An Acme rotary antique corn planter. Photo by Nancy Jane Kern

IT’S SPRING! We may get a little more snow and stormy weather, but it is time to think about gardens and planting. Snow is called poor man’s fertilizer for contributing nitrogen to the soil, so it isn’t a bad thing. This is a good year to consider growing some vegetables as well as the flowers we enjoy in the yard.

Growing up on our family dairy farm in the early 1950s there was a plan for spring that was passed down from many generations. We had a variety of animals and each spring the hen house attached to the barn had to be cleaned out from the winter buildup of manure and straw. My father Donald Kern hand shoveled it into a wagon and used our team of horses to take it to the vegetable gardens. Some manure was wheelbarrowed to the flower beds before the new shoots emerged. It really provided beautiful peony blossoms each year.

Our Town of Austerlitz farm had heavy clay soil, which needed all the organic enhancement it could get. Chicken manure is potent stuff and can burn plants, so after it was on the gardens it was worked into the ground either by hand or by horse and plow. The vegetable garden fences had been taken down at the ends, so the horses had room to turn around and plow back and forth, then harrowed it smooth. The fences weren’t high but kept out most stray livestock when completed. Spring rain helped soak the soil and distribute the added nutrients until it was time to plant. April for peas and the rest after Memorial Day when the possibility of frost was gone. Stakes were installed at the garden ends with a string attached between them to serve as a guide for a garden row. A shallow trench was hoed beneath it, and the seed was placed in it and covered. We young children watched and learned and got to remove stones from the rocky soil. Read more…

THE DINING AREA with the big front window looking out on the porch is where I like to have a winter breakfast and watch the bird feeders. To give the birds some shelter I throw corn out on the lawn and some cracked corn is placed on the porch under the hanging feeders. I was sipping coffee and caught movement in the window and almost dropped my mug. There was a tiny little button buck looking over the window sill with curiosity and no fear.

Someone suggested I call him Kilroy after the cartoon figure. When Kilroy put his head down to lick up the corn he disappeared. I could hear his little hooves clunking along as he got every piece of corn. I had my camera on the table to photograph unusual birds so when he looked up again, I got an unusual deer instead.

I couldn’t believe he had walked up the steep front steps and felt no one else would believe me. He was so young, about the size of a German shepard dog, and so hungry. Deer eat tips of brush and tree branches during winter and these little ones can’t reach high enough to get much to eat. Their mothers chase them away if they try to nurse at this stage even though they stay near their mothers until the new fawns are born in June. There was an icy snow cover which made reaching grass difficult too. Read more…

I SPENT THE LONG WEEKEND birding around Columbia County and looking at the ice on the Hudson River. I remembered our “icehouse,” which was used to store winter ice for use throughout the year. Before electricity and modern refrigeration, it was the only means of keeping food and drink cool in the warm months, and making a very special treat, ice cream. Depending on family size and usage it varied in dimensions and the building was placed so it could be shaded by trees or other buildings. Ours was about 12’X14’ by maybe 15’ tall and had two levels. Ice blocks had to be made in a size that could be handled, and also so the ice could fit into an icebox in the house, usually, one-foot square blocks or some cut smaller. We always had refrigerators and freezers, so it was interesting to hear my father’s stories (Donald Kern) about all the winter work that had to be done to fill the ice house each year.

First, the building had to be cleaned out and fresh sawdust put on the floor. Straw could also be used. My grandparents on both sides got their ice from Acker’s Pond, which was a dammed-up part of our farm stream near Harlemville. Anytime it got down to well below freezing and the ice was over a foot thick all the neighbors would gather at the pond with their teams of horses and sleighs and tools to begin cutting ice. Test holes were chopped, and then in the thick areas, the ice was scraped clean of snow. Next it was scored in rows so a horse-drawn ice plow could be used to cut down further to above the water’s surface.

The ice plow was an interesting device about four feet long with large teeth and handles like a dirt plow. A team of horses was used to pull it across the ice while a man used the handles to keep it cutting straight through the scored line. Rarely a thin spot was reached and a horse or the whole team might fall through so everyone was prepared to hook other teams onto them and pull them out. What a cold dunk that must have been. Read more…