“Growing Up Ranch” Chapter Two Our House - The Cabin

I grew up in a house, but not one like everybody else had. My house was a genuine log cabin built around 1898 as a homestead cabin by Ernest Newell. It was by cabin standards pretty large, but its size was limited to the length of the tallest tree large enough to build with, about sixteen feet long by sixteen feet wide. The cabin was two stories tall, but the original builders had not raised the downstairs ceiling to anything like a normal height. My dad Russ stood six foot four inches tall and had to be careful to stand fully upright only between the exposed rafter beams and be well stooped over when walking across the room. Even with occasional care forgetfulness meant a knot on the noggin when he got careless.

There were essentially three rooms in the cabin. The lower story or downstairs was all one big room. Cook stove and heater stove, kitchen table, cupboards, pantry shelves, refrigerator, freezer, sofa, rocking chair all piled into to this one Kitchen/Dining/Living/Family room to make it "cozy," most would say cramped. The upstairs was divided in half by a partition that went as high as the cabin walls, but not as high as the ceiling. This made two bedrooms, one for the children, and the other for Mom and Dad.

This was also the only closet space available, so shelves lined the walls, a plastic covered garment rack for hanging clothes, and even an improvised photo dark room occupied most of the space not taken up by three beds. The roof was constructed of two layers of pine lumber with tar paper in between for waterproofing. Very steep in pitch to prevent heavy snows from caving it in, the nails holding it together stuck out an inch or two into the house. Not too important unless you had the top bunk like I did. Then you had a steel porcupine overhead to watch out for.

Notice I have yet to make mention of any insulation. There wasn't any. The main cabin logs held a good deal of heat in or out depending but the roof was a steady leak of thermal energy. At night, winter's cold radiated downward, while in summer by afternoon the upstairs was a sweltering hot box.

The logs used to construct the cabin walls had been hewn and laid in place with an eye to function over form. The inner and outer sides had been rough-hewn by axe to create a halfway flat surface, but between logs full round was left on in between each log, probably to prevent the work of laying down more rows of logs. The traditional method of fixing the huge cracks left behind by this was to "chink" the walls with mud. Someone had taken the extra effort to mix cement and "plaster" the cracks with that. As this mixture dried and the logs cured shrinkage left this chinking loose and fragile. Rolled newspaper was stuffed in to make up the gaps.

Chinking was an inside and outside deal with the hope that one side or the other would keep the weather out. It also needed regular care and maintenance, not abuse. There were not many places to play with a basketball, dirt and grass don't make for a decent court surface. But a fun game was to toss the ball up onto the roof and catch it as it rolled down. But wait, wouldn't it be even more fun to see if the ball would bounce back off the cabin wall? It sure was, but two problems not apparent to boys at play were immediately created,

First, the ball was knocking items like flower vases off the shelves inside, not to mention the annoying, thump, thump of the ball. Second, outside the loose chinking was being knocked out of the wall leaving daylight streaming inside between the logs. A near miss nearly took out the cabin window, and Dad came boiling out. "You boys quit that right now! Can't you see how you are ruining the chinking?" Well actually no, I couldn't until Dad pointed it out. We didn't have cement to replace that lost to the bouncing basketball. Instead, Dad found a bank of good gooey red clay and I learned the joys of chinking logs by hand as one of the ranch rules was "you break it, you fix it".

One bright side was that the clay clung to the logs much better. On the sad side, clay wasn't nearly as waterproof, so I now had a regular chore of wall repair. Lighting was originally by white gas lantern, or kerosene lamp both dim lighting and too hot for summer. Electricity was run in finally but only for lights, electric stove, and refrigeration. The interior of the cabin was just unfinished logs and the smoke from lamps and stoves had slowly turned the logs a deep dark brown. There were also only five small windows in the whole cabin so with the dark colored logs the interior was somewhere between dim and outright dark. The low ceilings meant the overhead lights were of limited use but far better than nothing. Reading was best done by a table lamp, not room lights. The electric stove was used strictly for cooking, never heating. Like most things on the ranch the stove was second hand and Dad had to repair wiring every so often sometimes even having to re-solder connections. It was a wonderful way to cook when you didn't want to heat the whole house up like the wood cook stove.

