Welcome to A Victorian Year in Ontario

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen, the year is 1865, Her Majesty Queen Victoria has reigned since 1837 and we are in the midst of a prosperous era. The purpose of this blog is to record the daily round of chores, tasks, trials and triumphs of our household in rural Upper Canada (now known as Ontario). We have embarked on an experiment to live a year as close to the way it was done in 1865 as we possibly can. We will post our remarks and await your comments, suggestions and critiques. So join us as we travel back in time.

Friday, September 9, 2011

"Well Dorthy it isn't hot anymore"

Well how is that for a weather change?
I have been happily adding wood to the cook stove all week, I havent said that in a while. just was complaining about the heat of the wood stove all summer. This morning when I was sitting here all I could think of was my kitchen smelling like a true Canadian fall. The smell of wood smoke , the damp musty air coming in through the still open window, and the smell of tomatoes cooking down on the stove to be made into stewed tomatoes. Which we use for many recipes our favorite being poached eggs in stewed tomatoes and served on toast. Very yummy indeed. We have gotten most of our soft vegetables from the garden and will await the harvest of the squashes and harder veggies. Time to fill the basement with the larger wood for the furnace and pick the yard and fence rows for small kindling for the kitchen fire. Ken built a wonderful haystraw crib out of free skids from London...works great and the straw he has put in is dry and clean. We need to buy some square bales of straw to put around the chicken coop for the winter.Will insulate the coop better . It is time to really think about what and how this project will develop with winter,it has been easy being summer and not using hydro, with the exception of the heat and no fan or ac (not that I ever use ac). To keep cooler especially at night we just put a damp cloth beside the bed and wiped our faces and arms . Seemed to do the trick although not always. Interestingly our Grandchildren have been here a few times during the summer and did not complain about the lack of a fan or ac at all..
I will be back later , may head to the library ...thank goodness for laptops huh?