The Iceman and Penny Candy

Long before the appearance of the shiny, large, stainless steel refrigerator that is in most kitchens

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these days, the best and most modern method of storing food in cold storage was the ice-box.
The ice box was just that.... an insulated metal or wooden box with a metal lining.  Looking much like a small cabinet, there were usually two compartments.  One held a small shelf for storing milk and butter, etc.  And either above or below, another compartment, or drawer, for holding a large block of ice.  The ice block would last for days and keep the stored food from spoiling.
 
When I was a child my brother and sister and I would sit outside on the porch

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steps waiting for the ice-man.  Once a week Johnny, the ice-man's 16 year old son, would be seen driving the old ice truck.  The back of the truck was similar to today's delivery trucks but with a wooden floor and wooden side rails.  Straw was spread on the floor, and huge blocks of ice were tightly stacked.  The large, ice tongs were suspended on a nail on one of the side rails until they were needed for loading and unloading, or rearranging the cold blocks.

Johnny carried an ice pick which he would use to chip off chunks of ice to give to us.  There was something really special about watching him chip away those bits, which seemed to us to be so large as to take both hands to hold.  As soon as we had our icicle it would begin to melt in the summer heat, and the ice would become clear as glass as the frigid water dripped down our hands, and along our arms until it finally broke loose and dropped to the ground, and disappearing.

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In those days ice wasn't made in a building using large freezers.  It was collected from the frozen reservoir during the winter months when the water had frozen forming an ice layer at least two feet
thick.  Then the work crews, with horse drawn wagons and long toothed saws would go out onto the frozen surface and begin cutting the ice into large blocks.  Just as they did at the beginning of the movie "Frozen", only these men didn't sing while they worked.  Cutting ice was a dangerous job and without the warm clothing we now have, it was also a very cold job.

I remember my grandmother telling me about the time one of the ice wagons had backed down to near the water's edge and the horses could not pull it back to safety. The wagon rolled into the freezing water, pulling the team of horses with it.  The men could not save those poor horses.
By the mid-1950's the ice-truck stopped coming, and Johnny was busy with school and working in his father's general store.  Mr. Dulude's general store was small even by a child's standards, but it had the one thing every kid enjoyed:  penny candy.

Down the aisle, which happened to be in a direct line of sight from the checkout counter, was two

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long shelves, at child height, which held open boxes of a wide variety of candy.  Squirrels, caramel drops, pixie straws and licorice sticks, chocolate bars, and long paper strips filled with small, colorful dots of sugar candy... and more.  We would go to the cashier, usually it was Mrs. Dulude, to get our little brown paper bag for collecting our penny candy selections.  Some of the candy cost a penny per piece, but others were offered as multiple pieces for one penny.  The challenge was to fill that little bag with as much candy as we could afford with our nickel.  Once in a great while, we would save our pennies until we could afford to buy a chocolate bar for a whopping 10 cents.

We didn't get an allowance in those days, but when we would run an errand to the store to pick up grandmother's order which she had phoned in, we would receive a nickle to buy a treat.

Oh, the good old days.....  they really were good days!

Chicken and Duck Flock Ravaged by Dogs

Granted six laying hens, a feisty rooster and four ducks is not a large flock by any stretch of the imagination, but they were our pets more than anything else and it hurt to lose them in such a manner.  As any chicken "person" will tell you, chickens have definite personalities and are about the easiest animal to raise as pets, along with the bonus of fresh eggs every day.

Rocky, our rooster, was incredible as roosters go.  He was friendly, and never ruffled a feather around

children or adults.  He let the hens boss him incessantly and never pecked at them for pecking out his feathers.  He defended his harem from hawks and buzzards and I am certain he put up one heck of a fight against those marauding canines until his final breath.
We shall miss you Rocky.

I never thought I would be a chicken farmer, or any sort of farmer, but that is what I have become, albeit a very small scale farmer, yet a farmer non-the-less.  So when my flock was savagely attacked and ravaged by a pack of  large dogs it was devastating.  The entire flock, or at least the members of the flock that we had relocated to our new farm, consisting of six laying hens, one rooster, and three of our four ducks were wiped out in minutes by three large stray dogs, one of which was a golden lab.  The other two canine were just as large and savage.

