Cabin Fever

January 14, 2021January 31, 202155 Comments

By this time of year many of us are experiencing Cabin Fever – loosely defined as “irritability, listlessness, and boredom from long confinement or isolation indoors.” That feeling of being trapped is generally caused by snowstorms when you can’t go out even if you wanted to – those severe blizzards where they’re telling people to stay home, off the roads and wait for the snowplows to do their thing – but it’s been made even worse this year by the pandemic lockdowns.

Although we may be stuck inside, we have all the comforts of home – a warm dwelling, good food and plenty of entertainment available. It’s even possible to ignore things altogether if you don’t look outside, especially if you have a cozy fire to sit beside, a hot beverage and a good book or movie. Winter can be very hygge.

While I would normally appreciate these quiet January days after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, lots of time to read and write and putter about pretending to reorganize, this year when we’ve been cooped up inside so much already, it seems downright claustrophobic. So let’s call it pandemic fever instead. In fact the term cabin fever had an early association with typhoid fever and quarantine.

As the term originated with the pioneers who spent long winters by themselves, when severe weather and long distances from neighbors were truly isolating, let’s take a look at how people coped with cabin fever way back when there were cabins.

I often wondered how my ancestors survived their first winter here. They came from Ireland in 1846 during the potato famine, three brothers and their families, and after jumping ship in the St. Lawrence to evade the cholera epidemic, arrived in Toronto, starving and penniless. They had to borrow one pound from the Immigrant Land Agent (National Archives Document Oct 16 1846) to pay for water transport to the area where they would settle. The land was all wilderness then, and arriving so late in the year, they would never have survived the first winter were it not for the help of the Indians and a neighbor who helped them build a hut dwelling and showed them how to hunt for game. (Most likely they ate a lot of venison stew). They were unprepared for the cold and the snow as the posters advertising Upper Canada boasted about its abundant game (true) and tropical climate (well maybe in the summer). Did they even have any warm clothing? My great-grandfather, who had stayed behind to go to school, arrived later wearing a straw hat. They would gladly have returned to the misery of Ireland in those early years.

Their first homestead was on swampland and the water was bad, so eventually they moved to a different site a few miles down the road, where they build a log cabin, similar to this one I blogged about in my Pioneer Village post.

This cabin dates from 1870, and is fairly large, with room for a farmhouse table and a sleeping loft above.

Another cabin on the site of the local Heritage Museum is much smaller, and housed just two people, a widow and her young son.

It was constructed in 1857 of lumber rather than logs, as there was a sawmill nearby – the interior is pine. With only two rooms, this typical first home was built quickly, as more effort went to clearing the land and planting crops.

While small in size, it was snug and warm with the long stove pipe circulating the heat across the house. There was an additional sleeping space in the attic over the kitchen.

The rope bed was covered with a straw or feather mattress.

While the quilt is nice, it does make me grateful for my comfy bed, with its deep mattress, soft sheets and down comforter, and there’s certainly not much counter space in that kitchen!

Now the local heritage museum is fund-raising to restore another log cabin.

This one has an interesting and well-traveled history. Originally built in 1840 in the Goderich area, it was disassembled in the 1930’s and floated down Lake Huron to a lakefront property where it was used as a summer cottage. In the 1970’s it was donated and moved to it’s current site in a local park where it was used for community events such as Christmas in the Park, until it fell into such a state of disrepair that it was deemed unsafe and they decided to tear it down and build a replica. A great hue and cry ensued from the public and the local historical society, so they relented and at a cost of $50,000 are paying to have it relocated to the museum site for future restoration. I know, it seems a lot of money to spend on a derelict old building but they waste money on other things, and how many 180 year old log cabins are left? This will be it’s third move, but just look at that solid construction.

No chilly drafts would come through those thick walls, but they do need to do something about the broken windows.

I’ve been feeling bad about my house lately. My renos remain undone, dust bunnies abound and I don’t seem to have the energy to give it a good cleaning. My cleanliness standards have slipped considerably since no one is seeing it but me. Hopefully in March I’ll be motivated to give it a good spring cleaning.

