Life in a "Chicken Coop"
Authored by Patricia Mae Steinke
Written by Cassandra Steinke in memory of Grandma Steinke
What memories does a chicken coop evoke? The younger generation; unless they were raised on a farm or ranch, they would have no idea what kinds of memories of those days have gone by.
For them, eggs came in molded styrofoam containers that could be bought at any grocery store. For us "oldsters" or farm raised folk, chicken coops have a memory all on their own, mostly bad.
The smell! Nothing penetrated your nose as quickly as the odor of confined chicken shit on a hot day hit you. Gathering eggs from a chicken, which most of the time did not like relinquishing her eggs, was very much a chore. This was made known to you by getting a quick, nasty peck on the hand or arm as you slid it under her to grab her 3 or 4 eggs (good laying hen). It didn't take a child long to learn how to distract the chicken with one hand and grab eggs with the other. Once proficient at gathering eggs, you usually progressed to chores that were more favored than gathering eggs. Shoveling horse manure was more desirable than gathering eggs and cleaning the chicken coop. Ever wonder why the egg gathering was usually left to the younger siblings? They were not smart enough to complain about it. I still have scars to show for the couple years of "egg gathering".
I was raised on a dirt-poor horse ranch in the back hills of Colorado. Our ranch was located on the western slope about 30 miles south of Rifle, Colorado. (Population of 150)
We lived in a big house with gasoline generated electricity, if and when the big old generator was not broken down or waiting for parts. I swear that generator was held together with baling wire, spit and chewing gum. More often than not, we had to use kerosene lanterns.
The odor is still vivid in my memories. We had running water, depending on the temperament of the old generator. If not, we hauled water from the well
We had a big pot belly stove in the parlor (yes, we called it a parlor). We had a big, hefty wood cook stove in the kitchen. In those days, the kitchen was the heart and hub of family life.
Our chicken coop was an oblong, slant roofed type of shed. It was a whimsy structure of logs and mud chinking. The windows were of random size, depending on what had been salvaged from some old house. It was not built with a plan in mind, but it was just there and it housed chickens
We had a couple of cows, lots of horses, a pet pig, feral cats, a dog or two and of course the chickens. The egg money provided us with little things that we could have never afforded otherwise, like Christmas and birthday presents.
We left the ranch when I was 14 years old when we moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That was when I fell in love with the city and became a "city" girl. Talk about a cultural shock. There was grass, street lamps, paved roads, sidewalks, stores and many more. There was electricity whenever you needed it, water that came out of the faucet either hot or cold and we had a radio and even a television. Yes, life was good in the city
It did not take long to get the straw and hay seeds out of my braids. The whole family adjusted to the city life. I especially said I would leave the city to live in the country again. Never! Never! Never!
We left Wisconsin to go back to Colorado after I graduated from high school. My parents could not afford to send us to college. I graduated from high school with my mind set on marrying either a doctor or a lawyer. I wanted to be a homemaker and a mother, live in the suburbs with two great kids and drive a big station wagon.
I found a job waiting tables in a very posh restaurant called the Brown Palace and went on to meet my significant other. He was a very city guy and we married. We both loved the mountains and lived in a very nice, quiet mountain town that had everything you could want. I had a very nice home and besides, Denver was only 45 minutes away on good paved roads.
What a cruel twist of fate handed to me. I married a city "wanna be" Davy Crockett-Daniel Boone lost spirit. Living in Idaho Springs provided me with a sound, warm home that had grass, gas heat, hot and cold running water, telephone and electricity; all that was going to change. I didn't mind camping out, or the fishing trips as I knew I would be going back to all the creature comforts that I grew to love so much.
Some friends of ours knew of a couple that was selling their cabin and 2 acres near Rollinsville, Colorado. About 50 miles further up in the mountains about 2,000 feet higher than where we lived now. We went up to look at the place and I said "NO!!!!", without any discussion. My husband, John kept at me until we decided to buy the property. He would build us a new cabin and we would live in the little cabin until we could at least build a house. After the framing and insulation was in, we'd move into the new house and then finish the inside as we could. I wanted a warm, snug house that had gas heat, cold and hot running water and above all electricity!!!
Can you guess what this old cabin looked like? Yep, it looked like the old chicken coop on the ranch. It was a slant roofed, log affair. It had no running water, heat or electricity. We were going to live in that chicken coop!!! It had roughly three rooms, a pantry of sorts, a storm porch perched out from the only door in the place. Outside, it was blessed with a 3 hole outhouse and 2 small sheds.
By the time we moved in, I had my 4th baby. I had two boys, ages 4 and 3, a little girl, 1 1/2 years old and my 3 week old baby boy. It was the first week in April and it had rained the whole weekend we moved. If you ever experienced mountain mud, you must have known how I felt by Sunday afternoon.
John had left for work up at the Urad Molybdenum mines above Silverplume about 50 miles from the cabin. The bare wood floors were covered with the black mud, the boys were covered in it and there was furniture and boxes piled up here and there. I got the wood cook stove stocked up for heat and supper. The kerosene lamp hardly splintered in the dark, rainy twilight. The baby woke up and I grabbed a bottle out of the ice chest, warmed it up and fed the baby while the children played on the floor. After I fed the baby, I put him in the cleanest spot I could find for him to have his nap.
I had heated up some water to get the other three children cleaned up for supper. We ate chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper. It was dark by 6 pm and after I had cleaned the dishes, I went to play with the children. Do you have any idea how hard it is to read or do puzzles by lantern light? Yeah!! Abe Lincoln may have read by firelight but if you ask me, he must have the eyes of a cat.
I convinced the children they were tired and it was bedtime. I had a set of bunk beds and a twin bed in a room so small we had wall-to-wall mattresses. I got the baby to sleep in his crib at the foot of our bed. I went to "kitchen/parlor," sat in the one chair that was not littered with dirty clothes and toys, then proceeded to have a good cry. I must have fallen asleep as I was still there when John came home from work at 1:30 am. He was hungry so I made a fresh pot of coffee and made some eggs and cooked stove toast.
Thank god for the poor lantern shed light as I must have been such a sight. My eyes felt so swollen from crying, I was dirty with mud with some soot on my face from fighting with the stove earlier. John never knew how unhappy and miserable I was at the moment. Very little was said while he ate. I was afraid I would start crying all over again but crying wouldn't solve anything. I made the bed and we piled into it about 2:15 am, only to be awoken by a hungry baby. I got back to sleep at about 3:30 am and just as it seemed as if I had just put my head onto the pillow, I had heard the thumps of the bed bouncers.
As the days came and went, Spring was upon us. A fun filled routine had been established at the "coop". We'd get up at 6 am and stock up the cook stove. Even though it was late May, the mornings were still a bit brisk. Running around in a sheer, flimsy nightgown was entirely out of the questions. Night garb consisted of flannel pajamas, a sweat shirt and big wooly socks. Water was heating, coffee perking, oatmeal bubbling and a baby bottle was ready to go.
