Country Living 101 years ago
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Any course listed in a college bulletin as 101 automatically lets you know that this is a beginners' class with some very basic information that you need to have before you go on to more advanced theory. The other day as I was talking with some of our newer neighbors in Ramona, I realized they needed Country Living 101. There is such a difference between California and Kansas — 40 degrees of temperature in the winter, to begin with.
Basically, we knew all of this when we moved here — in theory, at least — and we thought we were pretty well prepared for country living because our parents had been born and raised in the country. Even though we lived in town during our growing up years, we lived like country folk.
Mom always had a garden. Dad knew how to fix things. In case of emergency, Mom had a pantry stocked with food she'd canned and Dad taught us how to make do! We always had a coal oil lamp in the house in case the electricity went down. We prided ourselves in having a wood stove, wood to burn, a well with good water, practical warm clothes, and some money in the cookie jar. These were the basics for sustaining life.
There were a few country surprises in store when we came to Ramona — cold was suddenly COLD and our wardrobes were deficient. We had never really lived in old houses that shift with the precipitation or old floor furnaces that don't blow the heat around. We got the next curriculum course, during that first winter, taught by Tool Time Tim. For homework in CoLiv 102 we started filling cracks around foundations, insulating, and putting up tar paper and hay bales on the north side of the house — even though we thought it looked tacky.
After surviving two winters and feeling pretty smug about our country savvy, I listened to our new neighbors' enthusiasm about being self-sufficient in the country. "I'd like to raise our own beef," Jim said, "and how difficult could it be to raise bacon?"
"Ah, this man needs Country Living 101," I thought to myself as TTT began outlining the steps between a cute little piglet and bacon on your plate. "You mean it has to be cured?" asked the city dweller, "Bacon doesn't just taste that way naturally?"
Well, I could relate because recently I've been contemplating CoLiv 201, raising chickens. I talked about it often enough that my family gave me a gift certificate to get my first brood. "If you are going to have chickens," my sister said as she handed me a McMurry Hatchery catalog, "have some fancy chickens that are fun to see."
Perusing the catalog, I saw all kinds of chickens, including low slung, wide breasted chickens that were supposed to be the best for home consumption. Although, we are basically vegetarian, we do fix chicken once in awhile, so I asked, "If I got some of these fryers to raise, would you ever eat them? Seems to me they'd be better than something you buy under plastic in the store. At least you'd know these chickens."
My sister leveled her gaze at me, "Who would butcher and clean them?" Here we had a problem. I have never killed anything to eat other than a carrot. Jess only kills crickets — and she doesn't eat them. Mom said, "Not me!"
So much for food self-sufficiency. I'd better stick to layers and fancy lookers with multi-colored eggs and forget fryers. "You're taking this country living thing a little too far," said my sister as she paraded by in her high heels.
"You don't want to be butchering chickens," said my friend, Mary Alice, "they smell horrid and the stench is on your hands for days." My farming bravado began to falter, and then John came by. He'd obviously taken CoLiv 340 with lab work in Colorado harvesting elk. "You raise 'um, I'll butcher them," he said.
It's another day in the country and I haven't ordered any chickens. I'm still pondering how best to tell a chicken you've known and loved that his days are numbered.
