Alan Skeoch

Year: 2020

  • EPISODE 114 NUBS AND CROOKS…CUCUMBER CONTRACT DISASTER


    EPISODE 114  NUBS  AND CROOKS….CUCUMBER CONTRACT DISASTER

    alan  skeoch
    Sept. 9, 2020



    This a ‘nub’.  We grew a  lot of nubs.  A  nub is  worthless.

    Bob Root said  that farmers have to take risks all the time.  Sometimes the risks pay off but
    a lot of times the risks do not.   Years ago Marjorie, my brother Eric and  I decided  to get
    into real farming by raising cucumbers  for the Matthews Wells pickle factory in Guelph, Ontario.
    Their pickles were sold under the Rose Brand label.  Many of  my readers must have  eaten
    these pickles  at some point.

    How  did  we get into the business?  My cousin Ted Freeman,  was at the
    time in charge of  contracting farmers to grow cucumbers.  His mom and  dad, Frank and Lucinda
    Freeman got a contract and we decided to give it a go  as well.  

    Now just imagine that we were real farmers who needed  a source of income just to pay
    the property taxes or to cover fertilizer costs or maybe just to pay off debtors who were
    hounding  us.  Just imagine we needed the job.  (Forget the fact that Marjorie, Eric
    and I had other jobs that paid our bills.   Imagine we were real young farmers trying
    to make a  living.)

    “Now  Alan, our pickle company really want gherkins…the  smallest cucumbers, maybe
    2 to 3 inches long.”
    “How will we be paid?”
    “AT the end of the summer, maybe October, we will calculate what we owne you after  we
    have measured and weighed you production.”
    “You mean we put up the front end money?”
    “Not entirely, Matthews Wells will give you the cucumber seeds.  After that it is  up
    to you.”
    “How do  our cucumbers get to the factory?”
    “Once a  week a truck will pick up your produce as  long as the sacks are
    placed at the corner  of the fifth line and #5 sidereal with your name.”

    “And Alan do not send any nubs, crooks or oversized.  They are  worth nothing.”

    “Three questions, Ted,  what is a nub?  What is a Crook?  How  big is an oversized cucumber?”

    “Is that a  joke, Alan?”

    It was  not a joke but I never told Ted.  Instead we got ready for our adventure  in real farming.
    We bought a rather decrepit Farmal  A tractor for $400.   First big expense.  Then  we hired  George
    Johnson to plow up our cucumber field.  He did a great job.  Unfortunately we did  not think  of
    harrowing the upturned sod.   So our field was a little bumpy.  Then we got the seed bed  ready  by
    hooking a single furrow plow to the tractor.  Dad was helpful although he thought we were goddamned
    fools.   

    The land  was good.   Nothing had been growing here but twitch grass and timothy for more than two 
    decades.  The soil was ready for cucumbers… to fight the bad weed seeds versus good seeds war.  We helped  by
    weeding.  In no time at all  the cucumber vines were stretching like long garter snakes through
    the field.   

    Up the road,  at Uncle Frank and Aunt Lucida’s farm the cucumber  field was clean as a whistle.
    A whole  bunch of school kids  were hired to pick  cucumbers every day.  “Get the gherkins!”
    I think my uncle and aunt were amused in a kindly way.  “City people will learn something
    about farming this summer.”   They sacked their production…gherkins mostly

    We did  have some  gherkins but they were darn hard to find.  We sacked everything
    in the mistaken belief that even the lowliest cucumber was worth something.  So we
    bagged up quite a few of our specials…nubs, crooks and oversized.  Wow, we raced
    through the field picking whatever we  could.  The cucumbers outraced us.   

    Our sacked production looked good.   But turned out to be nearly worthless.  
    “Alan, those nubs and crooks just go to the dump…along with the oversized.”

    This  is a NUB.   WORTHLESS
    This is an oversized cucumber.  WORTHLESS

    These are Crooks.  WORTHLESS

    Then we got a letter from Matthews Wells.   it ran something like this.  “Dear
    Grower,  this has been a bumper year for cucumber growth.  More cucumbers
    than we can handle.  Only need gherkins but even ghekins are oversupplied
    so we have to cut the price paid to growers.”

    “Look at this!  The  company has  cut the price in the middle of the season.
    How could they do this?”
    “That’s  the nature of  farming.  Prices fluctuate.   You never know  what you
    will be paid  until the end of the season…same for grain, green beans, water melons,
    cattle, sheep or hogs.  The only farmers that get a guaranteed price for their production
    are the dairy farmers.”

    “But we have put a lot of money into this cucumber  field.  We bought a tractor,
    a plow, some sacks, fertilizer, and that old wood wheeled buggy to drag  the sacks
    up the road.   Then there is our labour.  Surely our work is worth something.”

    “We’ll just have to wait and see…come October we will know.  That is when
    the checks  are sent out.:

    YES… and sure as God has made little green apples, a check was sent
    to us.   I think it was for $35.00.   I think the price of seed was taken off at the 
    end of season.  Take price of seed  off this  check.

    Three people, tractor, wagon buggy, sacks, fertilizer, land, … front end costs
    were about 20  times the final  payment.  

    A lesson learned and  never forgotten.  I am  sure our uncle and aunt were
    amused…gently amused….not viciously amused.  They had also had their contract
    reduced.  I am  not sure  if even they made a profit.  I  know it was the last
    year any of  us  grew cucumbers.