But after a look at these humble abodes, I’m appreciating my own home and hearth more, and feeling better about cabin fever. We have so many more creature comforts today and all the modern conveniences. Maybe it really is all about perspective.

With no internet or Netflix to occupy themselves with what did they do for entertainment back then? Being Irish, I’m sure there was music – the fiddle – and story telling often took the place of books, and I hope there was comfort food too – warm bread and apple pies and taffy treats.

So perhaps some things haven’t changed – after today’s dose of wintry weather it’s time for some beef stew.

PS. While researching this, I came across two books, The Lost Diaries of Susanna Moodie by Cecily Ross, a fictionalized historical novel based on the life of Susanna Moodie, a genteel English writer who immigrated to Canada in 1832. Moodie wrote about her experiences in the Canadian wilderness and subsequently published her memoirs as Roughing It In The Bush and Life in the Backwoods. I enjoyed the fictionalized book more, as it was rich in historical detail, although the first half in England was not as interesting. Both books depict a harsh life with many hardships and little in the way of fun or luxuries, a sobering look at the reality of pioneer life for many women.

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Rural Roots – My 4-H Calf

October 15, 202036 Comments

This would have been the 170^th year of the largest county fair in my region. Traditionally held mid-October on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, it attracts over 50,000 people every year – except this one, when it was cancelled like everything else. It originally took place near a tavern in 1850 and featured only cattle and horses. Now it has its own permanent fairgrounds and features the usual fair fare – midway, exhibit halls, livestock barns, grandstand shows and more junk food than you could possibly eat.

Everyone wearing their Sunday best…..in 1900?

My ancestors immigrated in 1846 and I like to think of them attending those early years. My dad remembers the fair being a highlight of his Depression childhood when he would be given the princely sum of 25 cents to spend as he wished. Back then everyone went to the fair, and they still do.

It was our tradition growing up to attend the fair on Thanksgiving Monday, (we had our big turkey dinner on Sunday), in order to catch the noon parade. After a tour of the exhibition halls and a walk through the midway my dad would spend the rest of the afternoon in the cattle barns watching the judging of the livestock while we womenfolk would head for the much more interesting horse competitions.

We would meet up at 5 pm when they would be awarding the prize for the last show of the day – the 4H Beef Cattle Grand Champion, with the winner headed straight to the abattoir. (This is probably TMI for all the vegans out there, but it’s a fact of rural life, you eat/sell what you raise.)

So imagine my surprise to come across this ceramic creature when I was buying fall bulbs at a city nursery.

Sure it made a nice fall display, sitting there on that bale of straw, but at $198 I can’t imagine anyone who would buy it? Farmers aren’t known to be too sentimental about their livestock. Now if it was a horse maybe….

This cute little fella reminded me of my short-lived 4H calf. For those of you who are city folks, 4H (their motto is head, heart, hands and health) started out as a rural Boy-Scout-type organization, fostering life skills in youth ages 7-21, learning by doing etc. Although they have branched out into other programs, they are still going strong in many rural areas. According to last years Fair Exhibit Prize Booklet we have a local 4-H sheep club, a 4-H beef club, a horse club, baking club, quilting club and one for the younger set age 7-9 called Clover Buds.

We never belonged to 4H growing up in the sixties, as life was busy with school, chores and my brothers had baseball and hockey, but my sister joined the 4-H cooking club one year when she was 12. They met on Saturday mornings at a neighbors farm to prepare a dish, but she was to try out the weekly recipes at home. She was teased so mercilessly by my siblings, over such delicacies as Welsh Rarebit and Blueberry Buckle, that one night at supper she burst into tears and declared, “You guys never want to try anything!” And it was true, we weren’t very adventurous. (I can be absolved as I was always a picky eater who had zero interest in cooking.) The Purity cookbook states that Welch Rarebit is a cheese sauce and egg on toast concoction, but it might have been the dry mustard/cayenne pepper/Worcester sauce we objected to. The Blueberry buckle wasn’t too bad, more cake-like, but we were pie people. Then there was the long blue calico dress that had to be sewn for Pioneer Days, which involved many tears and much work, and was tossed aside after a few hours wear. So that was the end of 4-H until one summer afternoon when we were bored to tears, the way kids used to get when there wasn’t a constant source of entertainment streaming at them 24/7.

