Alan Skeoch

Blog

  • Lower Wooton Farm…Marjorie and Nancy plucking chickens

    LOWER WOOTON FARM, HEREFORDSHIRE, CIRCA 1965
    alan skeoch
    march 2018
    LOWER WOOTON FARM is  a designated  historic  property near Almely, Herefordshire, England.    When I first visited the farms back in 1960 the farm was just a name…no directions, no real  address.  But Grandma  and Granddad Freeman talked  about the place  regularly back in Canada and since I was
    working in Ireland the chance to find  Lower Wooden Farm presented  itself.  I was travelling blind. Flew to London when Irish job was over then took a train from London to Hereford and then stood on the platform, a confused and obviously lost 22 year old Canadian.

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  • LAST RITES FOR A GRAND MACHINE OF DAYS LONG GONE

    LAST RITES FOR A GRAND MACHINE OF DAYS LONG GONE
    ALAN Skeoch
    March  2018

    “Son, I can  no longer walk and can only get around on this god-damned SCOOTER but there were days not so long ago that…”

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  • Blacksmith shop at Balinafad: Rejuvenated

    REJUVENATED BLACKSMITH

    A few years  ago I took this picture at the back door of the Balinafad Blacksmith Shop which was no longer functioning as such.  Today,  I suppose this would be considered a  picture in bad taste.  To me it just said something about that blacksmith and men in general.

  • Ah! March and the sap is running. ’22 RIFLE KILLED THE VENTURE’

    OUR MAPLE SYRUP MAKING DAYS:
    alan skeoch
    March 2018
    There is  an old expression…a sad  one…”My days are in the yellow leaf.”  This comes to mind always in the month of March because many years ago when the kids  were small and Marjorie and  I were naive that month was maple syrup month.  A family enterprise.  We tapped  the  trees in the maple bush at the back of the Saunders farm close to the fourth line road. By chance we purchased all the stuff we needed from a couple of farm sales…50 to 60 sap pails with hooks on the side, a bucket full  of smiles, a hand drill, a big boiling pan, another smaller finishing pan.  and, oddly, a dozen old milk cans.   The system worked.  On  week ends and after school we would zip up to the sugar bush, slosh  the sap into the milk cans,  haul them by sleigh to the truck and drive back to the city where a huge pile of drift wood had been gathered from the shores  of Lake Ontario over the winter months.

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  • ALASKAN JOB….NOT THAT GLORIOUS…BEAST OF BURDEN 1959

    BEAST OF BURDEN:  DOWNSIDE OF THE ALASKAN  JOB

    We had almost 24 hours of sunshine on the Alaskan job which  was great for my partner Bill Morrison because he loved fishing and the stream below our campsite was filled with salmon fighting their way upstream to lay their eggs. Huge fish…so large Bill could not even hold them up to measure them.  He needed no bait as the salmon were not eating.  Just hook them and drag them to shore.  They only wanted to Lay their eggs and die.  Brutal end  to their lives but a bonanza for Kodiak bears and fishermen like Bill.
    “Alan, maybe Dr. Paterson was not completely honest about hour job up here.”
    “Got me a US green card as a special person with special knowledge.”
    “But there is another aspect to he job beyond Getting the Numbers.”
    “Like?”
    “Like carrying me here and there when I want to go fishing.”
    “Carrying?”
    “Cannot get my leather boots wet…”
    “Do you mean part of my job description is being a Beast of Burden?”
    “Don’t sound so indignant…accept my assurance that your job description involves aiding fishing.”
    “Is that in writing?”
    “No, Dr. Paterson…Norm…did not put it in writing.”
    “Damn!”
    “Now turn around, I want to fish on the other side today.”
    alan skeoch, March  2018 (pic from 1959)