    Cousin Ted will correct this account.  He was embarrassed by our failure for
    it reflected on him I imagine.   We  were a  joke and even laughed at ourselves.
    Ted went on to build his own successful business.  He got out of the pickle  game.

    alan skeoch
    Sept. 9,2020

    Springtime nearly here in our cucumber year  This is our transport system.  The wood wheeled Democrat hooked
    to our lovely Formal A garden tractor..  In the background id a barn i was building atop our old barn foundation.
    I hope you love the skill being applied.  The barn collapsed eventually.


    This is  my cousin Ted Freeman  (right) and Eric  Skeoch .. handshake had meaning.   Ted took us through the pickle factory
    before we signed the contract.


    Dad and  I … picture  taken a little earlier when I was still in high school.  Dad
    did not carry that stick to give me a rap on the ass.  He spent most of his time
    laughing at our ignorance about farming.


    P.S.  Perhaps  I should not write this postscript.  Eric got married that summer and
    asked me to be best man.  I took a sack of our nubs, crooks and oversized to the
    wedding feast at the Old Mill in Toronto.  Some people were offended.  I think
    I know why now…but did not at the time.

    P.P.S.  Worse happened.   I loved our little Farmal A tractor.  When winter
    came I tucked it in the cedar hedge beside the back house.  When spring
    came I discovered the block had cracked.  No one ever told me that
    the tractor had no anti freeze.  I nearly cried.  The final blow as it were.

    This is  a picture of a nub and an oversized cucumber.  And also  a picture of a very stupid  farmer.  

  • EPISODE 112 RAY CLOUGH…ROOFER … ECCENTRIC



    EPISODE  112     RAY CLOUGH…AN ECCENTRIC WHO DID OUR FARM ROOF.

    alan  skeoch
    Sept 6, 2020

    Ray Clough…farmer and part time roofer.  I hired him.  A very interesting man.

    This is not Ray’s  house.  Ray’s  place had a good roof.  But the front door was similar…very similar.  Upstairs windows closed  down because
    no one ever went upstairs.


    This was a good farm sale to talk about a roof.  Not far from Ray’s farm.   Might be  where we met and stick up the
    roof  conversation.  Take a look at the next picture.


    An astounding  picture.  someone climbed up that ladder carrying those sheets of  metal  


    I MET Ray at a farm sale much like the sale pictured here.  


    Not far from Ray’s place was another bachelor farmer.  He needed to hire Ray but likely could not afford it.
    How  did he ever get those patches on the barn roof?  Look at that long ladder.  Dangerous way to live.

    When I described the restoration of our farm house by Wayne Shannon, I did not
    mention the roof.

        Before the robbery…before the renovation I hired Ray Clough to put a steel roof over
    the asphalt shingles.  Ray was not a roofer.  He was a farmer over near Ospringe. 
    A very unconventional chap.  The kind of person I admire.  His  own man as they say.
    Ray put a new roof on the farm all by himself.  How he did it mystified me.  Great long
    sheets of ribbed  steel.  Green.  How could Ray manhandle the sheets up to the roof
    and then pound in lead headed roofing nails.  He only had two hands.  I never
    saw anyone help him.  Must have  been helpers. Matter of fact I never saw him doing the roof.  It was
    done in the same week I hired him.  While I taught school, Ray hammered the roof in place.


    This is not Ray nor is it our farm house roof but the picture gives  some idea of the danger involved.



    After Ray finished  the job, he asked  if he could live in the house.  That was a 
    surprise.   A bigger surprise came one Halloween night when Marjorie was having
    a bunch of her women friends in the house for a grand  supper.  Darkness. There was a nock
    on the door.   Jean or Cathy or Elizabeth opened the door and there was Ray.  Just standing there. She screamed and
    called Marjorie.  Ray had one set of clothes and a Fedorah hat that had seen far
    better days. He did not shave as often as some men do.  He was single.  Women
    scared him … especially when they scream. The night was dark and Ray just
    disappeared into the darkness.  He expected to see me. “He said nothing, Alan,…
    just faded into the night.  I think we scared him.”

    Then a day or so later…payment.

    “Marjorie, you just stay in the car while  I pay Ray  for the roofing job.”
    “Why?”
    “Ray lives  alone.?
    “So?”
    “He may not be a fastidious as me.”
    “You?  That’s a laugh. I do all the cooking and cleaning.  I even cut the grass.”
    “Now I know you get my meaning.”

    Ray invited me  in via the woodshed  doorway.  The front door had not been used
    for years.  it was  hard  to even see the door as some great wild shrubs had taken over.
    The woodshed was the closest way to the barn where Ray had his cattle.  No need
    for a front door.  Ray was efficient.  There was a foot trail to and from the barn. There
    was also a  foot trail in the kitchen.  Ray’s path over the worn linoleum led  to great greasy 
    stove…blackened with old grease.  Then from stove to his big easy chair which
    was worn and tufted here and there.  The floor was black except for that trail from back door to stove to
    the big easy chair.  
      As  I mentioned  Ray was not fastidious.

    This is not Ray’s kitchen   Same kind of stove.  Ray’s was better than this



    A year or so later,  Ray died.  Alone.  On his farm.  Marjorie and I went to his auction 
    sale.  I do not know who dealt with his estate.  Not much in terms of household goods.  Not much that anyone would want.
    Someone suggested a tour of the house.  I think I dissuaded  Marjorie from going.
      