The Barn in Winter – painting by Joni’s mom

While my brothers helped with the chores when they got older, I wasn’t out in the barn that much – there was nothing to do there. Sometimes there would be a new batch of kittens, and if my cousins were over, we might jump in the hay mow which we weren’t supposed to as the middle section had rotten floorboards under the bales. My dad had Holstein milking cows then and I remember the pails of milk being lined up in the hallway, but you had to stay out of the way and you definitely couldn’t go near the milking stanchions or you might get kicked by a cow. Occasionally, we would take the dog for a walk back the lane-way to get the cows for milking, but mostly they came up on their own, like clockwork. Here I am with Sally Ann, the oldest and head cow, and the only one with a name.

I’m really liking this jacket I have on. L.L. Bean still sells this type of barn coat.

So we decided one bored afternoon that we would train our own 4-H calves and parade them around the barnyard on a rope, like they did at the fair. Here’s a photo of mine.

What surprises me about this picture is my outfit – I’m wearing a cute white eyelet top that surely was not part of my regular play clothes. And my hair, a towhead after a summer of sun. Now cows aren’t the brightest of animals to begin with, and the poor little thing was not very obedient, so the 4-H calf was abandoned after a few short hours. Judging from the size of my brother in the background, (my mother is supervising and taking the picture) I’m likely seven years old, much too young for a 4H calf anyway, although I don’t recall my older siblings lasted any longer with theirs.

Although not obvious in the picture, the calf had a big ugly goiter on its neck. I wish I could say that’s what first inspired my interest in pursuing a medical career, but I just found it yucky. Besides, it was really a horse I wanted anyway.

I don’t know what happened to my 4-H calf – it was gone in a few weeks. It’s unlikely you could treat a hypothyroid calf back then, and you certainly couldn’t sell it for veal. (My mother served veal exactly once, as we all refused to eat it on principle.) Although I took a veterinary medicine course in 4^th year (an easy elective we called Barnyard) I’ve never dispensed any thyroid for animals, large or small, although I’ve seen some strange meds (Ventolin inhaler for a horse?) as we had a veterinarian’s office close by. Most likely the calf went on to the Big Barnyard in the sky.

My dad eventually sold his milking herd and switched to cash cropping and beef cattle, as they were less work than milking twice a day. A milk quota is worth a million plus now, and the majority of dairy farms are mechanized and large scale. Those small family farms hardly exist anymore, it’s a way of life which has mostly disappeared.

So, when I visit the nursery for plants next spring, I expect to see that ceramic calf on sale for a substantially reduced price, and I hope to be able to attend the fall fair again next year.

PS. I should add that our animals were treated humanely, with grazing in the fields, and no antibiotics or growth hormones. We also had free range chickens for eggs long before it was popular. I guess you say we were organic before organic was cool.

PS. No matter where you may sit on the vegetarian/carnivore spectrum the decision to eat red meat or not is a personal choice. In the early 80’s my brother married a vegetarian (or a herbivore as my young niece delightfully described her, they must have been studying dinosaurs) which was not that common back then when 10 oz. porterhouse steaks were a fixture on restaurant menus, but nothing was ever said by my dad who raised beef cattle and my mother just added a few extra dishes to the holiday table…mac and cheese for Thanksgiving, deviled eggs for Easter and rice….yea bring it on! Not that my new SIL expected anything, but you know, to be hospitable. I know I lucked out in the parent department as my folks were nice easy-going people who were always willing to set an extra place at the table….but I wonder if people generally were just more tolerant to differing viewpoints back then? Now it seems like you can’t even give a dinner party without a long list of someone’s dietary restrictions and an accompanying lecture on why they are right!

