Work Through Time: Cape Breton Stories of Land & Sea

The Contribution of the Farm Animals

Most farmers in East Lake Ainslie raised beef cattle for the market. In the fall, a "drover" invested the money needed to purchase twenty-five or thirty head of cattle and drove them to Whycocomagh, where they were loaded onto the boat to be shipped to the Sydney market. Hugh Gillis from Gillisdale was a drover. A.H. MacKay was a local buyer and he would drive the cattle to Kenloch to be shipped by rail to markets in Sydney or Halifax.

In the fall, farmers also butchered a good steer or dry cow (one that was not milking) to be used for winter food for the family. The beef was salted and packed to preserve it. No power and no refrigerators!

Use was made of all parts of the cow or steer. After butchering the animal for its meat, the innards such as liver, heart, tripe and intestine were made into foods regarded as special treats. The hide provided leather for footwear by a local tanner.

The sheep also provided food and clothing for the family. The sheep did not require as much time and attention as the cows since they were well clad with wool covering. The shelter needed in winter was minimum. A roof to keep them dry was sufficient.

April or May was lambing time and now the sheep required more attention. The lamb and mother had to be well fed and looked after. When the lambs were two weeks old, they had to be marked, their tail shortened and the male lamb castrated. Each farmer had a special mark with which he could locate his own lambs in the fall, as all flocks were pastured together in an open field. Around the last of June a number of families got together to drive the sheep to a "cro" (a Gaelic word meaning an enclosed space) where the farmer or his wife would catch the sheep one by one to shear them (remove the wool) and examine them to see that they were properly marked, changed, and ready to spend the summer in the community pasture.

The life span of a sheep is nine or ten years so it was necessary to keep some of the ewe lambs each year. The "geldings" were sold to the Sydney or Halifax markets.

Local merchant, A.H. MacKay, who paid per pound depending on the market price, purchased gelds lambs, or dry sheep. A day was set for buying. All farmers who had lambs to sell would bring them to Mr. MacKay's store, by express wagon or cart, where they were weighed and a value set for each. Their worth was taken in exchange for groceries and the balance settled in cash.

Wool taken from the sheep in June was washed with warm water and soap and rinsed in cold water. The wool was spread on the grass to dry in the sun. When it was completely dry, some of the wool was sold and the remainder set aside to be picked and carded to remove all foreign particles. It was then shaped, by a pair of hand carders, into rolls for spinning and later taken to a carding mill where a machine did the work of preparing the wool. Mixing the wool of a black sheep with that of a white sheep would result in grey rolls. These rolls were taken home to be spun into yarn of different weights depending on future use.

Every home had a spinning wheel, for converting the rolls into yarn, and also a loom for weaving. The yarn was woven into blankets, drogaid, (a Gaelic word meaning rough cloth woven on the loom) carpets and so on. The drogaid was made into clothing such as shirts, pants, and coats that were sewn into shape by hand needle and thimble.

A pig was also raised for food. The number of pigs kept on a farm depended on the farm and the farmer. Some farmers kept pigs for breeding and reproduction. These farmers would raise a sow and a boar. Other farmers would keep a sow only and borrow the boar of the farmer who charged a fee for the service.

A litter of little pigs would arrive in the spring. After three or four weeks the young pigs would be ready for sale. At this time a farmer who did not keep a sow for breeding could buy a young pig for $4 or $5. The little pig was fed skim milk and leftovers from the table, grass, and vegetables. After the potatoes were dug in the fall, the small and damaged potatoes were cooked with some crushed grain, oats, buckwheat or barley and fed to the pig to fatten it for butchering around the first of December. At this age they produce about one hundred and twenty-five pounds of pork, which would fill a meat barrel of good salt pork for winter. The hams and a couple of slabs of bacon were put in the bottom of the barrel and completely salted and pickled to preserve the meat. In the spring, the hams and bacon would be taken from the bottom of the barrel and given treatment, washed in cold water, hung to dry and rubbed over with sugar and saltpeter. In some cases, they were smoked. Excellent ham and bacon could be had well into the summer.

Other uses could be made of the pig. The hair or bristles are one example. Two bristles could be added, one on each end, as sewing string for shoe or harness sewing. You punched a hole through the leather with an awl and then passed the bristles through on the end of the string. The cobbler, and every community had one or two, was adept at making these strings. Little Farquhar was an excellent cobbler in the District of East Lake Ainslie.

The horse was not used for food or clothing but as an assistant. Most farmers kept two horses, a team, while others had three animals consisting of two workhorses and a driving horse or racehorse.

A team was used in plowing and harrowing the land as well as mowing hay with a two-horse mower. A double team was used in a truck wagon for moving heavy loads like gravel, earth, stones and logs. In winter, the team was used in bobsleighs or the wood sled for hauling wood or other heavy equipment.