    In conclusion.  I hope my story about Ray is seen the way I see it.  This is  not a put down.  I really
    liked him. Marvelled at our new roof.  I wish I had taken the time to find  out more about him.  Cousin Helen Parkinson 
    and husband Bill lived on a farm near Ray as did  Shirley (Awrey) Freeman and cousin Ted.  So did  Barb and  Bob Root 
    (‘Rooter’) I am sure they knew Ray  because their farms  are close.
    Perhaps they will make a  comment.

    Take a close look at Ray.  His face. Not his clothes.  That is  a  nice face.  The creases are
    warm creases.   The eyes are amused eyes.  Ray shaved  every other day. His hat must be a farm heirloom.
    The  hat was not put in the auction sale.  if it was  there I would have  bought it.

    Ray believed in layered clothing.  Count the layers.



    alan skeoch
    Sept. 7  2020



  • EPISODE 111 “ALAN, NEVER LET YOURSELF BE HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.”

    EPISODE 111   ALAN, NEVER  LET YOURSELF BE HOSTAGE  TO FORTUNE.


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 6 , 2020

    OUR farm house  was built around 1870 or 1880.   The owner at the time had very little money…he had to cut corners as we discovered
    in the renovation a century later.   The design was  common … available plans in Eaton’s catalogue. Mom, grandma and their dog Punch
    on front lawn.

    We inherited the farm in 1958.  Condition? Not so good.   We could barely afford to look after our 
    city house.

    Our family around  1958 when we inherited the Freeman farm.  We were not wealthy so owning property like the farm
    was a  novel and frightening thing.  Only later, around 1990 could Marjorie and I afford to renovate…and even then it
    took the shock of the robbery to force us into action.   Picture: left to right…Eric, Elsie (Freeman) Skeoch, Alan, Arnold (Red) Skeoch
    We laughed a lot…in this case someone broke wind  Just as  I set the camera  for a delayed picture.


    Months after the farm robbery we had to give  serious thought to the farm future. 
    Should we keep the farm  or  put it up for sale like was happening to so many
    other historic farms.  The debate was just awful.

    THE choice?  Sell everything  or pour a lot of money into restoration of the farm house.
    Depressing thoughts.   The loss of so much. Family treasures gone.    The usual ‘poor me’
    comments by persons who have been robbed.   grieving that deep
    sense of loss when someone you love is gone.  Anger.  Feeling violated.  All
    that and more.  For the first few hours. 

     Then the clouds of doubt cleared away.

    Granddad  made small wheelbarrows for us.  Note the sad dog house in the  background.  Fancy living on a farm?  Not so much.


    Then I thought of Evan Cruickshank who had such a powerful influence on my life.
    “Crooky” had been our history teacher at Humberside.  A man of deep intellect.
    And later he hired both Eric and me as  history teachers at Parkdale Collegiate in
    west central Toronto.  I got to know him really well as did Marjorie.  Respect and
    friendship.   “Crusher” Cruickshank had many words of  wisdom which he shared
    Never heavy handed sharing.  Never patronizing.  

    Our robbery was hurting.  At its worst when I suddenly remembered “Crooky’s”
    comment regarding material things in life.  “Alan, never let yourself be hostage
    to fortune.”  Said another way.  “Never let things own you.  If you do you will
    have an unhappy life.”                                                                               

    We were grieving the loss  of the furniture and everything else in the house.  What we
    should have been thinking about was the house itself and the future direction we would take.   

    NOTE:  The term hostage to fortune means that wealth, family, possessions can hold
    us hostage.  Crooky added ‘Never be’ to ‘hostage to fortune’ which I believe meant
    to never let the material things in life hold you hostage.  Do not worship your wonderful car, 
    for instance.

    I am not sure this  point if clear.  We decided to put our money into a dream rather
    than  save it for who knows what .   Maybe that is  not even clear.  We took action.
    That is  clear.


    Many many Ontario farm houses that were built far better than ours have been destroyed.  

    SO A  DECISION WAS MADE:  WE WILL RESTORE THE FARM HOUSE

    “Let’s do it…restore the farm house.”
    “That means a total gutting  of the interior.”
    “Give the job to Kevin and Andy…strip back to the bricks.”
    “The boys will enjoy it…demolition and teen agers go hand  in hand.”

    1)  So  Andrew and Kevin using crowbars, sledges,  hammers and a wheelbarrow
    began stripping away the plaster which was already in decay…then the lathe  
    some of which was even ancient split lathe.  Wheelbarrow  loads were dumped
    outside.

    2) Beneath the plaster they discovered that our brick farm house was really
    not a brick house at all.  Underneath was a barn frame…heavy hand hewn beams
    pegged together as was the custom in 1870.  This was not a house at all.  Had
    we depended on the bricks to hold the ouse up then there would  be no house.
    The bricks were soft as a baby’s bum.  They had been shaped and  fired less
    than  a mile away near #5 sidereal.  Weak.  I wondered why other brick  farm houses
    had  collapsed  and  ours did not.  Now  I knew. Ours was  a barn.

    3) But  The big beams had not been  made here.  No group of men with broad axes
    had  spent a year or more preparing white pine beams.  No.  Our farm house
    was made from beams  collected here and there across the township in 1870 or so.
    How did  we know?   Because many beams had burn marks.  The beams had
    been gathered from older burned out buildings…barns, drivesheds.   

