In the olden days, our parents and grandparents spent all year long getting ready for Winter. Preparing ahead of time was the norm back then. It was the way of life.
Before winter was even over, plans to plant spring gardens were already in the making. Seeds were ordered and gardens were plowed or tilled in preparation for planting, growing and harvesting our food. Berry bushes and fruit trees were either planted or pruned for growth. The harvest of fresh food was gratefully eaten during summer and fall months and the rest was immediately used for canning, freezing and storing for the coming winter. Credit cards were unheard of as a substitute for the long, hard work of preparing food for winter consumption.
Summers were spent cutting, stacking and aging firewood for winter heat and fuel for cook stoves. I remember these times well. For me as a child it was most fun to carry and stack the logs that I could handle and I loved the scent of fresh cut wood. I considered myself a great helper. I don’t know if I really was or not, but I did enjoy the ocasional competition with my brothers as to who could stack wood or carry it indoors the fastest.
Credit Cards were still unheard of then to pay for heating a home or fuel for the cook stove. Our parents learned how to pay as you go. It wasn't always easy.
If you lived on a farm, the daily chores along with the work and worry of raising poultry, pork, beef or rabbit was common all year long. Putting up the hay and grain harvest during the summer months was essential for winter food for the animals and everyone pitched in with the labor. A lot of work went into feeding animals all year long in order to have meat for the table and to sell for extra income. As kids, we learned first hand never to get attached to an animal we were going to butcher or sell. We didn’t even name them, unless it was something like T-Bone or Burger.
Again, it was not even possible to exchange a Credit Card number at the grocery store to purchase our meat or our meals.
Mothers spent a good part of the year planning ahead for winter’s clothing for the family, whether it was making and sewing them, swapping coats and outfits with extended family to fit growing children, shopping retail or second hand stores for bargains or ordering from the Sears Roebuck catalog. We were always happy to get hand-me-downs, but we were even more excited if something was actually new, smelled new and was ours and ours alone? Mending clothes, ironing on patches and sewing buttons back on was a constant chore for moms and their daughters who were big enough to sew.
Hard earned cash was the only means of paying for new clothes, long before the Credit Card or Store Credit was invented by some genius. Today, it has become all to easy to buy, buy and buy far too many clothes that we or our children hardly wear or wear at all.
Our parents were conservative, thoughtful and even thrifty long before the word was used and abused. They made a dollar stretch far beyond what we care to do today. Mothers in those days always made less seem like more. It was an easier time to be grateful and appreciate what we had. We knew how hard they worked for it because we worked hard to help even a little.
With the invention of the Credit Card, I think we have come to accept too easily this living on the far side of normal - in debt. It’s actually become the new norm. In many cases, we still have to pay the bill, but it’s a lot easier nowdays to be less grateful and appreciative when we receive something long before we’ve actually worked for it. I hope we can we fix this mindset for our future generations.
~ Gwen of IRISH ACRES