You might want to check out Patent dates for items like hand pumps, windmill designs. Here in mid Michigan, the farmers were not driving the cattle, pigs to water daily. Many farms were not on streams or had a spring available. The dug wells with hand pumps were the common way to water what needed water. The taller hand pumps now available at State Parks, stand up about 5ft, would REALLY pull water from the deeper wells. Tall pumps of that design were very common in old photos, talked about in stories. Really efficient at producing quantities of water with the 5ft handle and little effort working it. Our neighbor still has one out in his old barn now. We have primed and used it when electric failure won't let us water the horses from the hose. Does a GREAT job of water production. Previous neighbor was 80+ and barn was built with pump, back 30 years ago when we moved in. He watered his mail service horse, cows, using that pump before the WWII. Those cute 2ft Pitcher Pumps shown on sinks in old Westerns, didn't have enough lift power for many places around here, not as common in this area. Some farms had a couple wells dug, with tall pumps in appropriate locations for daily use. House, each barn. Saved lots of walking time, heavy labor carrying water, especially for animal uses inside. Especially important when you might need water for a fire, to have more than one source. Priming the pump in winter could be a job, but the animals HAD to be watered daily, usually twice at a minimum. Especially the dairy animals. No water or small quantities, would mean no milk production. A farmer who depended on animals eating snow, would have a lot of dead stock that winter. Doesn't work to supply enough water intake. Locally, windmills were fairly common for pumping water. Still had to make sure the water tank was open for drinking out of by the animals. Keep the pump mechanism unfrozen, greased during the bitter cold. Carrying such water into the house for use might be a bit of work, but not like hauling water from distant creeks or streams. You didn't build farms where water was hard to get, at least here in MI. Making more work for yourself was just dumb, farming had enough labor involved just to make it work. You didn't add work to your days. Sorry, I have never heard of anyone melting icicles for drinking, lots of dirt on roof to contaminate it. Hauling ice blocks was for summer food and preservation. Not for melting to drink. Many easier ways to get water than cutting ice. Ice cutting could be dangerous, horses or people going thru the hole or ice cracking open. Not worth it for just drinking. You used or sold cut ice, got cash or usage beyond drinks. You might have to fetch it, but water was not, could not be, difficult to obtain on a well run farm. You just needed water too much for it to be a problem. Weekly bathing in winters was just part of the schedule. Heated up the kitchen, lots of water prepared, everyone took turns, dried hair by the stove or fireplace. If it was too cold, hair could have baking soda/powder brushed thru to remove oil, hair was "dry" cleaned. I have done that on cold animals, does work fairly well. Long hair could take hours to dry, chill the person into illness. Perhaps reading some old diaries, autobiographies of people in the times, could aid you on local conditions. Your local or Provincial Historical Society, Library, should have newspapers, accounts of events during old times. Going thru Patents would show you evolution of design improvents, like pump interiors, windmill shapes, gearing, dates the features came into usage. Stove improvements had lots of Patent changes over the years. Improved heating, ovens, less wood needed. Mail Order Catalogs might be a source of information. Not sure exactly when they got going, but were a huge source of items needed to live with. Things the General Store didn't keep on hand or were too expensive there. Catalogs sure changed and improved the life out on the farm and ranch. Each newer catalog would show improved items and explanations of useage, so you could track progress. There were only so many hours in a day, so many hands to work, and ALL the jobs needed to be done every day. They worked much harder than we do, but not often harder than they had too. Perhaps folks were more willing to take the extra steps to do a good job, lend each other a helping hand, whether family or neighbors. Doing a job well, the first time is actually time saving, by not having to come back again. Not as worried they might be doing "more that their share" of the jobs. Working even even when tired was pretty common, folks didn't stop and give up like we see now. Many labor saving devices, time saving methods, developed in those times.

Oh I remember making him - it was my first attempt and couldn't find a blue bottle anywhere (that was on Carol's wish list). He looks much better now. Love the barrel pond - we're hoping to put a pond in next summer! Can't wait! Arlene Here is a link that might be useful: lightning bugs!

