Beekissed
Mountain Sage
You really need to be copying this to a manuscript as you go along, animal....this is good content and intriguing to follow! 
Homesteading stories
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animalfarm
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I was very young, just shy of four years old, but I have little snippets of memory of the journey to BC. Mountains are very memoriable when you are born and raised on prairie. It was very cold, although I was later told that it was late spring. It turned out that the truck and supplies were leftover army supplies from the Korean war. "Uncle Ray" had buddies.
We were all sleeping in a kid heap under the truck under old army sleeping bags. No civilization, so no rooms even if my parents had had money which they didn't. I remember waking to gunfire and pandemonium. Uncle Ray crawled under the truck and literally sat on us to keep us from moving. That was the first time he issued what was to become his first of only two kid control statements. "Move and I'll cut your fingers off." (All five of us kids did survive to adulthood with all our fingers intact and we trusted that man implicitly) Did I mention that Uncle Ray carried a really big knife?
Dad was on the trailer behind the tractor firing away. He had his .30-06 army rifle. I have no idea where mom was. We were scared $htless as the bullets were hitting the truck box above us.
It turned out to be our first encounter with bears and lots of them. They had climbed into the truck bed and were wreaking havoc with supplies we could not afford to lose and we were potentially tasty little bear treats. Grizzlies were abundant in BC back then, and my dad and Uncle Ray only had stories to go on; no direct experience as bears were not common to the prairies where we had lived. They had made the typical greenie mistake of not securing the tailgate and leaving the dinner dishes till morning.
After that, a guard was mounted everytime we stopped and we all had to sleep in the cab of the truck. We also had to use the bushes with an armed guard. I guess it had been a hard winter for the bears and they were hungry and aggressive that year.
We were all sleeping in a kid heap under the truck under old army sleeping bags. No civilization, so no rooms even if my parents had had money which they didn't. I remember waking to gunfire and pandemonium. Uncle Ray crawled under the truck and literally sat on us to keep us from moving. That was the first time he issued what was to become his first of only two kid control statements. "Move and I'll cut your fingers off." (All five of us kids did survive to adulthood with all our fingers intact and we trusted that man implicitly) Did I mention that Uncle Ray carried a really big knife?
Dad was on the trailer behind the tractor firing away. He had his .30-06 army rifle. I have no idea where mom was. We were scared $htless as the bullets were hitting the truck box above us.
It turned out to be our first encounter with bears and lots of them. They had climbed into the truck bed and were wreaking havoc with supplies we could not afford to lose and we were potentially tasty little bear treats. Grizzlies were abundant in BC back then, and my dad and Uncle Ray only had stories to go on; no direct experience as bears were not common to the prairies where we had lived. They had made the typical greenie mistake of not securing the tailgate and leaving the dinner dishes till morning.
After that, a guard was mounted everytime we stopped and we all had to sleep in the cab of the truck. We also had to use the bushes with an armed guard. I guess it had been a hard winter for the bears and they were hungry and aggressive that year.
Joel_BC
Super Self-Sufficient
Hi, animalfarm. I'm really enjoying your stories of your family's odyssey... and also your images of BC (where I also live) in "the old days". Please continue to share your stories with us to the full extent that you feel like it.
Also, WELCOME to SufficientSelf.
One more thing... I'm sure you grew up learning to operate, maintain, and jerry-rig all sorts of tools and equipment. In the past four months or so, since I joined, I've been sharing info about such things. I need help with the task! So maybe we can fill out this domain here at SS.
Also, WELCOME to SufficientSelf.
One more thing... I'm sure you grew up learning to operate, maintain, and jerry-rig all sorts of tools and equipment. In the past four months or so, since I joined, I've been sharing info about such things. I need help with the task! So maybe we can fill out this domain here at SS.
TTs Chicks
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I'm enjoying your stories- Thread starter
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animalfarm
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Thankyou for the support youall and yes I could tell some jerry-rig stories. Might be lessons in what not to do though.
Beekissed
Mountain Sage
How exciting! Though I'm sure it is only that in hindsight...more fearful when it was actually happening, I'm sure. My folks tell horrible stories about when they were young but they tell them now with a chuckle or a shake of their heads, so I think the horror of it all sort of dims into a different light with time.
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animalfarm
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Its been awhile; the sun is shining the days are getting longer and a lot of jobs on my to do list. Here is a little jerry-rigging story for Joel_BC. Thing to remember here is that there weren't any power tools because there wasn't any electricity so anything that evolved after electricity was invented wasn't on the jerry-rig list.
Hunting season, a group affair that year and too many moose. The meat has to be cut up and taken care of right away, but there is only one manual grinder and too much beer. The kids have all found ways to get out of cranking that thing and have smartly disappeared into the bush. Its getting late in the day and the ladies are still busy cutting and canning so the men are told to start cranking. TOO MUCH BEER! They decided to jack up a car and take a tire off. Jerry-rigged a belt around the rim and the handle of the meat grinder which is bolted to a bench. Loaded the grinder, started the car, revved it up.
Meat flying everywhere, men sitting on the bench are skidaddling, the grinder goes air born......
Hunting season, a group affair that year and too many moose. The meat has to be cut up and taken care of right away, but there is only one manual grinder and too much beer. The kids have all found ways to get out of cranking that thing and have smartly disappeared into the bush. Its getting late in the day and the ladies are still busy cutting and canning so the men are told to start cranking. TOO MUCH BEER! They decided to jack up a car and take a tire off. Jerry-rigged a belt around the rim and the handle of the meat grinder which is bolted to a bench. Loaded the grinder, started the car, revved it up.
Meat flying everywhere, men sitting on the bench are skidaddling, the grinder goes air born......