After the children were dressed and the baby neatly tucked in beside his sleeping father, we started to haul in water. We had hauled water in two 10 gallon milk cans in the children's red wagon. We had to walk downhill a half mile to a community well. I always made sure that I brought enough water to prime the pump. The children were enjoying the outing. They ran, threw rocks, picked up sticks and pelted each other with pine cones.
The forest smelled so good. A breeze brought nothing but a sweet smell of pine trees and there was no such thing as air pollution here. Life had its good moments here, until we had to push and pull two 10 gallon milk cans filled with water back uphill for half a mile up the road to the "chicken coop". You are probably thinking why I didn't use the truck? Ever try to load two 10 gallon milk cans onto the back of a big Chevy Stake bed truck? I just didn't have the oomph to heft them up to the truck bed. Besides when discussing chores, wood chopping was Dad's and hauling water was mine. Oh goody
The children had the run of two acres of pine trees, rocks and mountain dirt. In one corner of the property, there was a huge protrusion of big boulders put there by Mother Nature herself. It proved to be the most beloved spot to play for the children. It was the center of their imaginative universe.
Let me describe the "coop" for you. It had three rooms, a small room that I called the pantry, the kitchen-living room is what modern homes have now. It is called the family room. We finally bought some used metal kitchen cupboards and got them installed. Now I finally have a kitchen sink although I do not have running water. At least I got to empty the sink into a bucket conveniently hidden underneath. Dishes were done once a day to conserve water.
My big copper kettle (which I still have) sat on the stove to keep a considerable amount of water hot at all times. The cook stove (which I still have as well) was stocked up all the time. The wood box was to the right of the stove, conveniently beside our only door. I had two big windows in the kitchen that looked out on the "rock". The scrub tub sat in the corner by the kitchen sink, the old wooden table and chairs finished our frontier decor.
I had 2 big windows in the living room. We had the couch, a rocking chair, an easy chair, a bookcase and a couple of tables that had kerosene lanterns. Whoever installed the windows, they put them in backwards so you had to go outside to unlock them and push them open. We never locked them anyway. Who is ever going to break into a "chicken coop"?
The "coop" had old wood floors that were swept smooth and it had that muddled, gray-brown look. Just like barn wood. The color went with any decor to suit your heart's desire.
The chink had started to fall out leaving trails of sunlight and cool air in all around. We had to get plywood up on the walls to cover the chinked logs.
Our bedroom was on the downside slant of the "coop." We had to put the bed on the high side, almost blocking the other bedroom door for Dad to get into bed without clunking his head. I almost had to duck as the ceiling was that low on my side of the bed. The crib was at the foot of our bed. The children's bedroom was on the other side. The bunk beds were put on the high side of the ceiling but the oldest boy could not sit upright in bed. It was wall to wall mattresses. There were no closets, and no room for dressers.
The pantry held the dressers, a pole rack for a closet. The fishing rods and rifles were stacked up in one corner. Unpacked boxes, toys, and boots were sitting on the floor in a corner. A drying rack sat on one wall with the archery equipment. Old wooden shelves that held canned goods, home canned pickles, fruit, vegetables, sacks of flour, sugar, cornmeal, beans, rice, and silent small electrical appliances.
Of course, there was no water, so an old galvanized tub was the bathtub. Baths were a major undertaking. The scrub tub came out and hot water from the stove. There was a pecking order for baths, baby, Sandy, Mom, depending on who was the dirtiest, Dad or the boys.
A good bath was given once a week and the rest of the time, the kitchen sink served as a wash basin for all. The dirty water was dumped outside by the back shed. We used soap that was environmentally safe even in the 60's. To this day, I cannot let water run for no apparent reason and I scream when someone else wastes water.
Dishes were done once a day to conserve water. Laundry was done 3-times a week, it was an all day marathon. Extra water had to be hauled in for that. Dad usually did this at night after work. The water had to be heated, the scrub tub was put on its little table and I scrubbed clothes on a scrubbing board with Fels-Naptha soap. The clothes were rinsed, hand rung and hung out to dry. Even at the ranch we had a gasoline driven washing machine. Now you had to have your laundry out and dry before 2 PM before it rained. Ever see mountain dirt splatter on sheets? It looks like ink blots on a white sheet and it never washes out, even with bleach.
For my birthday that year, I was presented with a hand cranked portable wringer. It was a gift from heaven. A diamond would not have made me happier.
Of course, no water meant no toilet, the outhouse stood back and beside the house about 50 feet away. It was of sound construction, certainly better built than the "coop". The roof didn't leak; it had a small window in the door with three small holes for ventilation. I always kept a good supply of quick lime to keep the smell down in the summertime. The seats had been sanded smooth to prevent splinters for unsuspecting bottoms
Sandy was still too short to reach the seats but she was almost potty trained. That was another accomplishment well received. The boys used the outhouse during the day but most often watered the trees. They used the outhouse to throw things into. That black abyss gobbled up toys, clothes, tools, pine cones and other odd things not nailed down but put to good use thrown into it to appease the "Outhouse Gods". I always wanted to have a voice come from those black holes when a toy or a tool hit bottom, exclaiming, "I will come up there if you don't quit throwing things down here" in a deep booming voice! It tickled the hell out of me just thinking about it.
I don't know how many times I got after the boys for throwing things into the holes but I guess that was part of their fun. To this day, I don't know what all was lost to the "Outhouse Gods" but believe me, I wouldn't go into it to find out. Dad had to keep his tools out of the boys reach or they would have been sacrificed to the "Outhouse Gods" also. Anything that had been missing for more than a month was chalked up to being sacrificed.
Our summer was spent trying to get the "coop" wired for electricity. Between fishing, wood chopping, and working, John didn't have a lot of time but by October we were ready to have the county inspector come in and inspect it so we could get hooked up to the Rural Electric Co-op. The man that came to inspect our wiring was incredulous that humans lived in that cabin but we had done on good job on the wiring so he passed us and gave us credit for our pioneer spirit (I knew what he was thinking, how could anyone be that dumb to try and live in a place like that). We bought a big bottle of ginger ale and celebrated when we pulled the chain in the kitchen ceiling light fixture that held a 100 watt light bulb. YES! LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!! Slowly we got all the light fixtures and plug-ins installed. The children could finally listen to the radio and John could have real toast. Cooking stove toast goes a long way. It has a tendency to get burnt and it tastes like eating charcoal lathered in butter.
I unpacked some lamps, my iron, electric coffee pot, and the electric alarm clock. We retrieved the refrigerator from the back shed and again, I was thinking, "Life is good." We had been using two big ice chests for a refrigerator. About the only thing we put in there was eggs and meat when we had it.
