Drawing Water Was My Number One Responsibility<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I\u2019ve mentioned before! Year around, even in the winter time, Day by day activities were centered around and had something to do with water <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For instance from the day we moved into the farmhouse we had to have a ready & steady supply of fresh water! From when I was big and strong enough to carry a bucket of water it was my job to draw up well water for drinking, cooking, scrubbing and washing clothes, bathing and drinking and of course water the animals! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actually now that I look back it was a funny term draw water because I was told that several times a day. Hey Rock go draw some drinking water or dish washing water & etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the farmhouse Wells was hand dug and we only used it a few times. We literally let down a bucket on a pulley mounted above the opening of the well to draw water. As most hand dug wells were it was shallow and the water had a strong sulfur taste and smell so eventually, for safety\u2019s sake, dad just filled it in and we used the main well at the front door of the entrance to the farmhouse!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To say the least drawing water in the winter\u2026 was rough rough rough\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main well at the farmhouse was what we called a sweet-water well, in other words, it didn\u2019t have a sulfur smell or taste which many of the wells around about did! Some newly dug Wells tasted and smelt of sulfur so bad that they were never used… <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Generally you could hit sulfur water anywhere around the farmhouse at about 15 to 20 feet but the well digger had to go down to 30 feet to get to the sweet-water. Of course good well-diggers (of which my grandpa Scrimshire was one) knew how to put in well casing that would allow the well to fill up with sweet water and not sulfur water. Dry land farmers were very inventive, hard-working people! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daily Chores: The Main Well and the Tin Dipper. With the main well, we used a long tin dipper\u2014we called it the tin-well-bucket\u2014to draw our water. To get the water, we would drop this long cylinder down through the narrow well casing. The tin-well-bucket was attached to a rope and pulley system. When you were the one drawing the well water, you had to allow the bucket to sink just below the surface so it could fill up. Once it was full, you had to pull it up fast! If you didn\u2019t move quickly, much of the water would leak right out around the plunger at the bottom of the bucket. Once you successfully hauled the well-bucket up and over the opening of the casing, you would station it directly over your water bucket. Then, you’d pull the lever at the top of the well-bucket. This lever was attached to the bottom plunger that held the water in temporarily. You’d pull that lever, and voil\u00e0\u2014all the water you just drew up would drop instantly into your water bucket! We would do that over and over again, lifting and releasing, until we had all the water we needed for the day’s chores. Unless I was terribly sick, I did this every single day from the time I was about five years old\u2014well before I even started school\u2014until the day I left home at eighteen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the The Sounds I’ll never forget: The rhythmic clack-clack of the pulley, the splashing echo inside the deep casing, or the metallic clunk of the lever releasing the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Seasons: How freezing the cold metal handle felt against your bare hands during the winters, or how refreshing a cold drink of that deep-well water tasted on a hot humid summer day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When not in use we would hang the well-bucket on one of the post holding up the rope and pulley! The well-bucket was never used for anything but drawing water…..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once a month my mom would wash clothes in a washing machine! OK so maybe machine is not a good word for what mom used to wash clothes during her first few years at the farmhouse. At first It was a big wash tub with a scrub board and a hand operated squeegee attached to the wash tub! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mom would sit next to the wash tub hunkered over it, scrubbing everyone\u2019s clothes by hand! Stopping every now and then to wipe the hair out of her eyes and I often wondered what it was she was thinking! Of course I never ask because she would tell me and that would take forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
looking back I believe there was two things that made mom\u2018s life on the farm bearable. One was when we got electricity! Two was she had the help of Harley and Elizabeth Roberts! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often Harley & Elizabeth would take some of the clothes down to the farm pond to wash them! They preferred that method of washing clothes versus a scrub tub and a hand cranked squeegee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once we got an electric washing machine Harley and Elizabeth were welcome to use it whenever they needed to which was usually a couple times a month! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually the wash tub became bigger and Easier to use and when we got electric powered motors to drive the agitator and squeegee we thought we were pooping in tall cotton..,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll never forget how good a cool dipper of water tasted from a sweet water well after a hard day of work or play! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You would\u2019ve thought that once we got electricity we would have an electric pump to pump up well water but we did not! It wasn\u2019t until I left home that mom and dad built a pump house over the well and dropped an electric pump in the well and even then it was still a few years before the house was plumbed for running water and an indoor toilet was roughed in! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The biggest challenge to keeping fresh water on hand for dinking and washing dishes and clothes and watering the animals was in the winter. when the water froze in a bucket or a pond or a creek, didn\u2019t matter, the top frozen portion had to be chipped or broken or (in the case of a pond or creek) chopped with a pick ax into small pieces so the animals could use the unfrozen water underneath.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chopping picking ice was not only a rough job, It was scary. A ice pick penetrating a glove was a real possibility. Especially for some one so young. To chop a ice hole for animals to drink from I often slipped and fell. Yes with a pick in hand. Plus If it wasn\u2019t a big enough opening or in a shallow portion of the pond the water would quickly freeze up again. Irregardless of the danger I did what I was suppose to do\u2026. it was all part of a family effort to survive on a farm in the winter in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though about half way through grade school my dad opened Okemah plumbing we never had indoor plumbing until after I did a year of college and finally join the Air Force! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Drawing Water Was My Number One Responsibility As I\u2019ve mentioned before! Year around, even in the winter time, Day by day activities were centered around and had something to do with water For instance from the day we moved into the farmhouse we had to have a ready & steady supply of fresh water! From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"post-left-sidebar","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-years-oklahoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1269,"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadetreeokie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}