Thanks Carol - I did can 8 quarts last night and was wondering if I should mark them for boiling only since I didn't chlorinate them. I don't have much unscented bleach left and I have to use it to sanitize the buckets (and a cooler that had some water left in it for a month!) and chlorinate the water I plan on storing in them (I have a couple of 5-gal buckets, a couple of 2-gal buckets, and a couple of 1-gal buckets as well as 2 1/2 gal jars that I ferment in). bcskye - I did plan for a woodstove when we built our modular house, but the builder messed up. I'm still going to see if I can get a stovepipe in that wall w/o hitting wires, but have been thinking lately about rearranging the back wall of the family room to swap the slider and the window and put a 10x15 or so greenhouse/sunroom on the back, with a woodstove in there. There wasn't anything I could do to customize the the house to get a gray-water collection system in, but I'm thinking I can get at the washing machine drain pipe fairly easily, if I only had a way to pump the water back out of a barrel in the basement. We do have 4 rain barrels now (only had 2 last Oct, just got 2 more) but we have to connect them since we had drained them before a freeze a couple of weeks ago. Those will be used for flushing (and washing if we get in a pinch), better than hauling water from the stream like my dad did last year. We're set with some battery-powered lanterns and flashlights too, my uncle has a generator (if he maintained it) he bought last year so if we lose power for more than a day we should be able to borrow it for an hour each day like we did last year to keep our chest freezer running - I've got that packed with bigger cuts of meat, shrimp tucked in between the turkeys, lots of frozen veggies that I hope I don't lose. Upright freezer has baked goods - no problem - and kitchen freezer has pre-cooked meatballs, cutlets, kielbasa, cheese, nuts, things that won't be too bad if they thaw. But it looks like it may skirt to the west of New England (unusual!) and hit upstate NY area harder, if we only see tropical-storm force winds maybe we won't lose power, since most of the leaves are off and crews have been cutting limbs and evergreens near the lines all week. Hope everybody in Sandy's path now and next week stays safe!

Golddust- We just have waaaay too much in common. I will watch for you on the road. I don't see too many Insights out there, Prius is everwhere. I think they are just more wellknown. I am amazed at just how similar the two are, really similar. We did think the Prius has a bit more umph but when you are in a hybrid it is not how fast you get there but how well you drove getting there. It was just the extra dollars that swayed us. We were really worried that both cars would shoot up in price because of Japan's earthquake and the gas prices going up. We just figured it was the right time. Actually Faron I mentioned you because I knew you were a car enthusiest and did not want you to think my poor dh lost his man card. My dh loves jeeps. Loves, loves, loves. He got his 4door wrangler a few years ago when they were offering a lifetime warranty. Yes, lifetime. Jeep realized they made a huge mistake and have lost several lawsuits where they tried to deny warranty work. So a precident has been set. DH will never part with that baby. Besides, he has too much invested in it. Years ago dh purchsed a 1972 Cutlas Supreme convertible with a factory hurst. I believe only a few hundred were made that year. He got it from a little old lady on Valentines Day. He cleaned it up and drove it while we dated and were first married. While living in an apartment waiting for our house to be built we had it parked in the apt lot. One day it was gone. Someone had flatbed towed it as we had drained fluids and such so it could not be driven. It was found a few months later in a vacant lot with grass growing in trunk and an old tv in it. The thieves literally picked her clean. They even scraped out the deteriorated weatherstripping! The only thing left was the 8track player. Looked like a pirannah picked her clean. DH was so sad, he loved that car. I can still hear that engine purrr. So when he saw the mustang on the lot I told him to take it for a drive. It was lowered with fancy rims, really hunky looking. The dealer had a specialty shop do this work. DH told me "looking leads to lusting, lusting leads to touching". He looked, lusted, touched and drove her home. We have never regretted the purchase and enjoyed all the rides, just time for someone else to enjoy her. But there came a time after my cancer diagnosis when we started looking at things so much differently. We could do so much more together with the money. And we already have the jeep for 4xing, snow, towing. Having 3 cars is certainly a luxury so we thought having the other 2 be hybrids made us feel more responsible. So next year we will go to Moab in the jeep and not worry so much about the cost of gas because we saved so much in the meantime.