    4) Nothing special about the beams.  The great floor beams were only rough
    hewn on one side…sometimes two sides.  The other sides still had the bark.
    This house was not an example of fine art carpentry.  

    5) The board  floors had been worn to nubs by hundreds of feet over the century.
    The nubs were the knots.  Harder than the planks and therefore when worn and 
    stamped on left a wavy floor that I always found charming.  But it had to go and
    so the boys got crowbars to lift the ancient slabs.  Too bad.  Loved  the old floor.

    6) They made one amazing discovery.  Hard to believe I  know.  The centre of
    the house was held up by one long carved beam.  Crucial piece to which  all
    the other beams were attached directly or indirectly.  “Guess  what, Dad?”
    “What?” “The main beam hangs in the air.”   The main beam never touched
    the ground.  It was free standing.  How that happened we will never know.  had
    we not stripped the walls that fact would remain a little secret.  How the roof
    held up for 130 years or more I will never understand.   

    Ricky the  Raccoon was a pet of ours until he  reached puberty when all things changed.  While young Ricky would scamper up our
    shoulders to sit on our heads.  Here he is being gently removed by David S.

    Did Ricky the Racoon sneak back and  take up residence behind the plaster and lathe of the farm house?  Not likely.  We let him
    go in a farm field  far away.  But raccoons are smart.

    7) That was  only one discovery.  There were others.  Like finding a nest
    of raccoons in the upper bedroom wall.  They had  made the house a home
    for years it seems.  And then there were the red squirrels who can chew there
    way into any house.  Mice, of course.  A plentiful supply that the garter snakes
    must have found convenient food.  A bunch of snakes lived in the field stone
    foundation.  They may still be there since the foundation was  never changed only
    braced.

    8) The basement floor was dirt.  Hard packed dirt.  Three rooms down there, each
    with a function but all with dirt footing.  In spring this cellar was wet…pooled water
    often.  But the walls held.  One room had big dirt floored stalls…one for coal, one for potatoes,
    carrots, etc.   The other room Grandma called “the Dairy’ where she kept food in
    the cool dark.  Slabs of beef hung here which was why I liked to slather our meals
    with Worcester Sauce.   I never trusted the Dairy.  No good reason.  Grandma and
    Grandpa Freeman lived here deep in their 90’s.  The other big cellar room
    had an old  but huge cook stove with a pipe hole exit carved into the foundation.  This was
    grandma’s ‘summer kitchen’ but was never in use when we were growing up. There
    was a rickety staircase and  a trap door that gave access to the main house.
    Granddad  had  his carpenters tools there as well.   As a kid  I stole one of his
    chisels and got caught.  I ran and  hid  in the tall summer grasses and golden rod
    on that day.  Humiliated because  I was caught.   I still have the chisel somewhere.
    Granddad gave it to me.  He was a master craftsman.

    9) Kevin and Andrew also had to clean out the attic…a long unfinished room
    that ran eastwards from the upstairs bedrooms where the raccoons lived.
    That attic was  a wonderful treasure trove.  For most of  my pre teen years I explored this
    room endlessly.  For years it was full of spinning wheels,  walking wheels and  all
    the wool processing things of the 19th century and other treasures that were to me
    a mystery.  I remember when most of that stuff suddenly was gone. “OH, Elsie (my 
    mother), a wonderful man came by and paid  us money for the things in the attic.”
    “How much?” “Ten dollars”  Bastard.

    10)  The scavenger missed a 1920’s “skin” book called  Smokehouse.  Lots of rather
    off colour jokes and some suggestive drawings of stockings with legs in them … at least 
    as I remember.  And, oh yes, the explosive novel “Tobacco Road” by Erskine Caldwell.
    At tale of poverty and prejudice in the American  south.  That book  would even be
    scandalous in today’s liberal world.  It was  falling apart as  it had been read  and  re read
    and  re read again by me.

    11) So the house was stripped bare…a shell. No, a  folderol i.e. A barn within a brick house.
    Now we had to find a builder.  By good fortune we noticed a truck  while getting ice cream cones
    in Erin.  WAYNE SHANNON, BUILDER    No beating around the bush we hired him to renovate
    and reconstruct the farm house.   He  had some great ideas.  Open concept.

    12) And  he said  a couple of things I had  not counted upon  “Where do you want the bathroom?”
    My response  was “What  bathroom?”…because we had a perfect backhouse I had  built.  Marjorie
    chimed  in and so we got two bathrooms.  His next question was about the trap door to the
    cellar.  “Of course we will close that trap door and put a stairway to the cellar.” “What? I love that
    trap door.”  Then everyone chimed in so  we got a stairway.  And  another question I had not
    counted upon was the furnace.  “What furnace? Isn’t the old wood stove good enough?” That 
    thought was also put to rest when Wayne found us a good electric  furnace.* (Note..furnace
    will be subject of  major story later…a story so  big that my picture replaced the Sunshine Girl
    on the Toronto Sun.  No  vanity involved…just a very bitter fight with Hydro One)

    13) Wayne and his worker crew spent the whole winter changing the farm house. What a
    terrific job they did.   The house became a home.  We have entertained there so much
    since.  Grand  dinners.   Wayne did not stop with the house.  “Alan, you need a barn.”
    On this, I agreed so  Wayne built us a barn with a cement floor.  These were good times.

