041
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041
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Transcription
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FILLING THE ICE HOUSE
To have an ice cold drink or a dish of ice cream was a real luxury when I was a boy. Refrigerators were available in the early 1930's, but at that time we had no electricity. Units that used gas or oil were available but expensive so we used an ice box with ice we cut from the pond.
To live on a ranch in Nebraska, required an adjustable thermostat. The weather was your partner and often not a silent one. Hot, cold, wet, dry and many combinations of these governed your life. In order to have the luxury of a cold drink or a dish of ice cream on a hot summer day, required some very cold days during the winter. It must be 10 to 20 degrees below zero for a 15 or 20 day period to freeze the ice on the lake to a depth that would support teams and equipment. We usually waited until the ice was 7 or 8 inches thick before we would even attempt to put up ice.
Christmas vacation was often the most favorable time to put up ice, and I had to spend my vacation working. At 6:00 o'clock in the morning, Dad would pound on the bedroom door and say, "It's time to get up, we are going to put up ice today." I would throw the covers back and step out of bed, and when my feet touched that cold floor, I felt as if I had stepped on a cake of ice. The thermometer had been hovering very close to the zero mark for several days. Dad says that it should warm up. There is ice on the water pail in the kitchen. Mumsie will have breakfast for us when the chores are finished.
By 7 O'clock it is beginning to get light, and Dad gets the equipment needed to cut the ice: There will be saws, ice tongs, stakes and string for marking out the squares to cut. We will get a wooden plank, to use as a slide for loading the wagon. I will get the team and hitch them to the wagon. It is so cold that I have to take the bridles into the house when I go to breakfast, in order to have the bits warm enough so that they will not freeze to the horses' tongues. The horses are cold and don't like to stand for long, so I hurry as much as possible to get them hitched to the wagon.
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Metzger Memories