Pioneer Village

July 4, 2019July 4, 201936 Comments

Last month I blogged about a Victorian tea party I attended on the grounds of a local museum. If you are a history lover, please join me for part two of the tour, a visit to yesteryear.

While the Victorian cottage is one of the original buildings on the museum site, there are many others. Most have been moved to the site, including a one room schoolhouse, a small church and a log cabin from the days of the early settlers, as well as a local lighthouse.

The 1919 church with the original pipe organ in the corner.

The one room schoolhouse.

At the risk of sounding like someone from Little House on the Prairie, I seldom admit I once attended a one room schoolhouse. It was located less than half a mile down the road from our farm, within walking distance even for a first grader, and was the same school my dad and all his ancestors had attended. In 1963 the government closed all the remaining rural schools, and our parents drove us into town to the Catholic school until the bus system was started a few years later.

What do I remember from my year and a half there? Not much, as I was only six. The big wood burning stove, so hot you could cook hot dogs wrapped in tin foil on top for lunch,

games of baseball for all ages at recess, getting the strap once (just a little tap on our hands) for talking in class and being made to stand in the corner with my cousin – much more humiliating. The teacher was always yelling and in a bad mood – can you imagine trying to teach 40 kids of all ages. It may sound archaic, but I suppose it would be similar to home schooling now, with different age appropriate lessons. As there were only three of us in grade one, myself, my cousin and an unkempt boy whose family no one knew, we did not get much attention, but I must have absorbed something from listening to her teach the older grades, as when we were given tests at the new school I passed with 92%. (They thought we were country hicks who would have to be held back a year). My new grade two teacher was pleasantly surprised and told my parents I was smart, a moment I remember to this day. I always had a friendly rivalry with the boy sitting in front of me over who would get top honors, sometimes it was him, sometimes me, and as I went on to graduate from the University of Toronto, it didn’t to me any harm, although I admit some kids who needed extra attention were not as lucky.

Compare this slate with the tablets of today. I vaguely remember the sound of the school bell being rung.

At the one room schoolhouse the grade ones were let out half an hour early, and my cousin, who lived next door, and I would dawdle along, catching tadpoles in the ditches, playing in the snowbanks and making up fairy stories, the road being lined with beautiful trees, (channeling Anne of Green Gables here), and arrive home the same time as my siblings. It seems I remember more than I had thought.

Here is a picture of the class of 1934, with the school in the background appearing larger than I remember.

This is a log cabin from 1874, not a replica but an actual cabin moved to the site to preserve a part of history.

My great-grandparents John and Ellen were married in 1870 and I try to imagine my Irish ancestors living in such a small drafty house during their early years on the farm. The old white farmhouse I grew up in had two parts, the initial smaller dwelling and a larger addition with bedrooms upstairs to accommodate their growing family of nine children.

This picture of an old stove certainly puts my complaints about the ongoing delays in my kitchen reno into perspective. What my ancestors would have given for such modern conveniences as a stove you could turn on with the touch of a button.

Not too keen on the sleeping arrangements, a loft accessed by very steep stairs. I remember my dad saying some of his uncles slept upstairs in the granary when it was new, which probably looked like this. I imagine it was freezing in the winter, hence the quilts.

Open concept floor plans were popular back then too! We have an antique farm table dating from 1870, longer than this one.

While most farms had large vegetable gardens, including rhubarb, and were mainly self-sufficient,

there were times you simply had to go into town for a few provisions at the general store,

and perhaps a new hat.

The model train room, which boasts three large train sets, is always a hit with the guys.

As well as the individual buildings, there is a large agricultural building full of old farm implements such as this cutter/sleigh. We had one just like it and my dad sometimes took it for a spin behind the Clydesdales.

There is also a large exhibition hall, with a marine room and different display rooms and lots of historical archives. It does seem strange that my Barbie/Skipper carry case has now achieved vintage status.

