Felicity Klassen -- The Old Homestead

The small cabin settles into the bitter cold

As her logs protect, they split with riffle noise.

The large box behind the stove is piled high

With kindling and wood split by the swinging axe.

While washboard scrubbed clothes are hung to dry

High above the stove on the pulley rack

After stiffing to frozen brittle garment cutouts

In the subzero outside air.

Both barn and coop protect their inhabitants

Chickens fluff their feathers to keep warm

The egg count is down but they still need care.

Horses heads pull hay to munch

From mangers filled by mittened hands and feet that crunch

While cows moo softly in the barn filled with reassuring smells

In spite of the winter chill all within are safe and well.

Across the bitter sky a coyote’s haunting howl is a mourn

For warmer days and growing hay

When spring returns and calves are born

And the children go out to play.

Now the cabin’s family snuggles in the heated space

Appreciating their cozy homestead abode.

The rocking chair and chesterfield have a place

Near the lamp beside shelves that bare a load

Of books, photos and a chiming clock.

On the floor home schooled girls and boys

Watch Dad mend harness and Mom darn a sock

Happy kids with home made toys

Gobble hot sweet cinnamon buns

Baked in the oven of the glowing stove.

The walls had family heirlooms and needed guns

This is what we like to think the little house

Was like when it was built by the trail that winds

This is a wishful dream of “the good olds days”

That probably felt more like “these trying times”.

Forget the water packing, lamp cleaning, chilblains,

Hernias, poverty and desperate loneliest that existed.

Instead imagine what my painting suggested.

Idyllic times in the biting winter cold

In a cabin steeped in love in days of old.

Felicity Klassen 2016

Copyright remains with the author – not for publication without their express permission.

Comments

BEV (Hockley) FORSETH -- From coal oil lanterns to the glow of our first Christmas lights

The early 1960s was a time of transition in rural BC. Many rural areas had electricity for the first time. It was also a time of transition in my family as my oldest sister returned home with her two small children, to regroup after her marriage ended. We lived in a log house my father built in the rural community of Horsefly. The arrival of electricity was an event that few nowadays could possibly appreciate. We no longer needed coal oil lanterns for light, the pie safe outside to keep food cool, or the wringer washer to wash clothes. Mom no longer had to can meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables to prevent spoiling as we quickly acquired a large deep freeze. Even before power arrived my mother bought a shiny new electric steam iron. She was as good as her word -- the day we got electricity she threw away all her “sad irons” that had to be heated on the old wood cookstove. Clothing could be dried in the new ...

JOHN FELSTED -- Christmas was heartwarming. While we lacked what we wanted, we had what we needed

My favourite Christmas story was related to me by a family acquaintance who grew up in an urban setting. We discussed the hard times our families had to deal with during the depression of the 1930s. I was too young to know the experiences directly, but she was old enough to be an aunt. Her story was about the 1931 Christmas: We had little to enjoy that Christmas as my father had been laid off from work. We could not get a traditional turkey and would have to make do with a tube of bologna. We were not looking forward to Christmas day. On Christmas eve, my mother announced that we would all have a bath on Christmas morning and put on our best clothes for Christmas dinner. We all did as told. Just after noon on Christmas day, we were called to dinner. We passed bowls of vegetables, stuffing and gravy around. Mother had heated the bologna in the oven and put it on a platter in front of my father. He had brought out the carving knife and fork kept for our special dinners. Father tu...

TRUDY FRISK -- It all began one Christmas day, in a log cabin with a small, brown, eager, puppy named Rover

He was probably the best loved Christmas present we children ever had. One year, when all the presents had been opened, our parents announced that there was one more and brought in a cardboard box. Inside it a small, brown, floppy-eared puppy looked up at us eagerly. Our first dog! We couldn't believe it. We had him out of that box immediately. After much patting and playing the puppy, tired from all the enthusiasm, fell asleep with his head on my brother's knee. Roger turned to me and whispered, " I'm not going to move until he wakes up !" He didn't. He sat very still, solemn, and happy. How old were we that Christmas? Four, six and eight seems about right. Young enough not to question where the puppy had been hidden. (It's not easy, believe me, to hide a dog, however small, in a three-room log cabin.) Was he out in the chicken house? Down in the barn? And...

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