We had two wood stove's, a large kitchen range, and a smaller pot belly heating stove. A single stovepipe vented both stoves outside through the cabin roof. Actual heating was done more by the stove pipe re-radiating waste heat than by the stoves directly. Since we burned quite a lot of pitch pine wood the heated resin built up on the inside of the stove pipe and eventually would catch fire.

These stove pipe fires were highly dangerous, hard to detect until too hot to put out. Often the only course was to let it burn itself out while keeping the chimney pass holes from catching fire. This could go on all night when it was winter, and the stove had to be kept going for basic heating. Small boys with Elmer's Glue squirt bottles were quite handy for keeping the wood soaked down.

The stoves themselves presented some unusual hazards, mainly the ability to burn from nearly any angle at the slightest touch. One winter Mom was house cleaning and had pulled out all the boxes from behind the stoves in order to clean the floor. What a deal! I could actually run around in circles inside the house! I had a little quacking duck pull toy and ran around and around and around....

Mom repeatedly warned me "Stop that! You are going to get burned on the stove!" But as usual, I wasn't going to let adult common sense get in the way of good fun. As I made the turn around the heater stove one more time, my wrist brushed the white hot stove side for just an instant, but that was enough. The stove went beyond a simple burn straight to vaporizing a chunk of flesh the size of a quarter and nearly an eighth of an inch deep. Scream! Holler! Tears, boohooing, some snubbing and at last I had learned the lesson not to run around the hot stove. I even got to wear a nice square patch shaped scar for years before it faded away just to remind me in case I forgot.

If you grew up in Douglas, or even most of the surrounding farms and ranches, running water was no big deal. Just turn on the tap and here it comes. The cabin was different. In fact, the only way our water would run was if the boy carrying the buckets ran with them. That's right I grew up with no running water, no flush toilet, not even a hand pumped well. It was good old manual haul it up from the creek two buckets at a time, about five gallons each bucket, ten gallons per trip. The whole idea of plumbing was about a century out of date compared to most people.

My bathtub was a square galvanized washtub set in the middle of the downstairs floor. Privacy? What's that? When it was Mom or Dad's turn children went outside or upstairs to play. When it was my turn, I got "Hurry up! And don't splash so much, you’re getting the whole floor wet." In winter it was especially annoying because the stove was right there both heating you and threatening to burn you. All this inconvenience meant that bathing took on a much lower priority like once a week or so.

In the summer the tub got a vacation as we used the big tub with actual running water: Horseshoe Creek. What a luxury! Lather up and swim away the suds, the only problem was losing the soap. We helped this by using Ivory brand soap since it floats. Now in the sweat pumping heat, we could get a daily dip and scrub each evening. What a reward for a hard day’s work!

Laundry had the same water problem. Even the old manual roller model washing machine Mom used needed a good deal of water, all carried up by hand from the creek. This became one of my first chores and also one of two means to earn some spending money. Mom and Dad put up a tally sheet on the wall beside the bucket stand. Each two bucket load, was a single tally stroke, payable at the rate of ten cents a mark. Laundry day was a gold mine since it took at least $1.00's worth of water. By paying us it took the whine out of our protests when this event rolled around. The second money earner was a lot more work. Our firewood was kept on the front porch to keep it out of the rain and dry. The logs of the cabin made a natural measuring stick and the rate was $0.25 chopping and stacking enough wood to cover one log high across the whole front porch. While the wage was higher the work was a good deal harder, but it did pay.

Chopping wood doesn't seem too hazardous, and the fact that I was entrusted with the job showed it wasn't. Still, there were safety rules, the most important of which was, "Never Chop Toward Yourself!" I didn't have much problem with this when using the full sized axe but eventually I acquired a nice sharp hatchet. It was meant to be used for limbing and felling small trees, but it was tempting to try it out on other things. Of course, I got the full refresher course on axe and hatchet safety before going out for the first glorious trial.

As I propped up a nice piece of cook stove wood, it kept flopping over. Finally ignoring all rules I held it in place with my toe and Whack, I split it clean as a whistle. I also cut right through the wood and into the toe of my brand new Red Wing boots! Luckily those were stout boots with thick leather, so I still had a big toe. However, I only got one pair of shoes a year, so I got to enjoy a cold toe whenever I was out in snow or rain or any of many other damp or wet situations for the rest of the year.

