Strut has turned out to be a wonderful rooster, very much in the tradition of Winston the First, the first Bedlam Farm rooster and a gentleman. I think of Strut as the new man. He is vain, but generally courteous to the ladies, escorting them in and around the farm, in and out of the coop. He loves the camera, as a good rooster should, is easy with people and doesn’t ever crow before 7 a.m., a wonderful trait in a rooster. I see him as the new man.
The life of children was so different when Florence Walrath was very young. Children explored the world in a way that seems unimaginable now, learning the lessons of life, sometimes the hard way. They rode horses, swam in ponds, fell into wells, were bitten by dogs, sucked under by currents, struck down by colds, appendicitis and head injuries. Perhaps their lives were not as safe, but so much freer. Their days were bounded by family, work and adventure, and always, the hard lessons of independence and responsibility. On page 3, Florence writes of her admiration and awe for her mother. At a very early age, Florence learned to appreciate the hard life of her mother, the miraculous way she took care of her family. These sentiments are not often heard today, when children are warned about life and protected from it but rarely given the chance to live it.
“Mother always managed to feed us well with home-made butter, pies, cakes and as many as fifteen loaves of bread in a week. We had a garden with all sorts of vegetables. We raised our own meat, beef, pork and chickens, being near the lake, we had fresh fish once we go old enough to fish. With no freezers back then, there was the task of canning hundreds of quarts of meat and vegetables. We also picked all kinds of berries for jellies and jams. Apples were on the the farm, along with all this, Mother made our dresses and coats. She papered and painted the large house besides helping Dad on the farm.
I remember her taking a lunch and going to the field to dig potatoes all day or other days, cut and husk corn all day. She always had a helping hand for all of the neighbors. I’ll never know how she did all she did.
Outside of having all the children diseases, we were four growing children with energy enough for a dozen. We were into everything from tight rope walking to walking the ridge of he barns. One day we were playing in the barn. I was running along the old mow over the sheep when I fell head first into a hole, one of the kids caught my feet and held me there, down below was a ugly ram looking at me. They ran to get Mother who came to my rescue.”
The lakes were something we all loved, but could not go near unless Dad or Mother was with us. They could not swim very good so really would not have been very much help to us. We found a brook over the hill from the house and at once put to work building a dam of sod, we dug along the banks. We all learned to swim on that pond. Fayette nearly drown one day. He thought how nice to learn to swim on my or his back, he forgot the current would carry him to the deep end, down he went and could not touch. We grabbed each others hands making a chain and Ralph went out and pulled a sputtering Fay in.”
Florence may not have known it, but reading her journals, it is clear how much like her Mother she grew up to be. Again and again, reading Florence’s journal, I wondered how could she possibly could have done all that she did? Thanks again to Jane Keyes, Florence’s good friend, for bringing me these journals. I hope to arrange a reading from in the near future at the Battenkill Bookstore.
Next: A lot of near tragedies.
Chickens are always doing a ballet, it seems to me, dancing and pecking and cleaning and alert, for the sound and movement of any food.
