Simple science
I’m a huge fan of simple science. There aren’t many people these days who rememebr the old ways, I keep notes and write down things like ropework, splicing, saw filing, things that have come and gone, skills that almost no longer exist. Dad knew a lot of this stuff, and he passed what he knew on to me, when he could. While I was a kid, I did things like dig wells, build barns, shoe horses, etc. etc. etc.
One year, we put a new well in our home. the old well had been giving us some occasional grief but had finally gone dry, so dad had a well drilled that was a bit further away from the front of the house, and sank a 6″ casing. it was a great well, and as we would eventually be expanding the house, the well pit was about 20 away from the garage. So, that winter, it was going to freeze, and there wasn’t any way around that.
I started dreaming up all manner of inventions to keep the pit warm, and I had a half a notebook full before it was all over.
Thew well pit itself was a concrete bunker six feet on a side and four feet tall. It had a concrete roof and an insulated wooden door. As long as it was above 32 degrees, it was fine- btu we get hard winters in the midwest.
So one day dad shows up after work with a pickuptruck load of horseshit. Not an unusual occurrence, we used it to fertilize, and it amended the clay soil almost perfectly.
Except he started shovelling it onto the well pit.
In short order, he had covered the back, sides, and roof of the pit in a huge mound of horseshit, piles of little road apples running off into the yard. I din’t understand.
See, that horseshit would decompose, and the heat of it’s decomposition would keep that pit warm and cozy all winter long, and in the spring,w e scraped it off and put it in the garden. We did this three years until we remodeled the house and incorporated the pit into the basement. Never froze. Simple science. Things our parents and grandparents did to get by before blackberries and fax machines.
Foxfire was started to try to save those old ways, but the founder, Elliot Wigginton, ended up being a doper and a kiddy diddler. Shame, too, because they did a pretty good job. Where will that knowledge go now?
16 comments Og | Uncategorized
I love old knowledge like that.
I was able to grow vegetables one winter by throwing compost around the plants.The decomposition kept the ground and plants from freezing.
Well he may not have been worth the powder to blow him to hell but the books are still good. I have 1-7 I think.
Yep, Rey, you have to separate the author from his work. The foxfire books are a treasure.
I love that stuff too. Ever seen the Readers Digest do-it-yourself and fix-it-yourself books. Loads of fun to flip through, and practical as hell when crap like the disposall go tits up on ya.
Being from the milder parts of the country, I was at a loss to handle the bitter cold and huge snowfalls of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when I got stationed there in 1982. In January of ’83, I had my wellhead freeze, even though the well was in the furnace room!
The responding plumber said that the frost had penetrated through my foundations, and he pointed out hoar frost in several places on the INSIDE of the walls in my daylight basement.
He said the solution was my snow blower and a yard full of snow (about 3 foot deep at that point, with drifts to the roof). He showed me how to drive the machine around and blow the snow up in a windrow next to the foundation, which insulated the foundation, and let the heat inside the house work it’s way back through the concrete. My firewood consumption for the wood-burning furnace went down from 250-300 pounds a day to less than half of that.
I wouldn’t have thought of that trick, it was “local knowledge”, like the horseshit in the wellhouse.
Great story, Riverdog. And it seems so damned anti-intuitive.
I just finished a batch of homemade sauerkraut. I can render tallow and lard, and make soap from them, and I can spin yarn from wool, then knit that yarn into whatever needs to be made. These are just the “old things” I can remember off the top of my head.
I remember my mother (during WW II, in Douglas, Alaska) ripping out old wool sweaters, washing and dyeing the used wool, then winding it into big balls and knitting something new from it, and employing any number of old methods for making, preserving, or using what was on hand.
One of my most frequent laments is this: “What are the kids of today going to tell THEIR kids they ever went WITHOUT??”
There used to be a series of books — a set of encyclopedias, really — called Audel’s Guide. Only saw it once, and only know the contents by reputation and rumor, but wonder if it might answer some of your simple science wants.
M
I have most of the audels books. Hell, I’ve memorized a lot of them.
great post, who woulda’ thought about using *horse shit* except someone who knew that manure heats up as it decomposes, we sure can learn from the older generation. I was lucky to be around grandparents who taught me many things which are still usefull today.
I don’t know that dusting off the books now and then is enough to stem our cultural downtrend.
Where the books were, that might preserve them, the Eloi knew.
Reason to rescue them from dust and Morlocks? Not a clue.
I read somewhere that in Europe of old they buried veggies such as cabbage and turnips in hay and manure piles during the winter to keep them from freezing..
Duct tape – Tammi’s version of simple science. Anything else and I tend to hurt myself…..
Good story, Og. I don’t have any similar, having grown up w/out horses in yard. All my old knowledge stories come from car-fixin’ tricks learned from my dad and grandfather.
But when I lived in Southeast Wisconsin a local teenager wrote (and got published) a really cool book with like 1,000 uses for duct tape in low-tech repairs around the house.
Considering her age, that was definitely an impressive display of rare, old-school, useful knowledge.
Oh, God, looking back at things from my grandparents…
One grandpa was a blacksmith and general fix-it guy, the other was a trucker who could do anything with vehicles. Both grandmothers had degrees in make-do. I was lucky enough to get to know one of my great-grandmothers and two great-uncles who were all in the same mold. This is one of those times I wish I could go back in time, kick myself in the ass and say “LISTEN TO THEM! Ask questions!”
I learned a lot without actually knowing it, but damn, what I COULD have learned…
I wonder if there will come a day in my lifetime where we will need all that knowledge again.
I hope not, but there are days when I’m not so sure…
Great post, og.