Dance at Sod House NW of 36-27-10

Dance at Sod House NW of 36-27-10

It is really fortunate that we have such amazing records of familial history on both sides. This is a small story with huge heart of my husbands' people who came to Canada in 1903 with lots of hopes and dreams to build a good life on the wide and wild prairie.

 

They arrived from England in 1903. In April of 1905 they set off by ox team from Saskatoon to their newly claimed land section in the (then) N.W. Territories. The province of Saskatchewan did not get established till later that year. They lived in a tent until they could build their sod house. Although great grandfather was a very good carpenter he did not know that you built the sod house first and then could lumber line it from the inside. He built a frame first and then put sod around it. Well it worked but wasn't as efficient as the usual way.

 

These were amazingly efficient homes when you consider it. A floor was dug down below the frost line and filled with chips and then a thick layer of packed clay. The temperature of the earth stays fairly constant once you dig below the frost line. The best sods were cut from dried out slough areas as the roots were much thicker and therefore held the house together much better. The sods were usually about 100mm deep by 0.91m wide by 1.5m long. These were then layered to the height you wanted and a roof put on. It was solid sod on three sides with door and windows only on one side, away from the wind. The high density of the earth changes temperature very slowly and so provided a fairly consistent temperature even when the temperatures fluctuated between -40C in winter to +40 in summer.

 

Great grandparents' home became the centre of the social scene. A dance was held in their sod home every two weeks and a Club was formed. Music was supplied by several bachelors and Mr. Bert had a gramophone. Great grandmother would clear the room of beds and stuff and put them in the shed. Dances started at 8 pm and carried on until morning. Great grandmother and grandmother Flo served two lunches. One at midnight and the other before the dance ended in the mornings. The Club would all contribute to these goods. At the end of the season the Club presented the family with an armchair and a rocker to thank them for their hospitality and the express how much the community appreciated the fun.

 

It is easy to think that times were tough in those days and they were, but it is sure wonderful and inspiring to know that they took the time to enjoy friends and music and dance the night away on a regular basis. It must have been great fun.

 

Everyone had arrived in Canada with similar hopes, dreams and aspirations. Everyone was a stranger and yet they formed tight and solvent communities in a very short time. Everyone pitched in, helped each other out. They worked hard together and then they played and rejoiced in their accomplishments.

 

I had the pleasure of knowing Grandmother Flo for a short time. She was a woman ahead of her time. She was the forerunner of the woman's movement let me tell you. She was great. Still took the stairs instead of the elevator at 98, liked to beat men at cards and liked her finger of rye each night.

 

Don't make them like that anymore.

A Story of Soup

Today I made soup. One of my favourite foods. I grew up on a lot of soup. The Germans have a word for creating soup. EINTOPF, it means one pot. At the end of the week everything leftover goes into one pot and it becomes soup. The origin of the word soup is suppa.  An old word, before Latin even. In German the word for soup is still suppe. It means "to sop".

 

Until bread was invented there was NO soup. Only a thick kind of gruel at best. Made from pounded grains or plants with maybe some meat cooked into it.( It doesn't sound good.) The "sop" part of soup is the thick slice of bread that was placed on the bottom of the bowl and then the soup ladled over it to sop it up.

 

Soups could be very, very nutritious when cooked over a length of time to extract the goodness of the marrow in the bones and stuff. The soup became a staple food in most medieval homes. They could afford to make soup from basically the scraps of leftover food, especially the bones which couldn't be eaten and were until then thrown to the dogs.

 

What is most interesting is that the invention of soup also beget the first restaurant. The word comes from the root "to restore". A Frenchman had the brilliant idea to make a nutritious soup and sell it to the weary travellers who needed something with sustenance to restore their energy.

 

Now you understand my little drawing. No criticism please. Drawing on the tablet isn't the easiest thing to do but I am trying. As good as it gets folks.

 

A little bit of fun - "oui?"

 

Types of Soup

Bouillon -concentrated

brown stock

Consomme -clarified

brown stock

Broths -clear

Jellied -made from

bones and clarified

Vegetable -prepared

with or without meat

Puree -with/without

cream

Bisques -shellfish based

cream soup (my fave)

Chowders -thick, fish

meat and vegie base

Fruit soups - huh???

what ?? (if you are

European you know.

I grew up on this.

Delicious !!! )

Pie in the Sky

Today I was preparing a turkey pie for our supper and my stream of thought took me to thinking about pie crusts and their purpose. Preserving food was a very difficult task before refrigeration, freezers and canning. These are all very recent methods of keeping our foods fresher, longer. Food had to be dealt with quickly and eaten within a very short time. 

Pie crusts became a way of keeping the food within them a few days longer. They were made with lard and usually in a heavy, deep dish. The crust would be thick and heavy as to envelope the food and protect it. It was most often a meat dish. Usually hunted game or pork. It was baked in a wood fired oven and then set to cool. 

Pie cupboards were created to keep the vermin out of the food. They were made mostly of wood with holes (vents) drilled into the sides to allow air to flow through. The vents were tacked with bits of metal grating so no creatures could get in. 

These pie safes, as they were called, are very collectable now and often found as decorative furniture in some homes. 

My mother tells of a story when she was young. The pie safe was full of goodies as Christmas was near. My grandmother had a lock on it. She was out and so my grandfather conspired with the children to enter the cupboard from below and remove some of the tasty morsels. He was positively delighted to be conducting this prank with the children and all anticipated how my grandmother would react once she discovered the theft !

I don't think you have to imagine too hard how my grandmother reacted. At first she just couldn't figure it out but once she did she was angry. Problem was, she couldn't get mad at the children because their father had set them to it. 

Needless to say they didn't try it a second time. Its always interesting to me how food got to be presented the way it is. There is always a story, usually practical and makes perfect sense. 

By the way. Our turkey pie tonight was delicious. 

Manifesting Your Dreams

I have started FLAMENCO dance lessons. On Tuesday was my second class. Its hard but so much fun. It is a very technical dance form and it has a structure. It got me to thinking about how this relates to other things in my life, especially the farm.

I realized that I actually like doing things that are hard, not for the feint of heart. After over 15 years of farming I am still practicing, still learning, still improving, still facing challenges. That is what appeals to me. I don't ever want to think that I know it all, that I can't improve, have mastered it.

Whats wonderous to behold is that when you do something for a long time, keep at it, you look behind you and see the structure that it has become. It has taken on a form, a shape. Something that is real and tangible. Your thought, dream, idea has been manifest.

Now that it has a consistency and a shape you can manipulate it, play with it, change it back if you wish. Its kind of like baking a cake. You want a cake but now you have to get all the ingredients together and get it to become a cake. Then you can start to decorate it, the fun part !!

The challenges are just that, challenges. They force you to "think" and out of that thinking process come ideas, opportunities and solutions. At 20 years of age I never could have imagined how my life was going to look at 54, the only thing "I" knew was that I liked challenges and wanted to be involved in something that would make me think for myself and present me with an arena to practice, learn and improve on my dream.

The farm now has an energy and life force of its' own as it draws people from all over the world to come and participate in its' growth. There is a real "hunger" for being in a place that "allows" you time to think and contemplate your dreams. It is shocking to me how many young people come here and tell us that they have never experienced enough "unstructured, unsupervised, downtime" to contemplate on their own thoughts, dreams and ideas.

It makes me very happy that the farm has become this kind of place, a kind of refuge and school for ideas and dreams to become manifest. This is the part that has surprised me the most and it has shown me how when you give form to something it will eventually begin to "live" on its' own and show you what it has in mind. It has opened ever greater doors for us and all who journey through.

Your dancing steward,
Barbara :-)))))