    TO WHOM DO I OWE MY GRATITUDE?

    I really must thank the robber that stripped the farm house of furniture and who knows what else.
    Without him we would have never taken such drastic action   Good things do often emerge from
    what seems bad at first.


    Renovating the farm house has enriched our lives.  Lots of friends have joined us.  In this case the Christophersons.  They
    seem to have pillaged the garden.  Brenda’s father was a  crop duster in Manitoba with a plane much like the one that
    tried ti kill Cary Grant.  


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 6, 2020








    z 


  • EPISODE 111 “ALAN, NEVER LET YOURSELF BE HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.”

    EPISODE 111   ALAN, NEVER  LET YOURSELF BE HOSTAGE  TO FORTUNE.


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 6 , 2020

    OUR farm house  was built around 1870 or 1880.   The owner at the time had very little money…he had to cut corners as we discovered
    in the renovation a century later.   The design was  common … available plans in Eaton’s catalogue. Mom, grandma and their dog Punch
    on front lawn.

    We inherited the farm in 1958.  Condition? Not so good.   We could barely afford to look after our 
    city house.

    Our family around  1958 when we inherited the Freeman farm.  We were not wealthy so owning property like the farm
    was a  novel and frightening thing.  Only later, around 1990 could Marjorie and I afford to renovate…and even then it
    took the shock of the robbery to force us into action.   Picture: left to right…Eric, Elsie (Freeman) Skeoch, Alan, Arnold (Red) Skeoch
    We laughed a lot…in this case someone broke wind  Just as  I set the camera  for a delayed picture.


    Months after the farm robbery we had to give  serious thought to the farm future. 
    Should we keep the farm  or  put it up for sale like was happening to so many
    other historic farms.  The debate was just awful.

    THE choice?  Sell everything  or pour a lot of money into restoration of the farm house.
    Depressing thoughts.   The loss of so much. Family treasures gone.    The usual ‘poor me’
    comments by persons who have been robbed.   grieving that deep
    sense of loss when someone you love is gone.  Anger.  Feeling violated.  All
    that and more.  For the first few hours. 

     Then the clouds of doubt cleared away.

    Granddad  made small wheelbarrows for us.  Note the sad dog house in the  background.  Fancy living on a farm?  Not so much.


    Then I thought of Evan Cruickshank who had such a powerful influence on my life.
    “Crooky” had been our history teacher at Humberside.  A man of deep intellect.
    And later he hired both Eric and me as  history teachers at Parkdale Collegiate in
    west central Toronto.  I got to know him really well as did Marjorie.  Respect and
    friendship.   “Crusher” Cruickshank had many words of  wisdom which he shared
    Never heavy handed sharing.  Never patronizing.  

    Our robbery was hurting.  At its worst when I suddenly remembered “Crooky’s”
    comment regarding material things in life.  “Alan, never let yourself be hostage
    to fortune.”  Said another way.  “Never let things own you.  If you do you will
    have an unhappy life.”                                                                               

    We were grieving the loss  of the furniture and everything else in the house.  What we
    should have been thinking about was the house itself and the future direction we would take.   

    NOTE:  The term hostage to fortune means that wealth, family, possessions can hold
    us hostage.  Crooky added ‘Never be’ to ‘hostage to fortune’ which I believe meant
    to never let the material things in life hold you hostage.  Do not worship your wonderful car, 
    for instance.

    I am not sure this  point if clear.  We decided to put our money into a dream rather
    than  save it for who knows what .   Maybe that is  not even clear.  We took action.
    That is  clear.


    Many many Ontario farm houses that were built far better than ours have been destroyed.  

    SO A  DECISION WAS MADE:  WE WILL RESTORE THE FARM HOUSE

    “Let’s do it…restore the farm house.”
    “That means a total gutting  of the interior.”
    “Give the job to Kevin and Andy…strip back to the bricks.”
    “The boys will enjoy it…demolition and teen agers go hand  in hand.”

    1)  So  Andrew and Kevin using crowbars, sledges,  hammers and a wheelbarrow
    began stripping away the plaster which was already in decay…then the lathe  
    some of which was even ancient split lathe.  Wheelbarrow  loads were dumped
    outside.

    2) Beneath the plaster they discovered that our brick farm house was really
    not a brick house at all.  Underneath was a barn frame…heavy hand hewn beams
    pegged together as was the custom in 1870.  This was not a house at all.  Had
    we depended on the bricks to hold the ouse up then there would  be no house.
    The bricks were soft as a baby’s bum.  They had been shaped and  fired less
    than  a mile away near #5 sidereal.  Weak.  I wondered why other brick  farm houses
    had  collapsed  and  ours did not.  Now  I knew. Ours was  a barn.

    3) But  The big beams had not been  made here.  No group of men with broad axes
    had  spent a year or more preparing white pine beams.  No.  Our farm house
    was made from beams  collected here and there across the township in 1870 or so.
    How did  we know?   Because many beams had burn marks.  The beams had
    been gathered from older burned out buildings…barns, drivesheds.   

    4) Nothing special about the beams.  The great floor beams were only rough
    hewn on one side…sometimes two sides.  The other sides still had the bark.
    This house was not an example of fine art carpentry.  