The children were used to canned and dry milk. I will never take a refrigerator for granted again. It is a gift of modern technology. Ice cream, TV dinners, ice cubes, lettuce, real milk, cream pies. Now this is living.
With the advent of electricity we were now able to have a telephone installed. I really didn't miss having the phone but being alone with the children, Dad thought it was a necessary item to have. A private line was out of the question. We were on a 4 party line. There was a short and a long ring, a long and a short ring.
Two short and 1 long rings and our ring was 1 long and 2 short. Every time the damn thing rang, everyone stopped what they were doing to see if we needed to answer the phone.
Very rarely did the phone ring for us. Relatives living in Denver really didn't want to know how we were doing. They thought we were both idiots living up in the mountains in a "chicken coop"
Another part of our summer recreation was getting the wood pile ready for winter. Winter comes early up here so we got started almost as soon as we moved in to get a good supply stocked up before November hit. Does anyone one have any idea how much wood it takes to keep 2 wood stoves burning cherry during a Colorado mountain winter? Ever hear of a cord of wood? It is wood piled up 4 ft by 4 ft by 8 feet. We figured we would need at least 8 cords to get us through next May. So chopping, sawing and splitting wood somewhat became a hobby. When John wasn't fishing, working on the "coop" then wood became the driving force. He didn't like being cold any better than the rest of us.
John and the old Chevy truck would head up the dirt road, usually with the two boys, a lunch, an ax, and an old gasoline chain saw. I wouldn't see them until twilight. The wood got unloaded by lantern light and the next day, he set upon sawing it in 2 foot pieces. After a hefty amount was cut, he'd split it all with a wedged ax.
Did I say the forest was quiet.....between the chainsaw and the ax, quiet it wasn't. Every time Dad chopped wood, he would usually get injured somewhere. I think the worst he did was the chopping block and burying the ax in his shin. We patched him up with a big bandage and life went on.
Another part of our cheap recreation was to pack a picnic lunch and pile into that old Chevy truck for a ride. Dad would head up an old dirt road called Turkey Creek canyon and off the road we went. The truck did not have 4-wheel drive but it did have a compound drive and it took us almost any place we wanted to go. We went exploring all over those hills. Sometimes we ended up in some old dried up creek bed that had rocks and boulders in it. One Sunday, we came home with both front fenders dented in and no rear view mirrors as John tried to get between some trees that were not quite big enough for the truck to pass through.
We would stop and have our lunch and let the children and dog romp around. There is a downside to letting the children have free roam of those hills. There were chiggers, ticks and mosquitoes. I got to be an expert at getting ticks off the children, the dog and Dad. Every night, during wash up time, everyone was thoroughly inspected for ticks, even the dog. Chiggers just bit and so did the mosquitoes. Let me tell you about mosquitoes. They were big enough to pick up a small child and fly away with them. Their bite was just about as bad. They didn't come out until twilight so we usually tried to get home before they came out. There was no such thing as insect repellent then. If we were out at night, the smoke from the campfire was your only defense.
To earn extra money to build a nice, new home, the older boys and I dug for worms that we got paid a penny a worm for by a little store that sold fishing bait and other odd sundries.
We got to be experts on looking for the really rich worm patches. It was nothing to earn $25 on a good weekend digging for worms while Dad was at work. Digging worms help support that household and it was something we could all do to contribute, even the children. What small boy does not like to dig for worms? It wasn't ever a chore for them. I even grew to enjoy it, outside in the fresh air and just having conversations with the children.
Where else could little boys dig in the dirt beside their mom and not get yelled at for getting mud and dirt all over them. That was sheer heaven for any little boy. The older boys learned how to count and their ABC's during our water hauling walks and digging for worms. I told them stories about living on the ranch and how much I loved living in the mountains now.
Camping trips were a simple affair in our household. Sleeping bags, ax, frying pan, coffee pot, a pan, a jug of fresh water, a small bag of flour, bacon grease, a couple cans of beans and we were on our way. Some very good friends of ours from Wisconsin came out to visit that September. They stayed with us for a couple of weeks and they wanted to go camping as neither of them had ever had the opportunity to do so. I had my niece stay with the children and we borrowed a tent, got the rest of our supplies ready (like the rifle, the bows, and the fishing gear).
We drove up to Deadmans's Lake which has great fishing but it is a hike down from the road to get to it. Did I say hike? It was about 2 miles downhill all the way at about a 20 grade drop. (That's steep, folks.) The lake was deep, cold and was fresh water. There are many abandoned mines up there so you had to be very careful of the water you drank. Some of it was laced with lead arsenic from the mine tailings and it could make you very sick. That is why we usually carried water with us just in case.
We set up the tent which was supposed to be a 4 man tent but it was a 2. No problem, John and I were used to sleeping outside. Just pile up pine needles and it makes a very soft place to lay the sleeping bag.
Gloria and Kenny were already winded from the altitude. We were up about 11,000 ft and they could hardly breathe. We had forgotten that they were flatlanders and the altitude had gotten to them. John and I brought the gear down from the road and we gathered firewood. Not just a little bit but a mound. We fished and caught 4 big trout for supper and had beans and trout for supper and again for breakfast. We did a little target shooting and as it got dark, sat around the fire and talked till we were ready to hit the sleeping bags.
John and I took turns keeping the fire going as it got about 20 degrees that night. The wind howled and Gloria and Kenny did not get much sleep. I had coffee going and Dad went down and caught some fresh trout for breakfast. For a treat, we brought eggs and potatoes with us for breakfast. We didn't know it at the time, but Gloria had just gotten pregnant and the fish frying in the pan with the eggs was more than she could handle. That poor girl got really sick. Maybe I should have cut the heads off the trout.
We left the lake about 2 PM that day and came home as Gloria would have not survived another night there. We all came in smelling like smoke, we were dirty, and hungry. Strange thing though, Gloria wasn't. To this day, we talk about that camping trip with them. They have never gone camping since then. I wonder why?
All the flatlanders had closed up their cabins for the winter and we had no neighbors for miles. It really was kind of nice to be alone now. During the summer, we had flatlanders everywhere. In fact, we had a couple of car loads pull into our driveway to have a picnic at our old table. I would come out of the "coop" and ask what was for lunch and call for the children. It didn't take them long to pack up and leave.
There was two feet of snow on the ground by Halloween. The outer road up to the "coop" was plowed but our road wasn't. Being too much to shovel, chains went on to get out, off, on, off, on. I became quite adept at putting the chains on when needed. Winter at the "coop" was trying to keep both stoves cherry red (hoping we wouldn't catch a chimney on fire or start the roof on fire). It still didn't keep out the cold. Now folks, we're talking cold. At 9,000 feet, it was nothing to be 10 below zero in October and colder yet in January and February.
