A Memory from Long, Long Ago

This morning I read the recent blog post of tpals, a blogger I enjoy reading.  Within the post were included a few pictures, one showing her wood stove and some surrounding buckets of water.

Memories of buckets of water next to our wood stove when we first moved up here to northern Minnesota sprang to mind.

 

For several years, we lived in an old tin can of a mobile home that had minimal to non-existent insulation, and we came close (I'm sure) to freezing in the winter time.

 

At the time we had more animals than we had sense.  Three horses, a donkey, two dairy goats, a buck, a flock of chickens, one huge Bouvier dog and one very old Cocker Spaniel comprised our menagerie.

 

We had no running water or electricity.

 

Our water came from a hand dug well that dated from the time the land was first settled in the early 1900s.  And, boy howdy, was that water cold.  We boiled it before using it for our household water and in the winter time brought buckets of water inside to be placed by the wood stove in the hopes of warming it a bit before giving it to the animals.

 

One day I had the usual umpteen buckets on the floor next to the stove and had put two loaves of bread to rise balanced rather precariously on a stool also next to the stove.

 

Something shifted and one of the pans of bread did a header smack into one of the buckets of livestock water.

 

Without a moment's hesitation, I snatched that pan of bread with the loaf still in it out of the pail of water, tipped it so the water ran out while holding the loaf of dough securely in the pan so it stayed put.

 

You can bet that after I had rescued and resuscitated that drowning loaf, I gave serious thought as to whether it would still be fit to eat.  But, I reasoned, I had just that morning scrubbed out all the animals' water buckets and the water in them looked sparkling clean.  Frigidly cold, but clean. 

 

So I set the pan of bread back in its place (a bit more securely) where it could finish rising.

 

Funny how I can still remember, all these forty-some years later, exactly what recipe of bread that was (Corn Meal Muffin Bread) and how wonderfully it rose and baked up.

 

Now, after I've told this tale, I have no doubt that should any of you have the chance to be offered a slice of my homemade bread, you would kindly demur.  

 

I understand.