I remember playing with this doll house too.

Several volunteers were setting up the loom for a display of weaving the day of our visit, a time consuming process. There was no fast fashion back then.

And of course, I always enjoy looking at old medical exhibits, such as this infirmary,

and pharmacy.

The tools of my trade

Perhaps somewhere among those antique bottles is a clue for my (long neglected) murder mystery? Agatha Christie used the knowledge acquired during her days as an apothecary apprentice when writing her books.

When I think back to the changes in my profession over the past one hundred years – the invention of penicillin and antibiotics, vaccines, insulin – these are discoveries which saved lives. In my student days pharmacy labels were prepared on typewriters, not as ancient as this one as ours were electric with correcto-tape.

The last forty years of my career has seen the implementation of computers (a massive improvement for record keeping, drug information and drug interactions), clot-busters for preventing damage in heart attack and stroke, palliative care measures for end of life, improved chemotherapy, drugs for depression and mental illness, biologicals for autoimmune diseases, and more new drugs on the market than you can possibly keep up with. When I think of the future – targeted chemotherapy, gene therapy, cures for diseases never thought possible – it is amazing the amount of change that can happen over the course of a century.

One Christmas my father was given one of those autobiography books to document your life for the grandchildren. One of the questions was what are the most important changes you have seen in your life as compared to that of your grandparents.

“When my grandparents settled here the land was all bush. Roads were Indian trails. People lived far apart. They had to build houses, barns, roads, clear land. Walking and horses were the main modes of travel. Machinery was crude or non-existent. Since then tractors and combines have been invented. Hydro, paved roads, cars, radios, toasters, tvs, micowaves, computers. Household goods and furnishings have changed such as washers and dryers, refrigerators and stoves, air conditioning in summer and furnaces in winter instead of a wood stove. My mother churned butter and we had an ice box and a root cellar for vegetables, an outhouse, no running water in the house and having to heat water on the stove for a bath. Materials are softer now than the scratchy clothes I wore as a child. You have toys now that we never dreamed of. The biggest changes are education and modern schools, and medicines and childhood diseases.”

My father was a child of the Depression, and one of changes he recalled was hydro. The farm didn’t get hydro until after WW2, 1947, and all of a sudden you had lights in the barn and weren’t milking cows by lantern light, and you could stay up late with hydro in the house. Worth thinking about the next time I grumble because the power is out a few hours due to a storm. As to the future, he commented on computers and the internet which was just starting up. In the twenty years since he died we now have – Google, Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Skype, Instagram, Twitter, Siri, Spotify, Netflix, IPods, IPads, GPS, digital cameras and clouds which are not rain clouds, although we have plenty of those too! We are now testing cars that drive themselves, robots and artificial intelligence. It feels like something out of the Jetsons – that old 60’s cartoon about a futuristic world which was very predictive. Does anyone else remember the theme music?

What will the future hold? Maybe someday my old 1986 DOS computer, currently residing in the basement, with it’s orange blinking screen and large floppy disks, will be on display at the museum, resting behind the electronics exhibit, along with a Sony Walkman and a ghetto-blaster.

As a history lover, I feel it is important to preserve our heritage, and I hope you have enjoyed this peek into the past.

Postscript: My mother painted the log cabin (two versions), but she placed it in winter time, as my ancestors arrived here in late October, not expecting snow. Is the lighthouse a beacon to the new world? You can tell I’ve been hanging around the art world too much…

Beacon to the New World

The Log Cabin

Postscript: This is my 100th post. I never would have imagined that!

A Victorian Tea

May 24, 2019May 24, 201920 Comments

Every May 24^th weekend one of our local museums hosts their annual Victorian Tea, complete with freshly baked scones, white tablecloths and fine china.