The driving horse was attached to the buggy for conveying people to market, to meet the train, to visit, to parties, and to church. Two horses were used with the Express wagon or two-seated Democrat.

Each farmer kept about twenty or thirty hens and usually a rooster. The flock of chickens provided the family with meat and eggs.

In the spring, the farmer set one or two brooding hens with ten or twelve good eggs under her, in a secluded place in the barn or chicken house. In about three weeks, furry chicks hatched from the eggs. The mother hen looked after the little ones, protected them, and helped feed them. In about twenty weeks if properly fed, watered and otherwise cared for, the females would lay eggs and the males would be used for meat. The feathers of the plucked birds were carefully washed, dried and put aside in a dry place to accumulate and then were used to stuff pillows, cushions and sometimes mattresses.

In the early years of my life, this is the way we lived. We were almost self-sufficient and produced most of what we needed on the farm. The cow, the sheep, the pig, the horse and the hens and a rooster contributed much to living at East Lake Ainslie.

Making the Butter

Originally a farm contained two hundred acres but by 1920 we find some farms contained one hundred acres and in some cases fifty acres depending on the size of the family and the members of the family who remained at the Lake.

Depending on the size of the family, the ambition of the occupants, as well as the health and luck of all concerned, the number of animals varied greatly. An average farmer in the 1920's would have four or five milk cows. These animals were milked by hand, twice a day, morning and evening.

Up until the early twenties, the milk was strained into one or several containers. They were known as creamers. These were made of metal, tin-plated, inside and out, with a tight cover and handle for carrying. They had a slanted bottom and lead screw spout through which the skim milk could be drained, leaving the floating cream in the container. The cream was stored in a cool place for churning later.

The creamer full of warm fresh milk would be placed in a cool location, usually in or near a fresh spring of cold water. The cream would, once a week (sometimes more often), be poured into a churn for churning into butter.

The churn was made of wood staves, held together by wooden hoops with a solid and permanent bottom and removable top. The top cover had a small hole in its center through which the handle of the dasher passed. The operator would take hold of this handle and, by a few firm dashes up and down, the cream within the churn, at the right temperature, would very quickly convert into a churn full of excellent butter floating on fresh buttermilk.

Using a spatula, the newly churned butter would then be removed from its container. It would be placed in a tub to be washed in cold, clear water. This would remove the surplus buttermilk and solidify the butter. It would then be salted and stored in wooden tubs or pressed into one pound or half pound prints for home use or for sale at the local store.

The local merchant in the twenties was A.H. MacKay who had a store in East Lake Ainslie and later, a second one in Scotsville. Mr. MacKay, along with MacLean's store in Scotsville, bought the butter and resold it in Sydney or another suitable market.

The Growing of Buckwheat and Wheat

Oats were grown and produced by all the farmers in the district. It was the main grain crop. Some farmers were successful in producing buckwheat and wheat or barley seed. These grains required more careful handling. Buckwheat, for example, required very rich soil and late planting for best results. Being very sensitive to frost, it was not planted until the last of June. Manure and wood ashes were used to enrich the soil as commercial fertilizer was not available until much later. Buckwheat usually grew rapidly and choked off other weeds, so that the farmer would have a clean field of grain, which was necessary if he wished to have the seed milled at the gristmill. At harvest time, buckwheat grain had to be handled with extreme care. In fact, all the handling was done by hand. The field was mowed down with a hand-scythe. Most farmers, at the time, could use this tool with great skill, and could cut down a large field in a very short time. After the grain was cut, it was then placed in small piles and left in the open field for a week or more so that the seed would fill out completely, dry and season, before being taken to the barn for storage. Good weather was very necessary at this time for best results.

It was left in the bam for some time where it was piled loosely to dry and to season. It was then threshed by hand, using a flail, thus removing the seed from the straw. The flail consisted of two sticks, the handle and striker, fastened correctly in a hinged manner, using a piece of leather lacing or eel skin. It took skill to use a flail correctly. You placed a small bunch of seeded straw on a clean spot on the floor and proceeded to strike the grain in such a way so as to move it right or left, each blow bringing a fresh bunch into striking position. This continued until the entire bunch was moved. You would then change hands and move the straw in the opposite direction. In short order, all the seed was removed from the straw. You would now fork the straw away from the seeds and repeat the process until finished.

After the job was completed, the seed was winnowed either by using a sieve and the natural breeze or in later days, by a hand operated pair of fanners who did an excellent job of removing little pebbles, leaves and chaff, leaving the seed clean and ready to be milled.

This record of farm life in East Lake Ainslie is an excerpt from the book The Way We Lived: Stories of East Lake Ainslie, edited by Janice MacLean.

© 2005 Janice MacLean