With the recent spate of freezing weather, I was reminded by our son, Spencer, that back during the 1980's and earlier days he was in Woodsville High School, he had a busy list of activities he had to complete, as well as attend to his part-time jobs on our local dairy farms, plus take care of most the family animals, especially the ones he was responsible for at our small family subsistence farm operation in Haverhill Corner.
For those of you who are familiar with the large, successful farm operations in our area, such as Dana and Sue Leonard, Richard and Doreen Morris, Amos and Bernice Pierson, Dean and Dorothy Thorburn, Dale and Jackie Lewis, and others, we were not like them. They were farming as a business and providing essential dairy and vegetable products to the public.
We were at the bottom of the ag group table of organization; we were like part-time hippie farmers, growing things and raising some animals, all of which went into the freezer to be part of the food we ate throughout the year. We were subsistence farmers, doing the type of ag work in which we grew some vegetables in our large garden and raised various kinds of animals to provide poultry, beef, lamb, and pork for our family, with none available for sale or barter.
During those long, cold winters we were using copious amounts of firewood, as the old 1775 farmhouse, barn and out buildings we bought in Haverhill Corner had no central heat, no up to date electrical system, no insulation, and to say that on any 10 or 20-degree day below zero was cold in the house, was to understate the problem by 95-percent.
We had to keep the living room wood stove fire going at all costs. If not, everything would freeze up, something we were familiar with. But with Polly working at Hanover or Woodsville hospitals, me working in the Lebanon area, and son Bernie away at school and son Spencer attending classes at Woodsville High School, we had no one to assist with the winter heating chores.
So, we hired someone to come into the house periodically through the weekdays to "keep the home fires burning" (as tenor John McCormack used to sing on our ancient Victor Talking Machine Company 78rpm record we played on our favorite wind-up record player in the living room. That certainly convinced visitors and neighbors, the Marvin clan that had moved into their neighborhood was living substantially in the 1920's!)
When the mercury really dropped, we transferred whatever baby beef critter we had growing into the warm mudroom, which was part of our kitchen. Gwendolyn, the talking duck and her chattering friend, Fred burrowed into the barn hay for warmth, the chickens and turkeys we were raising were taken into the borning room which was one of the 13 rooms of our house. It was these arrangements that we used to care for the animals until the weather warmed a bit, so they could all go back outside and run around. It was all very tedious, but fun.
Some years later, Ron Fournier of North Haverhill was assisting us with a social gathering at our house and picked up a turkey feather he had found wedged in the borning room floor. He examined it closely, then said he remembered back in the early days of Marvin Gardens, when we kept our turkeys and chickens in that same room when the weather went well below zero.
Those were fun days, busy, but fun for all of us, because each year we devoted a lot of time to slaughtering and butchering those birds and animals. Those activities took place on the cooling autumn weekends when we would set up the tables and get to work.
When doing many of these tasks, we were somewhat in plain view of passing traffic on Route 10, including many tourists heading north or south to their vacation destinations or just looking around. What they saw on some of their passes must have surprised them, because they would slow down and some would park to watch the "Corner's" version of the Haverhill Hillbillies as the two boys, with their father and mother, kill and dress an assortment of animals and birds.
These were all good activities, and often our farming adventures did not quite fit the then-present-day standards of Haverhill Corner. Although no one ever volunteered to us that our homesite looked a bit shabby at times compared to some of the exquisitely handsome historic homes up the street, we had a bundle of friends and shared an immense amount of fresh food with neighbors and with those who needed a boost every once in a while.
We were always pleased with spring's arrival and warmer weather. The stacks of firewood and other clutter that always seemed to gather during wintertime were all cleared away. The place brightened up by May of each year, and we were ready to begin all over again.

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