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You remarked: “You’re good at writing and have the skills and knowledge to survive happily without power.”

Thank you.

LOL - I am a retired ‘writer’ - only keeping my column, which I started about 30 years ago - a ‘nostalgia’ column that features living/growing up with my grandparents in the North woods of Maine - in a location still called a ‘Plantation” - that had no electricity yet - 1930-40’s.

It was a good life - and valuable experience, especially today. I have since lived all over the country but decided this was the best place, after all. I came home 35 years ago.

Here’s a column you might enjoy:
SATURDAY NIGHT WAS BROWN BREAD

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun...and for every work.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,17)

Life, work and play were self-regulated on the farm. There was no boss checking his watch to see if you got to the barn for milking at the same stroke of time every morning, no time clock to punch in before you got the fire going in the parlor stove in the “sittin’ room” and the Clarion stove in the “cook room” in preparation for cooking breakfast.

But the cows got milked every morning and by the time Grampa Roy was back up to the house to pour the pails of warm milk into the separator in the corner of the cook room, the little farm house was cozy warm and filled with the smells and sounds of sizzling bacon — or ham or pork chops — Grammie’s famous, light-as-a-feather buttermilk biscuits (to slather with her homemade butter and dip in molasses) and baked beans or home-fries. (We kids could only eat store-bought cereal — like Wheaties, shredded wheat or corn flakes — if we ate our breakfast first.)

Whether your portion was women’s work or men’s work, you knew what had to be done and knew that if you didn’t get it done in its proper time, it would pile up and run over you. You were responsible. You were your own boss, ran your own schedule and if you were good at it, things hummed along at a smooth pace, leaving times “to laugh and time to play.”

Grampa and Grammie Tucker were good at self-regulation and the days and seasons on the farm all had their allotted tasks. There were tasks belonging to the seasons — planting, haying, mending, harvesting, canning, butchering, etc. — and there were tasks that were assigned their own days of the week.

For the housewife, a term never heard anymore, there were the daily chores but there was one extra task assigned its own day of the week.

Monday was “wash day.” Grammie had a double wooden wash-stand with two big galvanized tubs with a ringer mounted in between. The tubs were filled with hot water from a large, oval copper tub on the stove and/or the copper-lined five-gallon water well built onto the side of the stove. She washed the clothes in one tub, using a scrub board, and then wrung them through the ringer into the other tub for the first rinsing — being careful to turn all buttons to the inside to prevent them from popping off and shooting through the cook room.

Tuesday, of course, was then “ironing day.” Our irons were the for-real “flatirons” made out of cast iron. Kept heating on the cook stove, there were different thicknesses, giving different weights. These were used in accordance with the kind of material to be ironed. There were the solid, one-piece irons and those with detachable handles. Those handles were engaged or disengaged by means of a spring mechanism and were thus used to exchange for hot irons.

I was allowed, as a special task, to iron the handkerchiefs, napkins and aprons. I didn’t realize this was work. I thought it was a special trust that Grammie thought I could iron these things and do a good job, like a grownup. (Grammie and Grampa had a way of making “tasks” seem like privileges.)

Wednesday was “mending day.” Anything with a missing button, loose hem, holes in socks or otherwise in need of repair, discovered on wash day, had been put into the mending basket. I was pretty good at buttons and such but I never mastered the art of darning socks like Grammie.

For the life of me, I can’t remember what Thursday’s chore was.

Friday was “dusting” and churning. My job was to dust the kitchen furniture, and I’d best get all the dust around the chair rungs if I didn’t want to incur Grammie’s scowl. Dusting was one chore even Grammie couldn’t fool me into thinking was a “privilege.” However, Grampa had me convinced helping to churn the butter in the big old barrel churn WAS a privilege - that I could help with ONLY if I first did my dusting chores. I therefore hastened to get the dusting done.

Saturday was the best day. Baking day. Donuts and molasses cookies day. Maybe gingerbread for supper, with whipped cream. The beans that had soaked overnight were set into the oven, with good chunks of meaty salt pork, for all-day baking. Come supper time, they would go on the table with brown-bread, baked in a coffee can. Slathered with Grammie’s sweet butter that soaked down through each slice. Nothing finer.

Nowadays, most women work outside the home — many have no choice. The traditional separation of chores is all but forgotten and the wife can be seen stacking wood and the man also helps out with the house chores. It’s a shame, really. You couldn’t run a successful business if all employees swapped chores back and forth. Sometimes, it makes the difference between a “home” and a “house people live in.”

Being retired, I now have my days — and the hours of my days — to myself to regulate. My favorite everyday chore is “nap.” (Grampa had a “napping” cot in the sittin’ room.) Grammie would be appalled at the dust on my chair rungs … and picture frames, and under the bed and that I don’t get my bed made, many times, first thing in the morning. But at my “great-grandma” age, I’ve realized I’m a half a person in a two-person world, so I don’t let the dust bunnies get me down.

And it makes no sense for me to go to all the fuss of making brown bread just for me. However, I see that B&M makes a canned brown bread. I’m sure it won’t come to the level of goodness of Grammie’s, but I might try one. (Can even get them from Amazon without even leaving the house.)