    5) The board  floors had been worn to nubs by hundreds of feet over the century.
    The nubs were the knots.  Harder than the planks and therefore when worn and 
    stamped on left a wavy floor that I always found charming.  But it had to go and
    so the boys got crowbars to lift the ancient slabs.  Too bad.  Loved  the old floor.

    6) They made one amazing discovery.  Hard to believe I  know.  The centre of
    the house was held up by one long carved beam.  Crucial piece to which  all
    the other beams were attached directly or indirectly.  “Guess  what, Dad?”
    “What?” “The main beam hangs in the air.”   The main beam never touched
    the ground.  It was free standing.  How that happened we will never know.  had
    we not stripped the walls that fact would remain a little secret.  How the roof
    held up for 130 years or more I will never understand.   

    Ricky the  Raccoon was a pet of ours until he  reached puberty when all things changed.  While young Ricky would scamper up our
    shoulders to sit on our heads.  Here he is being gently removed by David S.

    Did Ricky the Racoon sneak back and  take up residence behind the plaster and lathe of the farm house?  Not likely.  We let him
    go in a farm field  far away.  But raccoons are smart.

    7) That was  only one discovery.  There were others.  Like finding a nest
    of raccoons in the upper bedroom wall.  They had  made the house a home
    for years it seems.  And then there were the red squirrels who can chew there
    way into any house.  Mice, of course.  A plentiful supply that the garter snakes
    must have found convenient food.  A bunch of snakes lived in the field stone
    foundation.  They may still be there since the foundation was  never changed only
    braced.

    8) The basement floor was dirt.  Hard packed dirt.  Three rooms down there, each
    with a function but all with dirt footing.  In spring this cellar was wet…pooled water
    often.  But the walls held.  One room had big dirt floored stalls…one for coal, one for potatoes,
    carrots, etc.   The other room Grandma called “the Dairy’ where she kept food in
    the cool dark.  Slabs of beef hung here which was why I liked to slather our meals
    with Worcester Sauce.   I never trusted the Dairy.  No good reason.  Grandma and
    Grandpa Freeman lived here deep in their 90’s.  The other big cellar room
    had an old  but huge cook stove with a pipe hole exit carved into the foundation.  This was
    grandma’s ‘summer kitchen’ but was never in use when we were growing up. There
    was a rickety staircase and  a trap door that gave access to the main house.
    Granddad  had  his carpenters tools there as well.   As a kid  I stole one of his
    chisels and got caught.  I ran and  hid  in the tall summer grasses and golden rod
    on that day.  Humiliated because  I was caught.   I still have the chisel somewhere.
    Granddad gave it to me.  He was a master craftsman.

    9) Kevin and Andrew also had to clean out the attic…a long unfinished room
    that ran eastwards from the upstairs bedrooms where the raccoons lived.
    That attic was  a wonderful treasure trove.  For most of  my pre teen years I explored this
    room endlessly.  For years it was full of spinning wheels,  walking wheels and  all
    the wool processing things of the 19th century and other treasures that were to me
    a mystery.  I remember when most of that stuff suddenly was gone. “OH, Elsie (my 
    mother), a wonderful man came by and paid  us money for the things in the attic.”
    “How much?” “Ten dollars”  Bastard.

    10)  The scavenger missed a 1920’s “skin” book called  Smokehouse.  Lots of rather
    off colour jokes and some suggestive drawings of stockings with legs in them … at least 
    as I remember.  And, oh yes, the explosive novel “Tobacco Road” by Erskine Caldwell.
    At tale of poverty and prejudice in the American  south.  That book  would even be
    scandalous in today’s liberal world.  It was  falling apart as  it had been read  and  re read
    and  re read again by me.

    11) So the house was stripped bare…a shell. No, a  folderol i.e. A barn within a brick house.
    Now we had to find a builder.  By good fortune we noticed a truck  while getting ice cream cones
    in Erin.  WAYNE SHANNON, BUILDER    No beating around the bush we hired him to renovate
    and reconstruct the farm house.   He  had some great ideas.  Open concept.

    12) And  he said  a couple of things I had  not counted upon  “Where do you want the bathroom?”
    My response  was “What  bathroom?”…because we had a perfect backhouse I had  built.  Marjorie
    chimed  in and so we got two bathrooms.  His next question was about the trap door to the
    cellar.  “Of course we will close that trap door and put a stairway to the cellar.” “What? I love that
    trap door.”  Then everyone chimed in so  we got a stairway.  And  another question I had not
    counted upon was the furnace.  “What furnace? Isn’t the old wood stove good enough?” That 
    thought was also put to rest when Wayne found us a good electric  furnace.* (Note..furnace
    will be subject of  major story later…a story so  big that my picture replaced the Sunshine Girl
    on the Toronto Sun.  No  vanity involved…just a very bitter fight with Hydro One)

    13) Wayne and his worker crew spent the whole winter changing the farm house. What a
    terrific job they did.   The house became a home.  We have entertained there so much
    since.  Grand  dinners.   Wayne did not stop with the house.  “Alan, you need a barn.”
    On this, I agreed so  Wayne built us a barn with a cement floor.  These were good times.

    TO WHOM DO I OWE MY GRATITUDE?

    I really must thank the robber that stripped the farm house of furniture and who knows what else.
    Without him we would have never taken such drastic action   Good things do often emerge from
    what seems bad at first.