Living in the cabin was something I grew up with, so I never thought of it as unusual. In fact, I saw things the other way round; a house was sort of strange home. The walls of houses were so flimsy, not like good solid logs. Houses were always painted and woe to the boy who wrote on them or bumped into them and left smudges behind. With all their windows houses never seemed to get nice and dark inside at night. Not like the comforting dark of our cave-like cabin. Few houses were solid enough to hold up to a Wyoming blizzard. The cabin would sort of hunker down and just let the wind howl around the eves, while houses would shudder and shake and fling loose bits off into the storm.

When winter's cold or occasional rains or daylights end sent me inside there were a number activities to keep an energetic boy busy and happy. When I was little, I would play camping with the high back chairs. Mom gave me a light blanket and two chairs back-to-back with the blanket over the top was a tent, or an Indian tepee, or a castle, or even a fort. Tonka toys were allowed inside, provided they were cleaned off first, so whole towns were imagined as dump trucks and bulldozers rumbled around the hard pine board floors. My prize Tonka was a Hook and Ladder Truck which pumped water and raised its ladder. There is quite a story behind it coming to be mine.

I loved all Tonka's but one year I found one I just HAD to have. A beautiful red fire truck was there in the front window of the local Coast to Coast Store. I would stand and gaze longingly at it, and the $11.00 price tag would stare back at me. I begged for it, but that was just too much for a toy. I was told to "Ask Santa; maybe he will be able to do something. Of course, you would have to help him out by getting the money." I wanted that truck so bad! I did every job I could. I saved every penny. This was before I was old enough and strong enough for water carrying or wood chopping and I didn't get an allowance, so every penny was an effort. The little tin can bank slowly filled up but not fast or enough. At last the final trip to town was made, and I had not made it by several dollars. Crushed, I gave up all hope and a genuine despair set in. I would never get that truck; I had let Santa down and it just wasn't going to happen. That Christmas morning I woke up and trudged downstairs. I knew there would be stocking candy and gifts, mostly clothes, but I was certain no fire truck. I could not believe my eyes! There it was the great big red hook and ladder from Coast to Coast!

Well as I grew up pretend forts and tents gave way to other pass times. I became an avid reader. Books let me travel to far places and learn of things I would never have a chance to see or do. Dr. Seuss was a favorite author since the stories were wildly imaginative. The artwork aided my young imagination to stretch out and weave wild ideas into imagined forms worthy of art if only I had that talent.

When I was around six years old, I discovered plastic scale models. Now I could hold in my hands a small example of some of the things I had only read about. I loved airplanes, and that started me out. I could watch the B-36's, and B52's flying high over the ranch, refueling on their way to some far place. Here was a kit for a B-36 and it was only $0.25. Dad was cautiously encouraging, and I proudly carried the small box home. I had a lot to learn about building models. Directions? What are those? Oh boy, glue! How come it won't stick? That first little plane was quite a struggle. At last, it was finished. Glue scars everywhere, wings all out of shape, some missing pieces, not the gem I had expected from the box pictures. That could have ended that, but I was determined. Next trip to town I marched into the store and bought another one of those kits. Slop, blob I got it together, better but still not good enough. Next trip another kit and this time I could at least recognize it as a B-36. Cool!

I went on to build hundreds of models. I wasn't too keen on painting because I just wanted to see what the thing looked like and hold it and the faster, the better. Besides, I had to work from a TV tray that couldn’t stay up overnight.

I also got interested in the history of these aircraft and tanks. Soon I was saving the directions since they had a short description and facts sheet with each one. I also loved the box art paintings. I started saving these as well. Soon I needed a filing system, and I started saving them in a box. The models themselves I hung from the upstairs ceiling using sewing thread and thumbtacks. Soon it was quite a crowded airspace over my bed.

Despite all of these activities, card games, checkers, watercolor painting and eventually oil painting the truth was that I spent as little time inside as possible. In summer I lived in the creek swimming and dam building. Exploring the woods, or building something outside kept me occupied for many hours. Even in the winter playing in the snow, ice skating, and other outdoor activities were much more to my liking than being cooped up inside the cramped cabin. Inside activities were mainly for times of bad weather when there wasn't a chance to be out and about in the wide world.