Another fat hog went to market this morning; provision was made for pork for the home barrel and plans were laid — and sad I was to hear them! — to sell Kelly the cow. With her disposal, in one of the Springs months all of our old friends will have gone from the stable and a new generation we shall meet then at the milking. There is usually a warm spot in a farmwife’s heart for a favorite cow, though it may be only a memory. One hears them speak of it. There is a certain to be mention of an “old Brindle — as wise as any human” and linked with a past “i brought her from home with me.” There would be, of course a “Spotty she whom small lads learned to milk, a tiny pail- held between knees while seated on the edge of a milking stool, head against broad patient flank, Small hands tugging desperately when “this milk doesn’t seem to want to come.!”

There would be “the jersey” small and dainty. She was the one that grew older along with you and the youngsters. Indeed by this they could “race you” at the milking and tears ran down your cheeks —and theirs the morning she was sold. “A good thing she went in a truck” you said, the parting was not so difficult and were you glad when the machine was gone out of sight beyond the hill through the vacancy in the stable was there for many days to come. So down the years one becomes attached to the likable dumb creatures that for the time are as familiar as the sun at morning. The Kelly cow with a crumpled and missing horn is the one of our milking herd whose fate was determined this morning.

Jamie was among those of his kin who hauled feed for some of the stock from trucks at the corner-store today. In the glory of this March afternoon, when it semed [sic] as if “all things that love the sun” were out of doors. Delightful then the day had become with brilliant sunlight and the wind moving in the branches of the old spruces in the orchard with soft breath and it full of honeyed promises. Icicles dripped and snow that had clung to nooks of roofs disappeared. At morning, Jamie had tried a new undertaking. He hitched Mutt, his faithful; companion and friend to his small hand-sled Not without considerable effort, I am led to believe , and drawn to it doubtless by the fact that on the opposite slope two neighbor lads were about the from meadow with “Biddy.” She is a versatile creature. She ceases playing with her young masters each Spring, long enough to present them with an adorable litter and is also evidently more reconciled to the feel of harness than is Mutt. ‘unless I led him” Jamie explained “he just sat there!”

Ice-hauling, which work of late, years seems to go hand in hand with the seasonal hooking or quilting indoors, commenced today. Though neither James nor I could place the spot in stream or pond from whence the loads of it we saw winding out along a field, had been harvested. Other hauling as well there was in today’s sunshine: grits to the mill and, heralding the return of the Spring sawing at the mill, first loads of lumber came then. A blue Jay called joyously from the orchard; a lone wild duck flew down to the river; Karolyn began to make a quilt and jeanie in moments of leisure continued knitting a sweater for grand-daughter, who made this the last port o’ call on her day’s outing. Mr. B. was off to town to visit the sick and small boys cleared a skating space on Kristy’s Pond.

This evening in a ceremony which ended beautifully for those most concerned, the kitchen pump, idle of late, was set back in place after certain repairs had been made to the cylinder. And in spite of fears and conjectures that perhaps the never-failing stream had disappeared for “we dropped a pebble down and herald no sound” the machine works perfectly. There were moments of suspense after it was in place and we gathered round to see what would happen. Jmes pumping vigorously had that expression which shows no expectation of success. It was Jamie who heard sounds of rising water. He looked up at me and nodded and smiled. ‘She’s caught!’ he said “there’ll be no more bringing the hose from the other pump into this kitchen now! This method as always had proved most enetertatinign to Jmaie and me…

“Listen, Ellen!” James draws my attention to a weather forecast then adds since I have failed to hear it “snow tomorrow!” Well, we,all of us… young and older have had this lovely day

-Ellen’s Diary, March 9, 1943

Source: Islandnewspapers.ca

These days, it may be by way of radio or by the voices of the children, Christmas carols come into these old rooms, to be an exquisite part of the season—to be one with the fragrance of the Christmas bakings, to belong with the hushed snow-spread fields, with December sun and moon, and the distant sparkling stars, and all its mystery and charm. And we find we turn again to read precious tales of the long, long ago. We read-through do we not know the story by heart? “And it came to pass in those days…” to find again that Bethlehem road.

We take down too from its shelf, for this is the season, Dicken’s Christmas Stories—an ancient volume, cover faded, leaves yellowed, print quaint, to enjoy again the deep understanding of humans, the engaging humour caught in pages: A Christmas Carol with the characters as bright and likable, or as mean and unlikable as ever the author intended them to be.

There is too the story of “A Christmas Tree”, not so well known possibly as the former, but to us most enjoyable, inspired it would seem by the sight of children seated about their tree. It brings back to the author memorie[sic] of his young Christmas-tides. The toys, the gift-books… everything in those reflections which carry him back across the years.

…” But hark! The waits are playing”, he recalls “and they break my childish sleep. What images do I associate with the Christmas music, as I see them set forth on the Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travelers with eyes uplifted fllowing[sic] a Star: a Baby in a manager; a Child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a figured with a mild, beautiful face raising a dead girl by the hand. Still, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas associations cluster thick. School-books shut up; Ovid and Viril[sic] silenced; the Rule of Three, long disposed of…If I no more come home at Christmas time, there will be boys and girls (thank Heaven!) while the world lasts; and they do! Yonder they dance, and play upon the branches of my Tree God bless them, merrily, and my heart dances and plays too!”

“And I DO come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday- the longer the better – from the great boarding-school, where we are forever working at our arithmetic slates, to take and give a rest.”

Christmas gives so much delight to all. Not alone to the children, whose special season it is supposed to be, but also to those older-grown, who seeing their joy and happiness, again re-lived as did Charles Dickens in his immortal Christmas stories, their own of the years bygone  

                                                                              –  Ellen’s Diary, December 13, 1958

Source: Islandnewspapers.ca