    Renovating the farm house has enriched our lives.  Lots of friends have joined us.  In this case the Christophersons.  They
    seem to have pillaged the garden.  Brenda’s father was a  crop duster in Manitoba with a plane much like the one that
    tried ti kill Cary Grant.  


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 6, 2020








    z 


  • EPISODE 111 “ALAN, NEVER LET YOURSELF BE HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.”

    EPISODE 111   ALAN, NEVER  LET YOURSELF BE HOSTAGE  TO FORTUNE.


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 6 , 2020

    OUR farm house  was built around 1870 or 1880.   The owner at the time had very little money…he had to cut corners as we discovered
    in the renovation a century later.   The design was  common … available plans in Eaton’s catalogue. Mom, grandma and their dog Punch
    on front lawn.

    We inherited the farm in 1958.  Condition? Not so good.   We could barely afford to look after our 
    city house.

    Our family around  1958 when we inherited the Freeman farm.  We were not wealthy so owning property like the farm
    was a  novel and frightening thing.  Only later, around 1990 could Marjorie and I afford to renovate…and even then it
    took the shock of the robbery to force us into action.   Picture: left to right…Eric, Elsie (Freeman) Skeoch, Alan, Arnold (Red) Skeoch
    We laughed a lot…in this case someone broke wind  Just as  I set the camera  for a delayed picture.


    Months after the farm robbery we had to give  serious thought to the farm future. 
    Should we keep the farm  or  put it up for sale like was happening to so many
    other historic farms.  The debate was just awful.

    THE choice?  Sell everything  or pour a lot of money into restoration of the farm house.
    Depressing thoughts.   The loss of so much. Family treasures gone.    The usual ‘poor me’
    comments by persons who have been robbed.   grieving that deep
    sense of loss when someone you love is gone.  Anger.  Feeling violated.  All
    that and more.  For the first few hours. 

     Then the clouds of doubt cleared away.

    Granddad  made small wheelbarrows for us.  Note the sad dog house in the  background.  Fancy living on a farm?  Not so much.


    Then I thought of Evan Cruickshank who had such a powerful influence on my life.
    “Crooky” had been our history teacher at Humberside.  A man of deep intellect.
    And later he hired both Eric and me as  history teachers at Parkdale Collegiate in
    west central Toronto.  I got to know him really well as did Marjorie.  Respect and
    friendship.   “Crusher” Cruickshank had many words of  wisdom which he shared
    Never heavy handed sharing.  Never patronizing.  

    Our robbery was hurting.  At its worst when I suddenly remembered “Crooky’s”
    comment regarding material things in life.  “Alan, never let yourself be hostage
    to fortune.”  Said another way.  “Never let things own you.  If you do you will
    have an unhappy life.”                                                                               

    We were grieving the loss  of the furniture and everything else in the house.  What we
    should have been thinking about was the house itself and the future direction we would take.   

    NOTE:  The term hostage to fortune means that wealth, family, possessions can hold
    us hostage.  Crooky added ‘Never be’ to ‘hostage to fortune’ which I believe meant
    to never let the material things in life hold you hostage.  Do not worship your wonderful car, 
    for instance.

    I am not sure this  point if clear.  We decided to put our money into a dream rather
    than  save it for who knows what .   Maybe that is  not even clear.  We took action.
    That is  clear.


    Many many Ontario farm houses that were built far better than ours have been destroyed.  

    SO A  DECISION WAS MADE:  WE WILL RESTORE THE FARM HOUSE

    “Let’s do it…restore the farm house.”
    “That means a total gutting  of the interior.”
    “Give the job to Kevin and Andy…strip back to the bricks.”
    “The boys will enjoy it…demolition and teen agers go hand  in hand.”

    1)  So  Andrew and Kevin using crowbars, sledges,  hammers and a wheelbarrow
    began stripping away the plaster which was already in decay…then the lathe  
    some of which was even ancient split lathe.  Wheelbarrow  loads were dumped
    outside.

    2) Beneath the plaster they discovered that our brick farm house was really
    not a brick house at all.  Underneath was a barn frame…heavy hand hewn beams
    pegged together as was the custom in 1870.  This was not a house at all.  Had
    we depended on the bricks to hold the ouse up then there would  be no house.
    The bricks were soft as a baby’s bum.  They had been shaped and  fired less
    than  a mile away near #5 sidereal.  Weak.  I wondered why other brick  farm houses
    had  collapsed  and  ours did not.  Now  I knew. Ours was  a barn.

    3) But  The big beams had not been  made here.  No group of men with broad axes
    had  spent a year or more preparing white pine beams.  No.  Our farm house
    was made from beams  collected here and there across the township in 1870 or so.
    How did  we know?   Because many beams had burn marks.  The beams had
    been gathered from older burned out buildings…barns, drivesheds.   

    4) Nothing special about the beams.  The great floor beams were only rough
    hewn on one side…sometimes two sides.  The other sides still had the bark.
    This house was not an example of fine art carpentry.  

    5) The board  floors had been worn to nubs by hundreds of feet over the century.
    The nubs were the knots.  Harder than the planks and therefore when worn and 
    stamped on left a wavy floor that I always found charming.  But it had to go and
    so the boys got crowbars to lift the ancient slabs.  Too bad.  Loved  the old floor.