This was way before weathermen even talked about wind chill factors. We had built a small lean to on the backside of the storm shed to put the truck in at night. The battery was always brought in at night and a big old quilt was thrown over the engine. If that wasn't done, that old truck would have never started. When Dad had to leave at 6 AM in the morning, the truck was started about 5 AM and left running to get it warm. I started the fires and Dad got the truck going. It started most of the time. For an old beater, it was a good truck.
Traveling in the winter time, especially when the roads were bad, required a survival kit. It was a big wooden box that sat in the back of the truck. We carried 10 gallons of fresh water, 2 gallons of gasoline and an ax. We had about 4 cans of Sterno, 4 cans of canned milk for the baby, extra diapers, and 4 big blankets. The box had a first aid kit and 25 pounds of dried cat food. Ounce per ounce, cat food has the most protein in it. If you are stranded for any length of time, the cat food will keep you from starving to death.
Now we probably had more "stuff" than we needed but being caught in a blizzard with 4 children was not my idea of a fun time. We were never stranded and I am glad of that as we heard of people getting stranded in snow banks and by the time they were found, they had frozen or starved to death. "Being prepared" living up in the mountains was a good saying to live by.
John got a part time job for one of the "rich" folks who owned a cabin (a mansion by my standard of living) over the ridge from us. We were responsible for house cleaning during the summer and taking care of his grounds. Mr. Harding owned a large Television station in Denver and was quite wealthy, so we had heard. He usually came up to the cabin every weekend during the summer months without his wife.
Mrs. Harding hated their cabin. It was a two story loft with all the modern convenience of city life. So Bert usually came to eat with us. He enjoyed our cabin more than he did his. John and Bert would fish from his private lake and catch some of the biggest trout I have ever seen. Two trout would feed 6 people easily.
Bert paid Dad very well for his services and I am sure Bert enjoyed every meal he ate with us. By September, Bert wanted the cabin closed down for the winter. It was our job to clean it one last time and get the water pipes drained so they would not freeze. We had access to his lake all year so we did some ice fishing. Man, those were good trout.
I don't know what I needed a refrigerator for, I lived in one. The children went to bed with long johns, footy pj's and an outer quilted blanket suit with a hood on it. Why? You ask, didn't we use an electric blanket? Good question. Well, during the winter months, the electricity was out more than we had it on. Out came the kerosene lanterns. You have never lived until you had the children all dressed and ready for bed when you heard those dreaded words, "Mommy, I have to go potty". They could hold water like a camel until that last zipper went up...... Murphy's Law. Damn! Damn! Damn!
It was nothing to wake up to ice on the outer walls, the windows completely frozen white with icicles hanging from the window sills. If you didn't want to get up to keep the stoves stoked up every two hours, it got damn cold. We finally resorted to using coal to bank it up at night and it stayed at least 40 degrees indoors. It felt almost tropical.
We all used the chamber pot then. It was too cold and too much bother to go outside to use the outhouse. Dad and the boys had it easy; aim and shoot. Sandy was still using the potty chair and the baby was still in diapers. Like a thrill? Put your nice warm bottom on that cold, porcelain pot. Ever have the pee scared out of you? Well, I've had the pee scared back up from that cold pot. It didn't take long for me to learn a balancing act to keep from sitting on it.
Hunting season was about to open and Dad had planned for this for weeks. He had gotten a long weekend from his job and was ready to play Davy Crockett. The guns were cleaned, the ammo bought, provisions set aside, knives sharpened, sights zeroed in, the thrill and the excitement of it all. He would be gone for 4 days. He became a good hunter with either bow and arrow or rifle. He always got a cow, elk or venison.
We certainly preferred the elk. It wasn't as gamey as venison but meat was meat and it did not take me long to learn how to overcome that gamey taste and fix good venison dinners.
Hunting season was something that was like a town celebration. Businesses that were unnecessary were closed for more than a month. This is when the restaurant and grocery store made their winter money. We had flatlanders from all over the country come up to go hunting. We had them from Texas, Arizona, California, you name it and they were from there.
The locals from our area knew the best spots and it was a best kept secret. Most of the places you had to have horses and mules to get you there. A lot of the fancy 4-wheel drive jeeps and trucks could not get to where they hunted. And that's the way they wanted it. Those out-of-state- hunters were dangerous. Folks for miles around painted their cows and horses with the words cow or horse on their side. It was not unusual to lose some livestock every year. Our guys drank in camp but these other flatlanders really drank.
There were a couple of hunting guides that took these idiots out but they knew to stay away from the locals. The locals would have shot them and then said, "Oops, thought you were a deer."
Mountain folk are very clannish and didn't like the thought of having flatlanders disturbing their hunting one damn bit shooting one of them in the ass was not unheard of if they got in their way. Mountain folk are a strange breed of people.
In this community, women were not allowed to go with the "men folks". I went hunting with my Dad, Uncles and Grandfather as soon as I could hold a rifle and shoot it. I could handle a 30-6 as well as any man but I had to stay home and keep the home fires burning. I guess this was an ego trip for them. Big brave hunters, men, I swear. I would go bow hunting with Dad though and we always had a good time. Never brought down a deer but we enjoyed each other's company as that was the only time we were ever alone.
When the deer was brought in, we usually let it hang in the pantry for about three to four weeks before we butchered it, it's called aging. Our cold pantry was perfect for it. That meat was so tender you could cut it with a sharp glance.
Butchering out was an all day family affair. We had roasts, steaks, elk burger, elk sausage, stew meat, and soup meat that lasted till spring. I also cooked down the bones in the scrub tub and made mincemeat for pies. The first to be tasted was Thanksgiving. We cut the ground and wrapped all day well into the evening until we got it all into a used freezer that we bought.
Aha! No dependable electricity, do you remember me mentioning that? Come on, it was colder outside than in any freezer. The freezer was just a place to store it. We did buy a small gasoline driven generator to keep a light bulb burning here and there. It was kept on the storm porch along with the freezer, and extra shelves used to keep things cold.
We also had rabbit meat but we called them buggy boos. Dad made sure that when he hunted rabbits, they were dressed in the field so their children did not know it was a bunny rabbit. The children, at their age, would have never understood that we killed and used them for meat. We often had fresh trout and a squirrel here and there. Not those tiny, little things you find in a city park. Mountain squirrels were as big as house cats and coal black. They were also called buggy boos, skinned out. There was not a lot of difference between the squirrels or the rabbits.
By late summer Dad thought it was a good idea for the boys to have a dog. I had wanted a cat indoors to help rid us of the mice we had. They were smart mice, traps didn't seem to work. Now of all things hated by Dad, cats were at the top of the list. To him, the only good cat was a dead cat so I dropped the subject a long time ago and yes; I agreed a dog would be a good companion for the children. We got a mutt, part husky and something else. The children and that dog were great pals.
