I’m thrilled you are enjoying excerpts from a small type written “book” from James E. Greet, who was one of Johnny’s brothers. Let’s continue!
“Dad spaded up a garden spot about twenty foot square just behind the cabin for mom. Dad built a stockade type of fence around it from native material.
Mom’s folks came by, one day, and her father dug a little ditch to take water from the small brook that ran past the cabin to irrigate the garden. Mom planted peas, lettuce, radishes, and such that would mature in a short time.
Dad brought up two milk cows from the ranch, so we could have milk and cream and cottage cheese. To make it more like home, dad put up our wall tent just across the brook, and put our small flock of chickens in there, so mom would have fresh eggs to use and also a young fryer now and then.
We enjoyed all the extras that we had, although we didn’t have any modern conveniences. Of course, mom had a wash board to do the family washing on, along with a couple of tubs and a boiler.
She didn’t need to be concerned about a physical fitness program, or reducing diets, or how to get a good night’s sleep!
I remember that mom had some duck eggs that she put under an old setting hen. In due time, the old hen was a proud mother of her little family. All went well until she took them down by the little brook. All her babies took to the water with great delight. Poor mother hen! She couldn’t understand why her babies wanted to play in the water. She had to coax and coax them to get out of the water, an event that was to be repeated over and over until mother hen got used to it and she kept her feet dry.
When dad unharnessed the team at the end of the day, he used one of the protruding logs at the corner of the cabin to hang the harness on. Along in the night, dad heard a noise where the harness was, and he jumped out of bed in a hurry. He grabbed his shovel on the way. He knocked a porcupine off the harness and ran him off. The next morning, mom took us kids out and showed us all the quills that the porcupine left when he fell to the ground. We all laughed to think dad had done this in just his nightshirt, and barefooted. Porcupines are noted for chewing the breeching out of a harness for the salty taste.
All in all, I thought the whole summer was a real adventure, and I fell in love with the mountain life.”
I’ve been reading these stories to Perry and he said his mom, his Aunt Hester, and Uncle Dutch Mills all went to the little school with James, Johnny, and maybe George.
You are lucky to have such a diary, and we e are lucky to read it!
The porcupine story, and one about the hen who tried to teach her adopted baby ducks how to be “chicks” was really entertaining. Thanks.
These are so wonderful. I’m speechless trying to decide which one I like best. Good thing the porcupine left quills in the ground and not in Pa!
James is such a good storyteller!
Thanks, Carol. These are wonderful. Hope Mom lived through the summer!
Definitely no physical fitness program for Mom! The old euphemism, “A man he works till set of sun, but a woman’s work is never done!” surely did ring true for women in those times………and sometimes in these modern times .
Haha! I had to laugh about his dad going out to shoo off the porcupine!!who would’ve known they like salt from the leather?
Thanks Carol! What a life!
Absolutely LOVE these ‘old’ stories.