Transcript

File: raffertyervin06-oh-winterfarmwork_M.mp3

Speakers:

ER – Ervan Rafferty

KP – Curator Ken Perlman

ER: Well the people, they would haul marsh hay. They used to get the marsh hay ‘cause it was great for milk cows, make them drink water, instead of the the salt cakes that they put out in the field now for cattle. Back then they didn't have them, and they would haul marsh hay, and that was salty and it was great for the cattle, it made their milk good, and it also preserved the hay that they had off their farms, which at time wasn’t growing like it is today. And it was great too, we used to go across there and get cranberries, great place for cranberries. I remember too they used to go across there with a boat and take their lunch with them. They’d stay for the biggest part of the day, and they'd come back loaded with all the cranberries because they were quite thick back then along the marshes.

KP: This used to be in the Fall, then?

ER: Oh yes, this would be in the Fall. It was quite a lot of hard work back then, but people didn't mind it too much, and they survived and lived as long and as good as they do today. In the wintertime, woods work was quite a lot. You had to get your winter's wood out. Mostly in the winter time they did it.

KP: So would they cut one winter for the following winter?

ER: Yeah. Well it wouldn’t reach probably the full winter. Sometimes they would have to use the green wood comin’ on, the last couple of months in the Spring, if they ran out of the wood they had cut the Fall previous. That was mostly that. And lumbering, if they needed boards, or two by four, or anything like that. That had to be cut in the winter and brought out at the time they were cutting wood. That was pretty well taken up in the wintertime. And there would be smelt fishing; they'd use the nets and they’d put the nets under the ice and fish smelts that way. And that wasn’t a full time job; when they’d have time they’d do the fishing, fishing for smelts on the wintertime. And eel fishing right off here, we had lots of eel fishing going on. And that kept them pretty busy, pretty well all winter, doin’ this type of thing. And supplying anywheres from two to three stoves: in a country house you had to keep that many going because there was large families and a lot of rooms in the house had to be heated. And that took a lot of wood, so that kept them pretty busy. You’d probably get out anywheres from 18 to 20 cord for to see you through to the nexst Spring, anyway.