Summer in a Quonset Part Six

Quonset and nearly completed house.
There's a garden in that yard somewhere!

I thought I would have so much time for various projects as the lazy summer stretched out before me, but as the days lengthened, so did our stride!

There was no grass to cut or watering got do, but there was a garden to hoe and we discovered we had planted it in the original garden of Adam and Eve.

The one they had when Heavenly Father punished them for being disobedient by sending them weeds so they could 'work by the sweat of their brows all the days of their lives'.

I decided that Adam hadn't tended his garden very well because there were a great many prolific varieties there that had undoubtedly sprouted from seeds of plants he had not pulled.

I crawled on my hands and knees trying to sort out my tender green vegetables from all the other abundant growth.

And then there was the rain.

It seemed like every time I thought I had a few minutes for my garden, it would rain.

All summer we alternated between a cold drizzle or a down pour. (The word COLD became part of us like our arms and legs. We had cold noses, cold toes, cold fingers, cold ears, cold tongues. Our whole internal tract must have been COLD.)

Rain sounded like several million marbles on the ribs of the quonset.

The first time I heard it, I thought it was hail. I ran anxiously to the door and discovered that it was only a light rain falling softly on the pasture grass.

When it became a downpour, the sound really rattled your brain.

One evening, we had just settled into our beds for the night when we heard the sound of thunder in the distance.

Would it come this way or would it pass?

Faint flashes of lightning lit the sky light and seconds passed before we heard the thunder.

I began to count the time between the flash and the crash. When the flash and crash came close together, I hid under the covers.

Unfortunately, it didn't shut out the sound.

We had given our children some instruction on what to do if there was lightening - stay away from fences or puddles or trees.

Just lately, we had added 'don't touch the side of the quonset'.

So when there was lightening, even in mild form, our children would pull their beds away from the walls.

We must have spread the alarm very impressively because they moved their beds about 16 feet from the wall!

This storm moving in on us sounded like a particularly violent one.

We could hear a roaring sound with the approaching rain.

When the pellets hit the shed, we knew it must be hail.

We covered our ears trying to cut out the awful sound.

It was like being inside a barrel with a million hammers pounding on its side.

Just when we thought we would surely go mad, the storm quit and we found the quiet almost as hard to adjust to as the noise.

This was our first experience with a hail strike in the middle of the night.

We felt we had been punished in a strange way and we fell into a restless sleep as the moon again lit the skylight

Summer in a Quonset Part Four

Coldest summer on record - and no heat!

In the summer of 1968, my parents sold our home ranch out on the south fork of the Milk River, and bought another place nearer to town.

There were myriad challenges.

But the most important was that it was bare land.

Absolutely everything needed to be built.

Construction was immediately started on a new home, and at the same time, on several barns, corrals and outbuildings.

The ranch buildings arose much more quickly than the house.

And that left us in a further dilemma.

Where to live.

The people who had purchased the ranch were justifiably anxious to take possession and our new house was far from completion.

My parents decided to move us into the newly-completed, steel-ribbed quonset.

It was an adventure.

And it's told here by my mother, Enes, from her journals.

(If you missed part one, you can find it here. Part two. Part three.)

Mornings were always very chilly - as was the whole summer!

With the exception of about two hot days, who could have foreseen the coldest summer in history?

Well, maybe Grey Eagle Child who forecast the coldest summer or fiercest winter every year. Sooner or later, he's right!

We never lingered over dressing in the morning, for with a Swish! Swish! on would go our clothes, socks, sweater, snow boots and usually jacket.

I would shiver my way over to the stove and turn the oven and all four burners on at once, even if I only needed two.

They must have given psychological heat because any heat calories were certainly lost in the voluminous stratosphere of the shed.

All plates and bowls would go into the oven while I prepared the meals and in order to conserve every calorie of heat.

And every one would be seated at the table and the blessing asked before the plates and food were brought out.

Then, if we hurried, the first mouthful of food would be too hot and the last one would be too cold!

Most of the time, we could see our breath. Our youngsters had great fun huffing and puffing about.

Every day brought a whole new series of unusual experiences.

Friends dropped in regularly for a momentary cheerful exchange and we enjoyed their ribbing.

"When's the auction?" one asked as he came through the one huge sliding door.

"Should get a blueprint of this," said another. "House, barn, shop and garage, all in one!"

Meanwhile, our new house was slowly taking shape.

Our amiable carpenter was trying to keep a dozen people happy by spreading his services around so thinly that he managed to put three nails in our house each week - and I believe sometimes he only managed two.

It was most frustrating and when the rain poured down along with the temperature, my temperature rose.

"Oh, what I would like to do to that carpenter," I fumed.

However, there were other days.

We were constantly amused by the sudden flood of traffic past our 'summer' home.

Necks would crane and eyes would stare.

One gal drove clear off the road!

Usually we made an effort to give them value for their effort.

I would come out with a bin full of garbage or we would scoot one of the youngsters out to the outdoor privy.

It was most interesting to watch the children on the school bus.

When it stopped, there would be a sudden surge of eager youngsters to the 'viewing side' and the bus would lurch dangerously over the roadside ditch.

I would dispatch our youngsters with a cheerful smile and a kiss and a tiny prayer in my heart that they would not be ostracized from humanity.