Waxing nostalgic on winters long ago
You never know just what to expect with Arkansas weather. That applies to winter, maybe especially to winter. This year, suddenly we have gone from a very mild Autumn to having temperatures under 10 degrees with snow on the ground. I’m thinking about winters in the old days, at least if you allow that the 1940s and the 1950s were the old days. I have to stretch my imagination a bit to include the 1950s in the old days, since we did a great deal of modernizing in the 1950s. And, it seems more natural to me to think about the years before I was born as the really old days. But, since I am getting into my high 70s, and my January birthday will make me 77 years old, I guess I need to include not only the 1940s but also the 1950s in “the old days.”
I see basically two things as marking the difference between the old days and the new days. The first was the coming of farm electricity in the latter half of the 1940s, especially after the close of World War II. The second was the changeover from horse agriculture to farm tractors and other implements of mechanized farming. That change was happening all through the late 1930s and 1940s, but it really advanced in earnest in northwest Arkansas during the 1950s.
The coming of farm electricity and farm tractors changed considerably the way things were done on the farm. We went from drawing water from the well for all our water needs, including cooling the milk, to having hot and cold running water in the house and cold water on tap at the barn. We went from plowing the fields with a turning plow pulled by our two horses to a two-bottom turning plow pulled by our 8N Ford tractor. We did keep the horses for some jobs around the farm. That was handy when the tractor was busy. Especially after we boys got big enough to do real work, Dad could cultivate corn with the tractor while we boys worked with the hay wagon behind the horses.
Winter normally brings snow, and snow has certain attractions. Snow can be beautiful in its way, and sometimes we enjoy just looking at the snow-covered hillsides and pasturelands. There’s even a certain charm in seeing people coming into town with snow on top of their cars. Snow means the young kids can get out the snow sleds. We Nichols boys all had our snow sleds, and we put them to good use in the wintertimes. Sledding is best I think when you have a long gradual incline for running the sleds, and it even helps to have a pack of sleet or frozen snow that has been hardened by refreezing after a rain. I enjoyed the years when our 10-acre south pasture would get a cover of sleet. The ground sloped from a high point at the southwest corner down toward the middle of the north fence line, and it felt like a mile to sled down that slope toward the barn. It was great! Of course it was about a mile to pull the sled back up for the next run, too.
Usually snow and sleet and ice come with cold. Things on the farm take on a more serious note when the temperatures drop below freezing. Not only did we need to bundle up to be out in the weather; we had the additional work of feeding hay for the cows. In the older days we didn’t have baled hay. All our hay was put up loose. That is, the hay was raked into piles in the field, loaded onto the hay wagon (as a big pile), then stored in the barn mow, or stored in a haystack by the field if the barn was full. I used a word there that some may not be familiar with, since it applies to the old barns set up for handling loose hay. The hay mow, pronounced MAOW, as in How Now Brown Cow, is the big open area in those high old barns where the hay was piled in one great mass. Feeding hay in the wintertime involved climbing to the top of the hay, and, using a pitchfork, pealing layers of hay off the top and tossing them down a chute to the hay mangers or stanchions where the cows and horses would be eating. Sometimes we would haul some of the hay outside for the cows to eat from the ground, since normally there is little for them to eat out in the pastures.
Having the newfangled conveniences like running water and farm tractors usually meant that the work on the farm was lightened somewhat as compared to the old ways. At least we didn’t have to draw bucket after bucket of water every day and carry the heavy buckets of water all the way to the barn or to the house. But, winter also brought on the problem of freeze-ups for the new water lines and faucets, and sometimes the tractor wouldn’t start.
Thinking about the old days, I can’t recall ever having to jump-start our horses, and I never had a bucket of water freeze up on me on the way to the barn. One might point out a few other advantages about the old ways. But, I guess most of us wouldn’t want to go back to days no electricity or to doing without our wonderful farm tractors!
••• Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge and an award-winning columnist, is vice president of Pea Ridge Historical Society. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.