The May 24^th holiday weekend in Canada is called the Victoria Day weekend, because May 24 was Queen Victoria’s birthday. Older people may remember the schoolyard rhyme children chanted years ago – “the twenty-fourth of May / Is the Queen’s birthday; / If they don’t give us a holiday / We’ll all run away!” Now many people don’t even know who Queen Victoria was, unless you watch the PBS TV show Victoria, but she was Britain’s longest reining monarch, although Queen Elizabeth surpassed her in 2015. She became Queen at age 18 and reined over the British Empire for 63 years, from 1937 until her death in 1901, a period known as the Victorian era. She married her cousin Albert, had nine children and survived 20 different governments and 11 prime ministers. After her death, her birthday was made a federal holiday, which was eventually was moved to the Monday preceding May 24 because of the weekend. Queen Victoria most likely would have approved as weekends were an invention of the Victoria era. This May 24th marks the 200th anniversary of her birth in 1819.

Note: the Union Jack (Canada did not get it’s own Maple Leaf flag until 1965) and the old fashioned lilac bush (see Lilac Time).

The Victorian cottage is one of many buildings on the museum site, whose mandate is to display our past customs and heritage. Many have been moved to the site, including a one room schoolhouse, a small church and a log cabin from the days of the early settlers, but the cottage was part of the original grounds. It is a small one floor dwelling, built in 1893, which was used by a Detroit woman as a summer home until her death, when it was donated to the museum. She was known as the cookie lady, for her kindness in treating the neighborhood children to sugar cookies on the veranda when they were passing by.

It consists of a good sized dining room, living room and kitchen and two very small bedrooms.

The inside still looks as it did during the time she lived there, floral wallpaper, quilts and all.

The problem with the Victoria Day weekend is that the weather is usually guaranteed to be cold, rainy and miserable, which does not deter the campers, as it is considered the unofficial start to summer. It seldom fails, whereas the following weekend, the US Memorial Day is often quite nice. Still, not one to let a bit of rain (or even forty days of it like this spring), get in the way of a good tea spread, I decided to attend. The last time I was there, it was miraculously a warm and sunny day, with a pleasant breeze coming off the river, and we were able to take our tea outside on the veranda, as opposed to inside huddled beside the stove. It was such a fine day we lingered over a second cup.

Although the day started out warm and sunny, the forecast was rain by 3pm, (I’m quite serious about the forty days of rain), so we set out early and decided to tour the buildings first (my friend had never been there), as we could always sit inside later if it started to pour. On our walk about, I noticed a big patch of rhubarb growing beside the log cabin and took some pictures which I could have used in last week’s Rhubarb Lunar Cake blog. (It’s never too late to edit!)

There’s something so civilized about a tea party and the clink of china tea cups, shades of Downton Abbey. Each small table was laid with white tablecloths, cream and sugar sets, crystal butter dishes, jars of strawberry jam and a colorful mixture of china cups and plates.

The servers, young and old, were dressed in the costume of servants of the day, complete with frilly caps and white aprons. The wind was so strong, their aprons were billowing in the breeze and the tablecloths were threatening to blow away, so we decided to sit inside.

The only occupant of the veranda was a bird nesting high up in the rafters, most likely anticipating left over crumbs.

Even inside, with the veranda doors open, it was so windy that our vase of flowers blew over soaking the tablecloth, which they removed and replaced with one even more exquisitely embroidered. Our server, a charming young girl of about ten, inquired as to our choice of tea and scones – raisin, rhubarb, orange or apple cinnamon.

Such a difficult decision, but my choice is always the rhubarb – it was divine, light and fluffy, and I am still trying to get the recipe, a carefully guarded secret. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it before it was consumed!

They make up to 400 scones for the day, using the cottage’s own wood-fired stove. (Note the mirror at the top – I guess that was to check your appearance after slaving over a hot stove all day?) The cost of the tea was $7.50 with donations to the museum fund, ordinary admission being $5, a bargain for the price.

Exactly at 3 pm as predicted, the skies opened up and rained on our lovely tea party. Oh well, there’s always next year…I’m sure I’ll be back.

Postscript: Easy rhubarb scones, only for truly lazy cooks or those whose kitchens are about to be torn apart. Mix this, with this,