    6) They made one amazing discovery.  Hard to believe I  know.  The centre of
    the house was held up by one long carved beam.  Crucial piece to which  all
    the other beams were attached directly or indirectly.  “Guess  what, Dad?”
    “What?” “The main beam hangs in the air.”   The main beam never touched
    the ground.  It was free standing.  How that happened we will never know.  had
    we not stripped the walls that fact would remain a little secret.  How the roof
    held up for 130 years or more I will never understand.   

    Ricky the  Raccoon was a pet of ours until he  reached puberty when all things changed.  While young Ricky would scamper up our
    shoulders to sit on our heads.  Here he is being gently removed by David S.

    Did Ricky the Racoon sneak back and  take up residence behind the plaster and lathe of the farm house?  Not likely.  We let him
    go in a farm field  far away.  But raccoons are smart.

    7) That was  only one discovery.  There were others.  Like finding a nest
    of raccoons in the upper bedroom wall.  They had  made the house a home
    for years it seems.  And then there were the red squirrels who can chew there
    way into any house.  Mice, of course.  A plentiful supply that the garter snakes
    must have found convenient food.  A bunch of snakes lived in the field stone
    foundation.  They may still be there since the foundation was  never changed only
    braced.

    8) The basement floor was dirt.  Hard packed dirt.  Three rooms down there, each
    with a function but all with dirt footing.  In spring this cellar was wet…pooled water
    often.  But the walls held.  One room had big dirt floored stalls…one for coal, one for potatoes,
    carrots, etc.   The other room Grandma called “the Dairy’ where she kept food in
    the cool dark.  Slabs of beef hung here which was why I liked to slather our meals
    with Worcester Sauce.   I never trusted the Dairy.  No good reason.  Grandma and
    Grandpa Freeman lived here deep in their 90’s.  The other big cellar room
    had an old  but huge cook stove with a pipe hole exit carved into the foundation.  This was
    grandma’s ‘summer kitchen’ but was never in use when we were growing up. There
    was a rickety staircase and  a trap door that gave access to the main house.
    Granddad  had  his carpenters tools there as well.   As a kid  I stole one of his
    chisels and got caught.  I ran and  hid  in the tall summer grasses and golden rod
    on that day.  Humiliated because  I was caught.   I still have the chisel somewhere.
    Granddad gave it to me.  He was a master craftsman.

    9) Kevin and Andrew also had to clean out the attic…a long unfinished room
    that ran eastwards from the upstairs bedrooms where the raccoons lived.
    That attic was  a wonderful treasure trove.  For most of  my pre teen years I explored this
    room endlessly.  For years it was full of spinning wheels,  walking wheels and  all
    the wool processing things of the 19th century and other treasures that were to me
    a mystery.  I remember when most of that stuff suddenly was gone. “OH, Elsie (my 
    mother), a wonderful man came by and paid  us money for the things in the attic.”
    “How much?” “Ten dollars”  Bastard.

    10)  The scavenger missed a 1920’s “skin” book called  Smokehouse.  Lots of rather
    off colour jokes and some suggestive drawings of stockings with legs in them … at least 
    as I remember.  And, oh yes, the explosive novel “Tobacco Road” by Erskine Caldwell.
    At tale of poverty and prejudice in the American  south.  That book  would even be
    scandalous in today’s liberal world.  It was  falling apart as  it had been read  and  re read
    and  re read again by me.

    11) So the house was stripped bare…a shell. No, a  folderol i.e. A barn within a brick house.
    Now we had to find a builder.  By good fortune we noticed a truck  while getting ice cream cones
    in Erin.  WAYNE SHANNON, BUILDER    No beating around the bush we hired him to renovate
    and reconstruct the farm house.   He  had some great ideas.  Open concept.

    12) And  he said  a couple of things I had  not counted upon  “Where do you want the bathroom?”
    My response  was “What  bathroom?”…because we had a perfect backhouse I had  built.  Marjorie
    chimed  in and so we got two bathrooms.  His next question was about the trap door to the
    cellar.  “Of course we will close that trap door and put a stairway to the cellar.” “What? I love that
    trap door.”  Then everyone chimed in so  we got a stairway.  And  another question I had not
    counted upon was the furnace.  “What furnace? Isn’t the old wood stove good enough?” That 
    thought was also put to rest when Wayne found us a good electric  furnace.* (Note..furnace
    will be subject of  major story later…a story so  big that my picture replaced the Sunshine Girl
    on the Toronto Sun.  No  vanity involved…just a very bitter fight with Hydro One)

    13) Wayne and his worker crew spent the whole winter changing the farm house. What a
    terrific job they did.   The house became a home.  We have entertained there so much
    since.  Grand  dinners.   Wayne did not stop with the house.  “Alan, you need a barn.”
    On this, I agreed so  Wayne built us a barn with a cement floor.  These were good times.

    TO WHOM DO I OWE MY GRATITUDE?

    I really must thank the robber that stripped the farm house of furniture and who knows what else.
    Without him we would have never taken such drastic action   Good things do often emerge from
    what seems bad at first.


    Renovating the farm house has enriched our lives.  Lots of friends have joined us.  In this case the Christophersons.  They
    seem to have pillaged the garden.  Brenda’s father was a  crop duster in Manitoba with a plane much like the one that
    tried ti kill Cary Grant.  


    alan skeoch
    Sept. 6, 2020








    z