The first job of the settler was to clear the land so that a house could be built and crops planted. This was an arduous task in the Cowichan Valley because of the heavy forests. The forest was first underbrushed, which meant that all of the bushes and small trees were cut down and piled for burning. This made room for the chopper to swing an axe and cut down larger trees. Generally, one man could underbrush one acre of forest in six days.
The farmers and theirs sons (sometimes with the help of hired hands) then chopped down the trees. Trees were cut into ten foot lengths to make them easy to move. Some of these logs would be used for buildings, some for fencing and the rest burned with the underbrush. The logs for building were dragged to the site by oxen. The work was very hard and neighbours often had “bees” to help each other. An average settler could expect to clear approx 22 acres in the first three years.
After “clearing” the field, the field would still be covered by stumps and roots. The roots could be grubbed out with a maddock but the stumps were so difficult to move that often the first crops had to be planted around them. Stumps had to be cleared out one by one: some pulled out by oxen, some blasted by gunpowder. Others were left to rot. Boulders, also, had to be dug out or pried and hauled away.
It took many years for the farmer to create the smooth level fields that we see today.
THE HOUSE
The first house was usually a rude cabin made out of logs. Later, this building would be replaced by a more suitable dwelling and the original used for animals or storage.
Without furnaces, electricity, televisions, fridges or even radio the modern child would wonder how the settlers survived. A kitchen range, a kerosene heater or a fireplace usually heated the house. Coal oil lanterns, or possibly single gas lamps, would have provided lighting. Water for bathing, washing or cooking had to be hauled up from a well. Later, people installed hand pumps. These had to be primed with a few drops of water before they would work. Women had endless chores in their home as cooks, housekeepers, nurses, dressmakers (most of the clothing would have been home made) and teachers. Children were put to work at an early age with a long list of chores: milking cows; feeding pigs and chickens; keeping wood ready for the kitchen range; packing water (by hand) to the house and livestock; gathering in the cows at the end of the day. After chores, they would walk to school (sometimes several miles). There were no organized sports for the children.
THE COW
One of the first things a farmer acquired after clearing his land was a cow. A cow provided milk and calves (calves were sold and slaughtered for meat). If the cow was male, it would be trained for pulling the plough and wagon. Cows milk was made into butter and cheese to sell, or used to fatten pigs and hens. Very little milk was used for drinking.
Cows produce milk to feed their young. A mother cow can be milked five days after birth and will produce more milk than her calf needs for ten months. In the early days, a settler was lucky to get 20 litres of milk per cow per week. Today’s cows produce much greater quantities due to the improvements in health conditions and food.
Everyone on the farm learned to milk the cows but, in general, the dairy was the work of the women and girls. The girls learned the skill of using a gentle rhythm to coax the milk from the teat. If a cow was upset or uncomfortable it did not let her milk down. It takes approx 350 squirts to get a litre of milk.
Cows were milked early so that they could then graze in the cool of the day when the dew was still on the grass. In the heat of the afternoon, they would rest in the shade and chew their cud (re-digest their food). It was important that the cows did not graze on garlic, wild onion (leeks) or turnips or the milk produced would have a strong, unpleasant taste. By evening, they were ready to be milked again. Cows that were milked regularly at the same time each day got used to coming in at the sound of a horn or bell. Cows who had recently calved would come to the bleating of their hungry calf. Some cows were stubborn and had to be fetched each day for milking. This was usually a job for the children in the family or the dog.
Milk spoiled quickly before the advent of iceboxes or fridges. The settler women could prolong the shelf life by changing the milk into butter or cheese.
Milk has fat globules that are wrapped in a protein coating. Churning breaks the coating and the fat globules stick together resulting in butter. Fresh milk would be left in a shallow pan overnight and the cream would rise to the top. The next morning, the cream would be skimmed off with a wooden spoon. Then the cream was left until the surface was shiny and the taste slightly sour. Believe it or not, sour cream makes tastier butter than sweet cream. Experienced butter makers could tell by looking at the cream when it was ready to churn. In the winter the cream would have to sit for several days in front of the fire before it was ready – in the summer it was usually overnight.
The cream was poured into the churn and the dasher (a stick with paddles on the bottom) was pounded regularly up and down. The dasher would agitate the fat globules and break the protein casing which caused the globules to stick together. After about 15 minutes of churning, the cream would start to feel heavy. After another 15 minutes the cream would separate into buttermilk and grain sized pellets of butter. This was a back breaking job and often done by children as young as 10. Singing helped keep the rhythm and pass the time.
The buttermilk was drained off and used for baking or to feed the pigs. Then the butter was washed thoroughly with water several times. If all the buttermilk was not rinsed off, the butter would go rancid. To get rid of the rinse water the butter was squeezed against the sides of a bowl with a butter paddle. Then it was worked into a lump or pushed into a mold. Finally, the butter was sprinkled with salt and stored in a cool place to prevent spoiling.
Cheese was more difficult to make than butter but it kept longer. Settler women could make enough cheese by collecting the excess milk in the summer (a high producing time) to last the whole winter.
A gallon of milk from the morning and from the evening milking would be kept aside and let to stand overnight. The next morning a small piece of rennet (made from the dried stomach of a newborn calf) was soaked in a half of cup of water. Rennet makes the protein particles in the milk clump together. The rennet water was added to the milk and soon after, whey (watery milk) appeared on the top and curds (thick custard like clumps of protein) underneath. The curds were cut into small cubes and stirred in the whey over a small fire. When the curds crumbled, the whey was strained off by pouring the mixture into a basket lined with cheesecloth. Salt was mixed in. The salted curds were stored in a cool place with heavy weights (stones or bricks) placed on top. Over many months the cheese was pressed until it became compact and solid. This process is called curing.
Comentarios