visitors left later in the afternoon, and the cows, mules, calves, and 
chickens began to let us know they were ready for milking, feeding, and 
bedding down safely. Hogs did not make much fuss on Sundays. They seemed 
to know it was their good day. So we let the mules in the lot first, got 
them watered, and they each went into and inspected their own stable. We 
counted out the ears of corn each got, and shucked the corn and put it 
into their trough. The hay we placed alongside. When each mule turned to 
begin eating we closed their doors, and brought in the milk cows and 
calves. We went through the process as in the morning of milking. Then 
we had to separate the cows and calves for the night. (On summer nights 
we just put them out in our cattle lane, knowing they would not go far 
from their motherÆs lowing. In winter we put them in a separate stable.) 
We then could get ready for supper. Someone would have been designated 
earlier to churn the buttermilk. So we would have fresh buttermilk, 
butter, cornbread, and whatever remained from dinner. That made 
interesting combinations, because we never knew how much of what would 
be left.
So a successful Sunday meant all your animals were satisfied, you met 
your friends at Sunday School, you had good visits from relatives, you 
had full stomachs, you had on clean clothes, and you knew exactly what 
you wanted to do, first thing Monday morning. Only God could intervene, 
which he frequently did with unscheduled rain, accidents, or sickness. 
So we had to be flexible. There was another long list we had in mind 
which might be named: ôWhat we need to do next time itÆs too wet to 
plow.ö Weekdays: coming soon.