It is difficult to not feel guilty that they were there, alone and undefended, because we couldn't be there to protect them.  The broken leg I received three weeks ago has me laid up at least to the end of January, and until I can walk again I cannot live in the motor-home, which means we must live off-farm for the time being.  Breaking a leg was not in my plans, but I still feel guilty for not being there.
The dogs broke through the fence of the chicken run and somehow even managed to follow the flock into the coop through their small doorway thus trapping the helpless fowl inside.
In our naivety we foolishly believed the same type of chicken run which had worked so well for us in CT would just as well here in this very rural and sparsely populated area of Virginia.

It didn't.  Those dogs tore down through that 2"x3" wire fencing as though it had been woven of string, which may have been more useful at trapping the dogs.

Now we have learned and begin our next lesson on protecting the flock before we bring the remaining dozen or so hens to the farm next week.

The new run will do away with those steel posts and a sturdier framework constructed of pressure treated 2"x4"s will be built.  The fencing will be stretched tightly across the frame and the bottom of the framework will rest on pressure treated 4"x4" landscape beams set a few inches into the ground with a skirting of hardware cloth along the perimeter and set a few inches below ground and away from the fence about 12" to deter digging.

A second fence will be erected about 3' from the first fence and encircled the entire chicken areas.  It will also be electrified.  I dare any predator from attempting a repeat performance on the new flock.
We will also be adding electric fencing around the goat paddock.  Both on the current fencing and again a few feet outside the paddock's perimeter.

Overkill?  Perhaps.  But we will sleep better knowing our livestock is safe.

(This post was written a week ago while I was still without internet access.)

Something Broke in the Pasture: UPDATE 11/23

Last week we were busy trying to get the chicken house finished so the girls would have a roof overhead and a safe place to roost and lay their eggs.  They had been roughing it long enough in the lean-to we set up near the house and it was time to give them a new, permanent home.

We ended up buying a kit since we had run out of wood scraps and pallets and didn't really have enough time to waste while we figured out how to build it.

By 3:30 pm we had gotten the four walls raised and were ready for a break.  On this occasion a break was exactly what we got, and a bit more than we had planned on.

We gathered Sophie and she and Nick started out for their daily walk around the pastures.  At the last moment I changed my mind and decided to join them instead of going inside to begin preparing dinner.  We were barely five-minutes into our walk when Sophie decided to go for a run, which she did, right around from behind us and in a blink she was in front of us and I was up in the air!  Just a quickly I was down on the ground writhing in pain.  Just before I hit the ground I heard the unmistakable sound of a bone snapping.

I knew immediately my leg was broken near the ankle.  Well, that put a quick end to our evening walk, and all walks for quite a while to come.  Neither of our cell phones have a signal in the pastures, but my cell phone is from "Jitterbug" and it has a red button for emergencies.  I have never used this button, in fact, I never signed up for the service so I had very little hope that there would be a response when I began depressing that key several times in quick succession.

To my amazement there was voice on my cell phone asking if I needed help.  How many ways are there to say "yes I need help"?  As calmly as I could possibly be under the circumstances, I told him I was lying in a pasture and my leg was broken... please send help... and I gave him our address.

In no time at all, but what actually felt like hours, he said help was on its way and would arrive in ten minutes.

Meanwhile Nick had tied Sophie to a tree and was still trying to get a signal on his cell phone. He also got a pillow and jacket from the car to try and make me comfortable while we waited for help to arrive.

To make a long story short.... help arrive and drove me to the hospital about 40 minutes away.  After spending a long, painful evening in the emergency I was finally delivered to my new home away from home on the fifth floor the Sentarra Hospital in South Boston, VA where I sit now writing this post.

I have had surgery to repair the damage done to my ankle and leg bone, and have been slowly recovering from a very bad day.

Tomorrow I leave this hospital for a stay at a rehabilitation hospital for an undetermined length of time.  The next weeks will be filled with doctor visits and daily bouts of physical therapy.  The sooner I finish with rehab, the sooner I can go home and hopefully resume "Life on the Farm".

Until then, I will post updates when I can.

UPDATE 11/23/2016

Well, the last four weeks have been awful, bedridden and with no cell or internet service, but the good news is I have just gotten the okay to begin using crutches and start trying to get back to normal.  Although the leg won't be totally healed for months, at least I can start moving around again and get back to life at the farm.

Happy Thanksgiving!