Under the Old Oak Tree

Under the Old Oak Tree

     More Letters From Paradise      

      Under the Old Oak Tree

This one is for Jennifer and Jessica

Yesterday I found myself thinking about the huge oak tree in our yard in Petersburg. I never knew how old it was at the time we lived there, but now I know. 

Arborists have developed a way to calculate the age of North American trees without having to cut them down and count the growth rings. Our tree was either a black or red oak. I once measured the circumference and found that it was 13 feet. If you convert this into inches, and then multiply that number by a factor of either three, four or five. This gives you the age of the tree.    I didn’t know if it was red or black so I chose the smaller number. The result was astonishing! Our tree was at least 268 years old. That means that the Huron Indians in our area were living in the shade of the tree at the time of the birth of our nation. I had long suspected that the Huron Indians of the area camped on our land. I had found flint arrow heads in the back field after a rain. Further proof was the discovery of a stone axe when I was digging a foundation for a step  to  the kitchen door.

Our small plot of land had a rich history. I had heard of an old man by the name of Ephram Rauch, who had lived there and that he had a fat old horse and wagon that he drove to town to sell melons. One of my pigs dug up a copper powder flask next to the wall of the small barn. It must have been hung from a nail,and either a rat chewed the leather string holding it, or maybe it was claimed by age and became buried. 

The last person to live in our little house was an old woman named Mrs. Miller. The house consisted of only four rooms. One room was the living room, then next to it was a bedroom. The other two rooms were the kitchen and bath. This bathroom was once a bedroom as there was an old outhouse. The kitchen ceiling sloped to the rear and there was an old door with a thumb latch. You had to duck under to enter or leave the kitchen.

Outside the house had been sided with green asbestos siding covering the original wood siding. The house had a slope making the front of the house taller than the rear. The roof was sheeted with metal barn roofing, and covered a layer of wood shingles. 

In addition to a front door, there was a covered door which led to a stone- walled cellar with a sand floor. It was there that I came to store stone crocks of pickles and sauerkraut.

There was a small barn under the oak tree. It had been used to house a wagon and a stall for a horse and its feed. It was open on one side, so I built a pair of wide doors which made a home for my tractor, Jennifer’s pony and some milk goats. One of them chewed up my tractor’s seat pad. I built an addition on the barn of scrap metal roofing for my pigs. A stout wire fence was held up by railroad ties at each corner. Next to the fence I had six bee hives. 

I burned down the old outhouse and I built some rabbit cages. One building I bought and dragged to our farm was a chicken house. It was about 8x10 and shaped like a quonset hut. My friend Ellis and I jacked the building up off the ground and slid two logs under and drilled two long heavy screws into the logs. A long chain was hitched to the logs and we dragged it some three miles home. That became our chicken house. 

Our neighbor John Ott borrowed my 100 ft. tape and planned his apple orchard alongside and behind our property. He also used his small old Ford tractor with a bucket scoop and dug a good-size pond. I had found a small duck boat somewhere, painted it red and we often rowed around the pond. It was also used for fishing, and skating in winter. 

Jennifer slept at the foot of our bed until she was five years old. We needed more room. My plan was to build an addition slightly in front of the old house, keeping the same angle of the roof. Buck Ulmer,a carpenter, made me a pattern and I cut the rafters. I offered to pay him twenty bucks for the pattern. He refused saying “You changed a tire on my wife’s car sometime ago.” 

I built that addition, with a trapdoor in the hallway leading to the basement. I marvel that I didn’t get hurt. I put metal on the roof and standing on a step ladder, trimmed the edges with a skill-saw. I am left-handed.  All skill-saws are right-handed. I sided the addition with white boards and put green shutters around the windows. 

I was growing produce for market and had a galvanized stock tank to wash vegetables. It served as a pool for the girls. I traded a pick-up truck for a nine- passenger Chevy station wagon. I met a guy who wanted my vehicle, and would trade me for his swimming pool. The deal was closed when he said he and his family would set it up for us. Now the girls had a big swimming pool. I built steps and a deck on one side of the pool. The girls lived in their bathing suits all summer. Jessica had to wear a life jacket until she could swim across the pool without one. She soon did. I cut and framed a small window in the kitchen wall,so their mother could send out food and drink without them   tracking up the kitchen.      

As I write this it seems as if I was always building something. Next came a garage. I set the forms,put some old fence on the ground and had concrete delivered. When the concrete had set, I built the walls on the deck and everybody helped to raise them up and put them in place. The only outside help at that point came from my friend George and his son. We had to raise the roof trusses and nail them in place. Then came the roofing and white siding. My friend Ellis came to help me with the garage door. The garage was 24x24 and the door was heavy.   

My plan was to use only one side of the garage for a truck or car, the other side would become my leather shop. I had worked in Ann Arbor at a leather shop called the “Mule Skinner.” Having learned the trade, I wanted my own shop. I had insulated the garage for just this. I found a “Silver Oak” brand pot-belly wood stove,a couple of show cases, and a tank of harness oil. My sign out by the road read, “ The Stitching Horse,” and showed a horse threading a needle. A stitching horse is a seated wood vice used to hold leather while it is being sewn.  I made many custom leather items. Horse gear, hats, belts, custom holsters for handguns etc. The most unusual request was for a elkskin bikini. Business was good, and added to our income. The days  before Christmas was a very busy time for special orders. It was wonderful to step inside the shop and smell the leather and wood smoke. The girls pounded away on scrap leather, making name bracelets for their friends. 

When I came at last  to bring this memoir to an end, I realized that I failed to mention what we did out there on our little acre of land. That is besides selling honey, fresh eggs, goat milk, and some produce. 

Although we owned only a small patch of land, I rented several acres. These were sometimes close to home, other fields were three miles away. It was there that I grew sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, green beans, etc. I sold my produce on the Eastern Market in Detroit, and Ann Arbor market. I was helped by Terri, the young daughter of my friend Ellis. She would help customers, and sometimes Jennifer came along to help, and sleep under the sales counter. 

So this is at last the end of the story of our living and working during the sixties and seventies on our acre, under the old oak tree.

I should also mention that I built two geodesic domes. You can read about that in my blog: morelettersfromparadise.blogspot.com “Dome Sweet Dome.

      Aloha 

      Grant  (Dad)