I tried to bring the dog into the storm porch at night when it got cold but he did not want anything to do with it. He liked it outside, cold as it was. He would dig a deep hole underneath the truck and then sleep in it. I guess he stayed warm. We just had to be careful about falling into his holes that he dug. We gave him the bigger elk bones to chew on. If someone was to dig around the "coop" now, they'd swear that a whole herd had been buried there. We didn't have a lot of soil before you hit hard rock but that dog always managed to get his bones buried or hidden.
Thanksgiving came and went and Christmas was upon us. I had sewn with an old Singer treadle sewing machine and crocheted all summer after the children had gone to bed, to make Christmas gifts. John had made wooden toys, some of which are still around. We scrapped enough money together to buy the boys some trucks, Sandy a doll and the baby some toys. He was crawling now and impossible to keep clean. But alas, the boys walked and I couldn't keep them clean either.
By this time, I was mellowing out and accepting my pioneer life. It wasn't all that bad. I enjoyed the time I spent with the children as we only had each other for company. With no TV, time was spent reading to them, coloring, doing puzzles and playing games.
We'd still trek for water or just walk around our little "coop" acres with the dog running around chasing some invisible critter. I really wondered if the cold had caused him brain damage. He was just a big, black, stupid dog but the children loved him; big, black, stupid dog that he was. One winter day changed my mind about him. Living right in the forest, I thought it might be nice to cut our own tree. We all got dressed up warm, I put Sandy and the baby on the sled, grabbed an ax and off we went with the dog yapping and chasing those critters no one could see but him.
Just because we lived in a forest didn't mean it was filled with beautiful pine trees. All we were finding were scraggy, lean, misshapen excuses for trees. We kept walking and by now were probably 2 miles from the "coop" down and over a small ravine. We finally spotted a nice little tree. I proceeded to chop it down. Unknown to us, we must have disturbed a sleeping bear.
If standing downwind from a bear, you can smell him before you see him so we must have been upwind from him. As I am chopping on the tree, I heard a dog give out a deep, rumbled growl. I turned to him fast as I had never heard that dog growl like that before. Then I saw a swirl of black bear and black dog go at it.
To this day, I don't know if the bear was going after the babies on the sled or just angry at the dog. Snow, bear and dog were all over the ground. The babies are screaming by now, the two older boys are yelling at the bear to leave their dog alone and I'm trying to decide whether to hit the bear with the ax but I could not distinguish bear or dog as they were just a black blur.
Ever hear a bear scream? Well they can and this bear did. Dog must have laid his teeth into something tender as the bear took off with the dog yapping behind him down the ravine and out of sight. I knew the dog could find his way home so I tied up the tree and the boys dragged it home while I pulled the sled. Dog was home before we got there. He was sitting about 20 feet from the storm porch with a big grin on his face and his tail just a wagging.
I got the children inside and went out to check the dog. Now he was laying there and when I got up to him, I could see how badly injured he had been. How he had gotten home with those injuries was beyond me. He had a gash on his throat, his left side was ripped open and his black coat was covered in blood. I sat down beside him wishing I could do something for him. He opened his eyes, licked my hand and closed his eyes, gently dying in my arms. I sat there and cried like a baby. "You big, black, stupid dog." He probably had saved the babies from injury. I could see the boys crying through the window. They had indeed lost a very special friend.
I wrapped him in an old blanket and Dad buried him when he got home from work that night. The boys insisted on making a wooden cross and Dad penciled on it with a black crayon, just the word DOG. We put some pine boughs and some plastic flowers on his little grave name, behind the shed. We had never bothered giving him a name, he was just dog. God love him, he certainly went to doggy heaven where he can chase his invisible critters; that big, black, stupid dog.
We got the tree up and decorated it with strung popcorn, pine cones, paper chains, paper snowflakes, and aluminum foil ornaments that the kids had made. Instead of putting an angel at the top, I took out the collar that I had made for him for Christmas and put it over the point of the tree. I had a small brass tag engraved with "Dog" on it. How appropriate it is there, a guardian angel in a fur coat. He was just a big, black, stupid dog.
We had a very nice Christmas Eve. We went to the Community church about 20 miles away. The children got to see Santa and were given a big candy cane and a small toy. They were enthralled by it all. I was happy. It started to snow on the way home, what a beautiful sight as we got out of the truck. We played in the fresh dusty snow. It was a full moon out and it was so light out, it was as if someone turned the lights on just for us to play in the snow. We made a couple of "doggy" angels, threw snow at each other as it was too
powdery to make snowballs.
We all went to bed with sugar plums dancing in our heads, only mine was in the shape of a toilet and a washing machine. Lord, did it snow, we could not see out the back windows, the children enjoyed their gifts. I had made John a crocheted hat, muffler and two flannel shirts. And guess what I got......my toile, yep, a tiny, miniature glass toilet on a gold chain. I laughed till I cried and laughed some more. Life was good at the "chicken coop".
January got downright cold. The thermometer said it was 50 below zero. We prayed for snow so it would warm up. Dad worked unusual shifts at the mine. Two weeks on days, two weeks on swing and two weeks on graveyard. Trying to keep a routine the same yet it had to change every two weeks. Trying to keep 4 active youngsters quiet while Dad slept was a lesson in futility. John finally just learned to sleep with the noise. When he worked nights he got home about 8:30 in the morning. One bright, crisp and very cold morning in mid-January, he walked in with a big grin on his face. Was I suspicious? You had better believe it. A grin on his face usually meant he wanted me to do something I was not going to be crazy about doing. Women's intuition doesn't know. He asked me to come and look at what he had in the back of the truck. I thought, 'It's a washing machine.' my heart quickened. I raced out to be greeted by sacks of squirming burlap bags.
Inside were 80 live chickens. Oh good Lord, did he have to take the cabin's name literally. What the hell was I going to do with 80 live chickens? I must have turned as white as the snow around us, as John yelled, "NO! Not to lay eggs, we're going to kill, clean and eat them." "Oh yeah?!" I screamed at him. "You and what other idiot!??"
Well hi there; meet the "other" idiot. Dad, being a "city" boy, did not know crap about killing and cleaning chickens. But I did....how blessed am I. I fed everyone breakfast, and got the baby down for a nap. They boys and I proceeded to build a fire outside to put the scrub pot on to heat water.
Dad got the ax to start chopping off heads. "Women shouldn't have to do this," he said. I pulled the first sack off the truck, opened it up, got out a chicken by the head, with a quick twist and a snap had the head off. I had 80 chickens down and headless in a matter of minutes. There were chickens scurrying everywhere. Dog would have loved this. Now John, being a hunter and field dressing of elk didn't bother him but the way I killed those chickens did. He stayed green for the longest time.
The boys ran screaming into the cabin as they thought the chickens were chasing them. I probably emotionally damaged both boys for life. What the hell, no one is perfect. The water was boiling and ready to defeather chickens. I was no slouch at this either. I made John help me to de-feather all 80 of them. I just threw them in a snowbank to cool them out fast. By 6 PM that night, I had 78 chickens cleaned and in the freezer. Two of them were in a big frying pan cooking on the stove. To this day, I bet there are still chicken feathers hanging in those pine trees.
