By Ross Bloomquist
Fall time was used in making preparations to protect the livestock and themselves from the rigorous weather that was sure to come later.
Outside chores included milking the cows, morning and evening, cleaning the barn, and putting fresh bedding down daily, feeding the pigs ‑ and chickens, and bringing fuel in for the kitchen range.
The hired hand's job was to bring in the hay and straw that was needed for the livestock. The afternoons were considered "free time" until the animals needed to be fed again. A trip to town was made in the buggy when the ground was bare of snow or in the bob‑sled or single seater sled when there was sufficient snow cover. This trip provided an opportunity to pick up mail, the daily paper, and other reading material for the long, winter evenings.
A stone boat was used to clean out the barn. This was a homemade contrivance like a low sled comprised of a 4 by 6 platform on one inch boards mounted on the side of two sturdy round fence posts set parallel about three feet apart. It had a hitch for two horses but was light enough to be moved about by hand when not loaded. The stone boat was used to clean out the barn. It was dragged by hand into the driveway of the barn and loaded up with the manure. The team was then hitched to the stone boat and the load pulled away to be spread on the garden spot or some other area of unplowed land. If the weather was miserable the load may be dumped in a slough that was nearer the barn.
The stone boat was so‑called because its original use was to transport stones and boulders out of the fields. It had a number of uses around the farm such as hauling gasoline engines and moving sacks or barrels of feed.
Preparations for winter:
Screen enclosing for the porch was taken down and replaced by a "storm shed". It consisted of two panels of ceiling lumber. This area could be used for temporary storage and to hang. The shed was dark and not much warmer than the outside but it was, nevertheless, insulation for the inside rooms.
Screen from the windows were also removed and replaced with storm windows. "Banking" the house and the chicken coop was another task that had to be done to help conserve the heat. Some people would pile dirt around the foundations of the buildings to shut out the cold but manure if one disregarded the smell, was a better material for the purpose. The manure piled along the walls served as excellent insulation; it even supplies a little heat from the decomposing of the organic matter. Actually no smell of the manure was ever noticeable in the house except in the cellar on warm days. It was hauled away in early spring when the danger of below zero temperatures was past.
Winter Supplies
One of the preparations for winter was to stock up on the supply of hard coal for fuel for the house. The houses usually had a coal bin in the cellar about five feet square that would hold enough coal to last until spring. The coal came in by rail from northern Penn. The price was about $18 to $20 per ton. This hard coal was anthracite. A ton or two of soft coal which came in lumps of a variety of sizes was also stored in a bin in the buggy shed: The large lumps had to be hammered into smaller pieces before it would be put into the fireboxes of the kitchen ranges and other heaters in the house.
Groceries
Flour and sugar were purchased in 100-pound bags and coffee in 25-pound drums. We butchered our own meat, always pork and sometimes beef. Mother churned butter and rendered out the lard. The chickens laid enough eggs in the late fall to supply us until the hens began laying again in February or March. There were some home canned peaches and vegetables and plenty of potatoes stored in the cellar. In some years two or three boxes of Washington State apples were purchased in the fall. Fresh fruits were obtained from the grocery whenever a trip was made to town. The kerosene supply for the lamps and lanterns might possibly become depleted during a protracted blizzard since it was purchased five gallons at a time.
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 100