Life on the farm ...

All I had ever known was the big city until the year I turned 13. That was the year our family moved from downtown Toronto to a farm in NB with only cold running water in the kitchen. Well the water could be warm – or even hot – but only if the wood stove had been burning for a while, long enough to heat up the water.

That first winter on the farm was an eye opening experience in many ways. We bought wood but it was green, and we didn’t get it early enough to let it dry even if we had known how to split and stack it. Cutting the logs involved using a two man crosscut saw, no easy feat with frozen wet logs. The farm house had been what they call a century farm before we moved in – that meant the family who had owned it had lived in it and worked it for 100 years or more. That also meant the walls of the farmhouse had no insulation and we didn’t yet know about the practice of banking the walls on the outside with bales of hay to keep the drafts down. I used to go to bed with the clothes I’d wear the next day in bed with me so they’d be warm to put on in the morning.

There was a lot we didn’t know. But I remember one particularly cold and snowy night in the winter when I learned a critical and highly personal lesson. I had to go to the washroom. Now for most city folk that is simply part of life, but on our farm, at that time of year, it was something to consider … mull over, and not to hurry! I didn’t want to have to get all bundled up and trudge across the yard to the outhouse! And so of course, I put it off. And off … and well, finally I couldn’t any longer. I already had a nice big sweater on, so all that remained was the outdoor layers. On came the scarf, toque, then the big heavy coat and finally my boots. I was ready.

I got to the outhouse, my face stinging from the cold, and as I stamped my feet in that cold little room I came to a dreadful realization. My stomach clenched, and the hair stood up on my arms. I realized that underneath everything, including that big fuzzy sweater I was wearing I had on overalls. Yup, overalls with straps over the arms and all.

It was a bitter lesson and one I never forgot through the intervening 30 odd years of my life. Life on the farm got better after that first year, but one thing didn’t change - I never ever went to the outhouse without checking what I was wearing first!

Abigail