{"id":23005,"date":"2023-01-02T13:10:53","date_gmt":"2023-01-02T18:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=23005"},"modified":"2023-01-02T13:12:30","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T18:12:30","slug":"episode-709-imagine-when-nightfall-came-and-all-our-world-was-dark-the-schneller-log-cabin-january-1-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=23005","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 709 IMAGINE WHEN NIGHTFALL CAME AND ALL OUR WORLD WAS DARK\u2026.The Schneller Log Cabin, January 1, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE  709     IMAGINE WHEN NIGHTFALL CAME AND ALL OUR WORLD WAS DARK\u2026.The Schneller Log Cabin, January 1, 2023<\/p>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n
January 1, 2023<\/div>\n

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JUST IMAGINE LIFE IN THIS CABIN\u2026TONIGHT, JANUARY 1, 2023<\/div>\n

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There was a time not long ago when light at night depended upon candles and kerosene.<\/div>\n
Imagine that.  IMAGINE  THE DARKNESS.  The sun provides us with the light and heat that miraculously created life on earth.<\/div>\n
When the cloak of night covers us we can visualize\u2026feel, as our bodies shake in the absence of the sun.<\/div>\n

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Every year for the past four decades the Schneller family move from their electricity powered<\/div>\n
home to their log cabin in the garden where the only source of light and heat is a wood<\/div>\n
stove, candles and kerosene lamps.  Dim\u2026.very dim.  Bodies move in the shadows.<\/div>\n
Dinner plates grate their way from the stove to piles of food almost beyond the candle glow.<\/div>\n

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It does not take much imagination to understand what life on earth was like 170 years ago, around 1850,<\/div>\n
when this cabin was hacked out of  a white pine forest in Perth County with spaces between<\/div>\n
the logs chinked with mortar \u2026mortar given body by the rank smelling hair of hogs killed to sustain<\/div>\n
life.<\/div>\n

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Brad\u2019s friend, Dave Poor, supervised the careful demolition of this cabin and its shipment<\/div>\n
by trucks to Erindale in Mississauga.  His son Geoffrey was here last night as were the<\/div>\n
Schnellers\u2026Sandra, Bradley, Suzanne, David, Evan and Anne.   Marjorie and I have been guests<\/div>\n
in this annual celebration of life for as long as this cabin has stood for 40 years or more\u2026Honoured.<\/div>\n

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.  Nine people..nine shadows moving in the ephemeral  glow of candles,  kerosene lamps and  the wood stove.<\/div>\n

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 and then someone touched a switch to the New years.<\/div>\n
dinner was lit by a surge of electricity that came and went in the twinkling of an eye..<\/div>\n
just enough time to get one single photograph of our celebrants.<\/div>\n

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Time enough to to think of first inhabitants of this place.  Pioneer families were often large\u2026.five, six, ten children.  Yet their homes<\/div>\n
were as small as this cabin\u2026one single room, maybe 20 x 30 where a family ate and slept<\/div>\n
and procreated.  Cursed and prayed\u2026lived.<\/div>\n

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Unseen in the shadows, I flopped on the single bed and dosed off while the bodies around<\/div>\n
me moved and belched, farted and began to get ready for bed on the floor or in the store room<\/div>\n
up above where Brad has am endless war with red squirrels, raccoons, mice and skunks.<\/div>\n
Perhaps a rat or two that Brad has never acknowledged .<\/div>\n
And Other living things.  <\/div>\n

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The last person down blows out the candles and douses the lamps with metal spoon.<\/div>\n
The embers in the stove will not last long but the heat and stink of unwashed bodies<\/div>\n
will remind us all that our lives are saved by the miracle of exploding gasses of helium<\/div>\n
and hydrogen in that ball of not quite eternal fire we call the sun.<\/div>\n

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Happy New year\u20262023! <\/div>\n

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Shadows moving back and forth in flickering light of candles and kerosene.  Time for bed\u2026on the floor because I am near asleep on the single bed in the room.<\/div>\n

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Should we disrobe? I think not.  There are not enough feathers in the comforter to keep us warm,   We will keep our winter clothes on our bodies until<\/div>\n
the sun warms the swamp enough for us to peel the caked grime of winter from our boots, clothes and skin.   Hold your breath!<\/div>\n

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alan skeoch<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE  709     IMAGINE WHEN NIGHTFALL CAME AND ALL OUR WORLD WAS DARK\u2026.The Schneller Log Cabin, January 1, 2023 alan skeoch January 1, 2023 JUST IMAGINE LIFE IN THIS CABIN\u2026TONIGHT, JANUARY 1, 2023 There was a time not long ago when light at night depended upon candles and kerosene. Imagine that.  IMAGINE  THE DARKNESS. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}