Valentine's Day was nearing so the children and I had made Valentines out of red and white paper, bits of ribbon and lace from my sewing basket. As luck would have it, Dad was on graveyard shift. When he got home that morning, he had a big grin on his face. Was I suspicious? Double YES! He asked me to come out and look in the back of the truck "Oh Good Grief, what the hell has he got this time?" I had asked myself as I walked out the door and there it was, a big, beautiful wringer washer with a big red bow on it. I yelled, I screamed and danced an Irish jig in the snow. I laughed and I cried. I gave John a big kiss and hug. The children thought I flipped out. I did! I did! I ran in and hugged and kissed all the children and told them to get dirty so I could wash clothes. Yes, life is good at the "chicken coop".
After I got control of myself, I noticed a little box on the front seat of the truck. I asked John what was in it and he said, "Open it." I opened the box and there was the most adorable little kitten in the box. He was coal black except for his four white paws and a white tip at the end of his tail. He looked to be about 7 weeks old. The perfect name for him was "Boots." I didn't ask John why he relented and brought home the cat. By golly, I brought him into the house and the children had a good time getting him acquainted with all of them.
In fact, over the months, Boots and John got to be quite good buddies and what a mouser. He was always bringing us little gifts of mice everyday. Soon he ridded the household of the vermin. He certainly was lord and master of his entire domain.
Mid March brought a bit of a warming spell. You could see the snow disappear inch by inch and the driveway was beginning to show dirt. The baby was walking now and having himself a great time trying to keep up with the 3 older children. Once he was walking, everything that got broken, or lost got blamed on the poor child. This is where our family says, "Dougie did it." came from.
Things were really going great, the children were thriving on the mountains, we had money in the bank to start building the new cabin. We were hoping to pour the foundation by June.
During a full bliss, John came home from work one rainy afternoon early, very unusual. He walked in with a big grin on his face. That man never could play a decent game of poker. He told me to come outside and see what he had in the truck. Now don't you think I would quit falling for that line? That man was the all time "getter of things." People seemed to seek him out to give him things no one else wanted. "Here we go again!"
In the back of the truck were two grown goats and two baby kids. One of the grown goats was pregnant and ready to drop anytime. I just looked at Dad. I couldn't even think of anything else to say but "Why?"
He went on to explain that goat's milk was good for the human kids and it would save us money. Now I have milked many cows but a goat?! How in God's good name did he expect me to milk goats? He said, "You put them on this little stand." that he so conveniently had stashed, "and you just milk them." Our children spotted the goat kids from the window and they all came spilling out trying to pet and play with the kid goats.
I didn't notice the smell right away but it slowly crept into my nostrils. You see, goats have a very peculiar odor about them and compound that with being wet... God, I can still smell them! I haven't words to describe it except that goats stink. Not as bad as a skunk mind you, but add a bit of limburger cheese with the "Ode de skunk" and a dash of wet dog and you get the idea. They stink.
I certainly didn't have a big insurance policy and I didn't think John had a girlfriend on the side, why was he trying to kill me by adding more work of milking a goat? This time I snapped and just said "No! You brought the goats home, you milk them and if you don't want to milk them, find them a new home!" I just refused to do it. I sulked into the house and I pouted all night and so did John. He tried to make conversation and I just refused.
I had drawn the line. Nothing was said for a couple of days. The goats got put into a makeshift pen and the children had a good time playing with the goat kids. Well, guess what, John learned to milk the goats and a damn fine job he did too. I didn't mind the goat milk as we made sure they had good food to eat. The milk will taste of what the goat has been eating. The goat eats bad food and the milk is bad. I fed and took care of them but I never learned how to milk a goat. One week later, the pregnant goat dropped a coal black kid and she was adorable. We named her Silky. So now, I have to worry about a herd of goats this coming winter.
By April our thoughts had turned to digging a well. In 1967 the cost was $15 a foot with no guarantees. We discussed that maybe we could dig our own well and save the money. We needed the money for the foundation for the new house.
We brought in old Gus with his divining rod to find water. He walked around the acres with the forked stick in his hand looking for a good sign. Well, he found it, right under the floor of the storm shed. We dug up the floor and found out that a well had been dug there. We were certainly very surprised and wondering why the folks that sold us the cabin never told us. A well pump was already there. Not in too bad a shape for having been neglected for two or more years.
We had also found out that a leaching field and a septic tank had already been put in place. "Why hadn't the younger's told us about this?" I know they wanted to sell this property real bad but I would have thought it would have sold better with a well in place instead of keeping it a deep dark secret.
We were ecstatic about this. We got fresh horse biscuits to put into the septic system to get the bacteria going again and we started up the pump and proceeded to find out what the recovery was on the well. It was about a 20 foot well but the recovery was really good on it. It could handle 20 gallons a minute. That would be fine with me.
At first the water was brackish and had a peculiar smell. It smelled like swamp water but there are no swamps for miles around here. We just figured that because it had sat dormant for those 2 years that it needed to be pumped for a couple of days to get it sweet again. We pumped it dry twice, let it recover for a day or two and pumped it dry again. The water was still smelly. We finally had to relent to find a well driller to come in to see what the problem was.
Gus recommended a good well driller so we asked him to stop by to give us some advice. He came on a Saturday afternoon, he tasted the water and walked around the property. He asked where the septic tank was and how the leaching field had been put in. He checked them out and walked some more.
He went across the road and looked around over there. I had walked by it many times but never took the time to see what was behind the pines and scraggy oak trees. He said he had bad news and more bad news. There was a bog across the road that was leaching into the well. We would never get sweet water from it. I could hear my breath being sucked out of me as he said more. The leaching field had been put too close to the house as well as the septic tank and if we ever wanted sweet, good water, we'd have to re-lay the leaching field, dig up the septic tank and move it and drill a new well on the upside of our property where the bog water wouldn't affect it.
Two months later and $2,000 we had a new well. It was sweet but its recovery was not as we had hoped for. Ten gallons a minute was all we could expect of it. So we had a new little shed that was the pump house, well insulated for the cold. Now I had water close but still no plumbing in the "coop".
We had spent every dime we could lay our hands on to pay for it and now we would have to save again just to get the money for plumbing. I was disappointed but I didn't have to walk the half mile to get water, just go up past the big boulders to get water. We put a spigot on the pump and it was not all that bad. Life was getting better at the "coop"
In May of that summer, I took a part-time job cooking in a little restaurant in Rollinsville called the Stage Stop. It had been a stage stop in by-gone years. It was a big red building almost perched on the main highway that had connected all of that part of the country. Rollinsville had a grocery store, a gas station, post office and a coal/wood business that belonged to John's sister and her husband.
