On the Moraine, Part XXIII

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

We hadn’t lived on the Beaver Farm more than a couple of weeks when Highland County was hit with a severe cold spell. We had wood heat. And an outhouse.  

The water line from the smokehouse froze up. What a welcoming. Poppy had come from Portsmouth to stay with us for a few weeks, but he was about the age I am now – 75, and was as helpful as he could be, but that wasn’t much. Dad was in Troy at work at his day job.

We had three cows that we got from Mrs. Beavers. The pasture was large (over 100 acres), and when they rounded up the cattle to sell before we arrived, they could never catch these three. There was the mother. Her name was “Crump.” She had one horn that was curved down like they used to do with Herefords. The other was broken off. 
 
Mrs. Beavers, showing the school teacher in her, had named this cow after this poem:

This is the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

The other two, Blackie and Red, were the daughters of Crump. Guess what color they were.

It was so cold the creek was frozen over. We thought I should go down to the creek and break some holes in the ice so the cows could drink. I took a spud bar, and I was successful. And the cows drank.  

Except my jeans were frozen to above my knees from the splashing of the water in the 20-below temperatures. I did that every day for several days.

Two mornings we went to catch the school bus, and it never came. That was a very long walk for nothing in the below-zero temperatures.  

Mother called Mr. Wisecup, my teacher, to ask how we were supposed to know if school was open. He introduced her to WSRW radio. After that, we made no wasted trips.

Meanwhile, we were able to get water direct from the pump in the smokehouse cellar in a bucket.

Dad came home in a couple of days and went to work on unfreezing the water line. It was frozen where it came out of the ground and into the house. He ended up digging it up below the frost line, wrapping in an electrical heat tape, putting insulation and a hard covering over that. Never had problems with that again.

It wasn’t quite February 1963 and our adventures had just begun.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.