Snow, snow, go away – come again some other day!
That was a chant that was directed to the rain clouds way back when.
The when I’m talking about is the when I was a little guy, perhaps a little taller than knee-high to a grasshopper, going to S.S. #10, a cottage-roofed, rug-brick, red schoolhouse in former Eramosa Township.
It was a stretched mile north and east from the farm on which I grew up, and I hated slogging to school in the rain.
It is rather funny how things change as age creeps up on you. I now love walking in the rain and I hate the snow. Things were a little different back then, as rural school buses were limited to those going to city high school, and few cars passed in which you could hitch a ride.
In winter, our mail was delivered by horse and cutter, and on lucky occasions, we could and would hitch a ride by standing on the runners that stuck out the back of the cutter.
I used to love it when I saw the quick-stepping, lightweight, thoroughbred horse come clip-clopping along. If the roads were well ploughed and the horse not overly tired from the many-mile route, the mailman, Len Nightingale, would let us hop on and ride the last downhill half mile home.
Often the snow pushed up by the ploughs on the side of the road would be piled so high that we would be warned in no uncertain terms to stay away from the hydro wires.
I loved the snow back then. In the winter months, we would take our Percheron team through the wooded areas and pick up a bobsled load of uprooted cedar stumps. These we would place in a pile close to the thick, frozen ice on our farm pond. On weekends, the snow would be shovelled by hand off of the ice and a bonfire lit beside the skating area.
Thanks to willing, well-clad mothers and daughters of neighbouring farms, there were many hamburgers and hotdogs pan fried and munched by those who drifted there to skate. This quite often coincided with sleigh-riding parties on a neighbour’s farm.
At the end of the evening, the ice would be quickly scraped clean and flooded by pails of water gained by cutting a hole in the ice next to the skating area, leaving a smooth, quickly-frozen surface for the week following.
At the time, we were the proud owners of a wirehaired terrier crossed with a Jack Russell. He was a spunky little dog that loved to chase and catch anything and everything that happened to show up. He would play tug of war with an old sack with everyone and anyone who happened to come along. He eventually fathered a litter of pups courtesy of the neighbour’s brindle greyhound female.
Customary of the times, we were given first pick of the litter born. We picked a white-with-brown-patches pup that had the long legged, slim shape of the greyhound and the colour of a Jack Russell. Wow! What a beautiful, playful and active dog it turned out to be! Our back lane was fenced 15 feet apart by two five-foot-high rail fences. In a playful mood, this pup would jump up and over both fences in a single leap, and several times in a row.
On snowy weekends during the winter we would comb the hedgerow fencing of the farms with it and its father terrier. The terrier would root out anything and everything that its capable nose sniffed out. And the rabbits would make a fool out of it by outrunning and zigzagging in the open fields.
The greyhound, which hunts by sight only, would be released from the leash, and a dozen jumps later said rabbit would be given one shake and gently returned to us, destined for the soup pot, which simmered each winter on the back burner of the old cast-iron woodstove.
It was not unusual that every second weekend or so, another half dozen pelts would be tacked flesh side out to dry on the outer side of one of our colony houses. Our soup pot, with home grown, cellar-stored vegetables added, never seemed to ever run dry.
With still warm, homemade bread, Jersey milk, cream and hand-churned butter, is it any wonder why I can’t refrain from occasionally stating, “Those were the good old days.” Blame me not for that!
Take care, ’cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105