I worked 2 days and Dad's days off. I would go into work at 11 AM. The restaurant opened at 11:30 AM and the kitchen closed at 8:30 PM. I was in deep now. I could hardly keep up with everything. I got a baby-sitter for the kids when Dad couldn't watch them. You have to understand summer in the mountains. When it got 95 degrees in Denver and it was only 75 degrees in the mountains, where do you think everyone came to cool off? Saturday and Sunday was a non-stop, foot pounding session of cooking without a break. Because of the liquor law in Colorado at the time, on Sunday the liquor could not be sold after 8 PM. The kitchen closed at 6 PM and I usually got home about 6:30 PM
Most of the time, there would be cars in the drive-way with relatives visiting to get cool. Of course, a supper was expected to be laid out in front of them. John nor I never saw hide nor hair of them in the winter but we were expected to "entertain" them in the summer. I finally came to expect it and usually would have a cook-out in the rock, makeshift barbecue pit. We would have hot dogs and elk burgers. I would have potato salad made ahead of time and we would sit and roast marshmallows and eat watermelon after it got dark. We all sat around the fire, talked and drank a lot of beer. The children had other children to play with and I had a chance to find out about life in the big city. Thank God that our summers were really short. These sessions would break up long after I had fallen asleep in a lawn chair or Dad had to go to work.
In June, John decided to get the kids another dog. He brought home a 3 month old female puppy that was a German Shepherd and Black Labrador. She was tan all over except for her black feet. She had the tail and the ears of a black lab and the fur of a shepherd. We called her Dog 2. The two younger children called her dog-do so we changed it to 2 Dogs and then Toody. She was extremely protective with the two younger children. She had a sixth sense of what they could do or where they could go. If she thought they were going to get into something she would block their way and not let them go by her. She would get hit and hollered at by the children but she wouldn't budge. This one was another angel in a tan coat. Things were good in the "coop"
Summer was flying by and by August I was really looking forward to lay off work and get back to being a Mom and homemaker. Not to mention a zoo keeper. About the last of August, John was really late getting home from day shift at the mine. This was not all that unusual as sometimes overtime was available when big blasts were not cleared by the end of a shift. Dad usually called to let me know why. Not a word.
He was still not home by 6 PM and no call. As evening hit, I saw the headlights of that old Chevy truck coming up the road. I waited outside as Dad drove in and when he saw me standing by the door he stopped the truck and got out. Getting suspicious of him was a way of life. In the early evening shadows, I saw a head above the cab of the truck and then heard a whinny. Tied to the front boards of the stake bed truck was a very frightened colt. He had fear in his eyes and was just about to strangle himself trying to get away from his restraints. I expected him to raise hell but he just stood there breathing fast. I thought for sure he was going to collapse into a dead faint from fear. We got him water and threw some hay that John so conveniently had in the truck. I told everyone to leave him alone until morning to see if he was going to calm down or just plain die from fright.
The children were so excited. They had a pony that they could ride. I tried to explain to them that he was just a baby and they wouldn't be able to ride him for another couple of years.
Now thoughts of mayhem hit my consciousness. We now had 4 children, 5 goats, a dog, a cat and now a colt. I hauled off and hit John with everything I could muster. There was a barrage of language that would put a longshoreman to shame. I called John everything but a human being. He knew nothing about caring for a horse let alone breaking a colt. After I got it all out of my system, John said, "I'll build him a nice little barn and corral and I know someone who will break him for us". "Who?" I asked.
He came over and put his arms around me and said "you" and took off running like his butt was on fire. When I checked on the little fellow the next morning, I realized he was buckskin, my favorite coloring of a horse. He had good lines and he was in good health. He has calmed down now. He allowed me to reach for his harness and give him a quick pat on the nose.
The children came out and wanted to pet him. I told them to hold off a couple of days to let him get used to his surroundings. He didn't seem frightened of the goats and the goats didn't seem frightened of him. It didn't take him long to adjust and soon we let him roam the property with his harness lead tied to an old tire rim so he couldn't go far.
His favorite spot was to stand under fresh sheets when they were hung out to dry. I had to tie him up when I hung out the wash as he would stand there and let the wash brush against him. After a few turns of bringing in horse dirt on my sheets, he was tied up. He didn't like it one darn bit either. He would whinny and cry the whole time, God, another mouth that complained and to be fed.
By September, things were getting slow at the diner so I really wanted to quit work for the winter. I needed to concentrate on getting the cabin back in order. We had saved enough money for a bathtub, sink and a toilet. We sure didn't know where we were going to install them at this time. After a long discussion, the pantry was partially turned into a makeshift bathroom. John had always come up to help with his different projects so they came up to help install the tub, the toilet and get plumbing to the kitchen sink. The tub and the toilet were put on the back left corner of the pantry. We didn't have a place to put the sink right now so I settled for what I could get. They ran the plumbing for the washer also at this time. My days of hauling water were over. My goodness, this was becoming a regular "city" home.
Because of how the "coop" was built, the pantry never had a door going from the bedroom into it. It was just a big archway. It could be viewed from the living room with no difficulty at all. This was fine for us family folks but when someone came to visit, they didn't appreciate the wide open view of them sitting on the toilet. I just told visitors to throw a sheet over themselves and no one would know who they were. They were appalled at such a suggestion. Needless to day, that bit of humor was not well received. More than once I mumbled under my breath, 'damn city folk.'
We recycled garbage and trash way before it was fashionable. Living up in the mountains, you limited your garbage and trash output to the barest minimum. All labels were removed from canned goods and burned. The cans were cut open and smashed flat to be used as shingles for any shed that needed repairing. We didn't buy anything in plastic containers. It was too hard to dispose of them. Any usable food was thrown into a big pot on the "museum soup." This was an old kitchen tradition that back of the stove and there was a continuous supply of hot "museum soup"
This was an old kitchen tradition my mother and grandmother had done on the ranch.
Useless the compost heap to raise and sell fishing worms, the use of any plastic wrap was a definite no. Waxed paper was the only thing used to wrap food or sandwiches in as it could be burned. Before it was thrown into the cook stove, a quick swipe of the waxed paper across the stove gave it a nice shine.
Bones and food not thrown into the museum pot were given to the dog and the cat. Both animals lived on table scraps for many years with no adverse effects on their health. The cat loved goat milk and neither of the animals turned their nose's up at anything that was fed to them, smart animals.
Another winter was going to be setting in so we took stock of what supplies that we needed to carry us over the winter. Going into Denver was not a trip we made every week, especially in the summertime. The children hated going into Denver in the summer as they were not used to the heat. Consider being raised where it was cool or cold and then going into 95 degree heat.
At this time, no one we knew had air conditioning so we all suffered. Now we know why Denverites hit the mountains, it was their way to cool off for the day.
