Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Friday, September 26, 2014

Elixir of Life

Cool, clear water.
The Stringam ranch had plenty of it.
Soft.
Pure.
Clean.
There was only one thing distinctive about it.
And I do mean 'stinc'.
Let me illustrate with a little aside . . .
My Husby's Gramma used to give her kids a dose of 'spring tonic' every year.
It consisted of sulphur mixed in lard.
Eaten from a spoon.
Ick.
But she maintained that it kept them healthy . . .
Well, on the Stringam ranch, we never had to be dosed with this old wives remedy.
Because we got it merely by living there.
Yes, our water was right full of sulphur.
I am not making this up.
Our water was plentiful and healthful.
But reeked like rotten eggs.
The smell of it permeated everything and everyone.
And, oddly enough, we loved it.
We drank it.
Bathed in it.
Cleaned with it.
Offered it, chilled, to anyone who happened to drop by.
And snickered silently when they would hold their noses to drink it.
Poor, unenlightened visitors.
Our animals happily drank it, too.
In fact, when we took our cattle to show, we always had to take time to get them accustomed to the water in the new place.
Most places added chlorine.
Now THAT really stank.
And tasted worse.
I miss our good old sulphur water.
That elixir that kept us healthy and strong.
There is an addendum . . .
The people who bought the old ranch from us hauled their drinking water.
And finally drilled a new well.
I can only shake my head.
Strange, weird people.

15 comments:

  1. This is a cute one. I think I would be one of the weird ones; I couldn't do Sulfur water.
    Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh noooo…I could never drink water that had sulphur in it----that stuff smells horrid! Blech!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aah! Good-for-you-sulphur! We breathed it in as kids - it was in the air from the local smelters works and we were all disgustingly healthy. Sulphur comes to me these days from the sulphurous group of vegetables that I love so much. Onions, garlic, well anything in the onion family really. It comes in tablet form too, for those who'd rather swallow a pill than eat an onion. pfft, wussies, give me an onion sandwich any day.
    Love the image of people holding their noses to drink your water.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wish I had one of those pictures! I think every kid would be better off with a little sulphur . . .

      Delete
  4. Well you were used to it...born and bred to it so to speak. I'm afraid I'm with the weaklings who just couldn't drink it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I could smell it as I read. Nope, not for me! But you got used to it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Like people who live near the airport and don't even hear the planes any more. Well . . . sorta like that . . .

      Delete
  6. I think it's all in what you get used to. We had spring water at home, and it was hard to get used to chlorinated when I left home. But when I went back home for holidays, I could notice the difference in taste and eventually found it hard to drink the spring water (I think it had quite a few minerals in it, although no sulphur!). I had a chance to spend time in Quebec as a teenager and they had sulphur in their water. It was pretty strong stuff. You were hardier than I would have been :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like you've had to adapt several times. I think you're made of pretty hardy stuff! :)

      Delete
  7. I can remember staying with my aunt in Eastern KY mtns. Aaand their water was like this. Bathing but tgey didn't drinknit though. I remember she used to do this trick where shoul strick a match and stick it in the waterand it would put off the prettiest flames! I thought she was magic and she would do it every morning just to here get me to laugh!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What???!!! That would have been SOOO fun! Why didn't my parents ever show us that?! We'd have loved our water even more!!!

      Delete
  8. Memories of my maternal grandmother's farmhouse will always be associated with that odor - mixed with ivory soap in the tub. The same glass jar was kept in the fridge all my growing up years, filled with "drinking water" from the tap. My grandma swore it tasted better cold - I couldn't tell a difference :)

    ReplyDelete

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