Baby Bed

Primitive?  Maybe ordinary you'll say.  Seventy eight years ago, Daddy made this little bed for my sister, and then 6 1/2 years later, I slept in it.  He made it with hand tools, splitting the cedar and gluing the posts and rails together.  Of course the bed wouldn't meet today's safety standards because the rails are too far apart; but we didn't fall out or get our heads caught between them. 

I don't know where the bed was during my growing up years; perhaps it was loaned out.  But sometime it came back to my parents house, and with a shortage of space there, Daddy tried to take the bed apart; it refused to be taken down.  It finally came to live  with me.  I made bumper pads and fitted sheets for it, and grandchildren slept in it.  After there were no more babies to use the bed, it became a place to pile stuffed toys and extra pillows, etc.

Last week I decided to give it new purpose, so I moved it into my bedroom and put some of my new quilts in it.

 

I like the way it looks!

 

Charlotte

October ~~ Little Quilt

Fall is definitely here!  We're having much cooler weather and good soaking rains.  The leaves of the elm trees are turning yellow.  October's little quilt is a good example of all the beautiful colors of fall.  It was paper pieced on the machine and hand quilted.

The pattern is called "Wild Goose Chase", and was inspired by this big quilt in the book Quilts, Quilts, Quilts, by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes.

 

Teddy loves to wrap up in it and wait for the wild geese to come honking across the fall skies.  Actually, we don't hear many geese anymore just in the fall; we have them all year round on the ponds and in the pastures.  I miss hearing them fly over; it was always a sure sign that cold weather was right behind them.

 

 

 

Charlotte

Wordless Wednesday ??

Charlotte

Quotes From Farm Wives

"I have done all the usual things -- chickens, garden,canning, cooking for hired men and so forth.  I have also milked, picked corn, shocked grain and run nearly every machine used on a Western farm.  We have dried out, drowned out, hailed out and burnt out.  Always we drew together, looked in each other's eyes and whispered, "Tough!  But we have each other and the children.  We'll make it."

                                                                       Mrs. W. R.

Hutchinson County, S.D.

 

"...I have learned that true happiness is best found in doing real God-service.  This the farm woman finds in raising fowls, making butter, curing meat, planting a garden, canning, drying and preserving.  I find real joy in doing these worthwhile things that need to be done because the world needs the fruits of my labors."

Mrs. M.H.M.

Charlotte County, Va.

 

"... of all the restless world, we, from the beauty and tranquility of the country, the knowledge of our use to the world and our independence, have in our souls the peace and content that money cannot purchase.  That surely is a wonderful gift."

Mrs. I.G.

Sauk County, Wis.

 

These quotes were taken from the book, The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, Letters from 1920 farm wives.

 

 

Failed Experiment

I don't know when I first learned that glass could be melted; perhaps there were pictures in a science pamphlet Wanda had brought home from school.  I was amazed, and wondered if I could melt glass.

I had a little piece of broken glass, and while Mama was busy, I took the box of matches from the kitchen and ran down to the hen house.  If I worked on the east side of the hen house, she couldn't see me.   After the glass was placed on a rock, I carefully took out a match, struck it; the flame went out, as it did several more times.  Finally the weak flame inched its way up the match stick and I held it under the corner of the glass; nothing happened.  As the heat from the flame came closer to my fingers I had to blow it out and start over.  Two, three, four, five matches -- still not a sign that the glass even thought about melting!  My experiment had failed!

So I gathered up the box of matches and went back to the house.  Now to go up the steps, carefully open the screen door, step inside, and -- I tripped a little bit, dropping the matches which scattered on the floor.

Mama came quickly and of course wanted to know why I had the matches and then told me what a dangerous thing I had just done.  "You could have set the hen house on fire!"  Punishment?  I'm sure there must have been!  My guardian angel was getting to know me, and oh how many more times would she have to save me from my experiments in life?

Charlotte