I had a chance to buy a gas stove but turned it down. I was used to how my wood stove cooked and I certainly saved money by doing so. The foundation had not been laid as we had hoped for but there was next spring. There is always next spring.
We had another eight hordes of wood piled up and any excess money was spent buying hay, corn, oats for the goats and the colt. John built them a nice little barn that we knew would keep them protected this coming winter. I was more than sure it was built better than the "coop". I was almost jealous. Winter supplies were in and put away. If nothing else, we would not go hungry.
Hungry... this brings us to another whole aspect of living where we did. I learned to cook anything from nothing and have it taste like something. The children always wanted to know what's for supper. My favorite saying was boiled bee's knees, fried rabbit tracks, frog eye salad with sugared butterfly wings for dessert. Sometimes they didn't know how close that saying could be.
My mother made me learn to cook right when I was young and I became a good "farm" cook. Gourmet food was not a staple up here. It had to stick to your ribs, stay with you until your next meal and taste good at the same time. You know, come to think of it, some of the dishes I cooked are probably served at Gourmet restaurants now. Rack of venison, broiled trout and elk steaks.
The children were so used to the taste of wild meat; they didn't like beef or pork. For hot-dogs, we usually had bunny or squirrel sausage, not unlike a German bratwurst. I think I could publish a cookbook for mountain folk. But alas, no one would buy it after they read the receipts.
When we had city folk for supper, I never told them what they were eating as they wouldn't eat it if they knew it was squirrel stew, bunny sausage or venison mincemeat pie. Telling them they were eating frog eye salad was enough to make them turn a few odd shades of green, "Silly people." It wasn't made with frog eyes and fruit. It was pearl tapioca and fruit. Such fussy eaters. I loved telling them it was frog eyes fresh from the bog across the road. I have sent the boys over this morning to make sure the eyes were quite fresh; frog eyes do not have a long shelf life. That made their eyes roll.
Winter set in with the usual snow and cold. Taking care of all the animals and 4 active youngsters kept me busy. Just before Christmas, we had one of the worst blizzards anyone could remember. After it quit snowing it got deathly cold. Some of the old timers said it was at least 60 degrees below zero those two days. I was afraid of the animals freezing to death so the goats were brought in and put in the pantry and the colt was put in the storm shed. Boots came unglued as he did not like the goats. The dog wanted to be outside and the colt was whinnying to get in. The electricity went out three days before that and it kept snowing. The roads were impassable. We just settled in with Noah's Ark, read by lantern light and ate well. The place smelled like a barn but it was the chicken coop, right?
By December 21, we were finally able to get out with chains on the truck so John went to work. I was going to cut down another tree that year but shy away from where we had met that bear last year. I got the sled out and off we went. We had no tragic bear encounters and by that afternoon the tree was in and up. At 4 PM, the phone rang and it was mine. John had been in a very serious accident at the mine. He was on his way to a hospital in Denver.
I borrowed my brother-in-law's dump truck and headed for Denver. I dropped off the children at my Mom's house and went to the hospital. When I got to his room, John was sitting up in bed joking with a nurse. Yes, he had fallen down a mine shaft but no, he had no broken bones as I was led to believe.
They had told me he had possible head injuries and a broken back. But it had scared him enough to quit the mine and find another job. Christmas came and went. John was still looking for another job and there was nothing up in the mountains that paid a living wage for 4 youngsters and our menagerie. He went into Denver and found a job at a meat packing plant.
He put up with the drive there and back until spring and he decided we should move back to Denver. I was stunned by his statement. This time I was fighting to stay where we were. I could not believe that I wanted to stay but I did.
We left the cabin in June of that year. We sold the colt to a very nice family, gave the goats away, packed up the rest and rented a house in the suburbs. The cabin stood empty for a couple of years until we bought an old Victorian house in north Denver. The house had been used for apartments. It had furniture in it when we bought it. It needed a lot of work done to it but I had room now. I didn't have to stoop to get in bed. It had grass and a nice place to put in a garden.
All the extra furniture was taken up to the cabin and we used it for a summer cabin. We enjoyed the cabin almost every weekend. The stoves were left up there as was most of the furniture we had. We were going to still try and build a new cabin to use for the summer and also during hunting season.
Another cruel twist of fate, John, my beloved husband and the children's father died of a massive heart attack in March of 1974 I sold the cabin to a man that had worked with John who wanted to buy the mountain cabin. I sold the cabin for $5,000. I removed all the stoves and other keepsakes that I had used while living there. The children do not remember a lot of their life up there. Maybe this journal will jar a memory or two loose for them.
I eventually remarried and my second husband and the family moved to Florida in 1978. We took a trip back to Colorado after Christmas in 1988 and I got to see the cabin again. Doug was just a baby when we lived there and as we walked the property he took pictures as I explained our life there. These are the only pictures we have of the "coop" as there wasn't any money for such frivolous expenditures.
The property was overgrown with weeds and small trees had sprouted in the driveway. The shed still held some of our belongings that had never been removed once we left. Dog's grave was unrecognizable. The big rocks were still there but they did not seem to be so big now. The corral was gone and so were the goat pen and the barn. There was an old car in the driveway and part of the cabin was covered with a black tarp. The children's old swing set was still there much to my amazement.
We took pictures of Reinai and Bud, my two youngest, at the boy's rock pile. And there was snow. Being used to Florida, I froze my tush off. The sight of it brought back old and dear memories. I learned a lot about living up there in the mountains. Each day taught me patience, self reliance and the will to accomplish whatever it took to live each day and be happy with what I had.
I kept the old stoves and a lot of the articles I used when living up there. The old scrub board is in my kitchen to remind me when I have laundry to do, do it with pleasure. The old cook stove sits in my kitchen to remind me I can still cook with nothing and make it taste like a gourmet meal.
The pot belly stove sits in our family room now and it is used for heat in the winter time. I wonder how many families it kept warm over the years. It was over 100 years old when we bought it. Every time it is fired up, memories flood me with the smell of wood smoke, cold mountain air, and a time of my life that surely was an experience that many people could not comprehend in these modern times.
As I wrote this story, I was the most miserable and happiest at this time. I learned not to worry about the house as there was no such thing as keeping it clean. I quit worrying about the money as there was never enough but we had a roof (such as it was) over our head and food on the table. We learned to survive without those extra dollars. My children were happy and had no constraints of living in a small yard. They could get dirty, play in the mountain mud, dig worms, play with goats, the dog and go camping all in a normal day. This was part of their childhood. The whole 2 acres was their backyard. They learned to love nature, animals and have respect for all things and people. I learned not to take things for granted. I cried when I had to move to the cabin and cried when I had to leave it.
These experiences were lived in the 1960's and not the 1890's. All I can say is, I am a better person for living those experiences. I hope I will never have to do it again but will never regret having done it.
The memories alone are worth a thousand laughs. The children love to hear stories about the cabin and here is their chance to have the memories with me.