June 16 thru June 19, 1886

If you are new to this blog, this paragraph appears in every entry to let folks know some basic information. Click on the picture to enlarge for easier reading of original. Please use the comment feature to contact me with corrections, additional information, or comments. Click on the map link to the right of this entry to see more about where places are. Other information can be checked out with the links to the right, including a great family picture of everybody circa 1886 - the year of this diary, and a picture of the whole family several years later - circa 1900 ???

Wednesday ---- Henry comments twice on the hot weather today -- temp 88. He notes the weather every day as the opening lines of each entry, but today he closes with "a fine day but very warm". Omar cultivates the rest of the potatoes. If you aren't from a farm background, cultivating is the process of running a digging device down between the rows of corn, potatoes, or other crop to dislodge and kill any weeds. The weeds (anything growing in a field or garden that you don't want) "steal" water and nutrients from the crop you want. "Weed" is an often misunderstood term. One person's weed may well be another person's highly desired plant!
Cad and Henry spend the day picking potato bugs off the potato plants -- net take of "between 6 and 8 quarts" of these critters, and they "still don't get them all".

Thursday --- Henry goes to the blacksmith shop in Ingleside to get the water pump repaired, and he gets two "irons" made for the side of the lumber wagon. He attaches them, and gets the wagon ready for hauling sand. Omar draws manure from under the north end of the basement, and corn cobs away from the cornhouse. Henry goes to meeting in the evening. Sarah goes to visit her daughter Hattie and her husband, and granddaughter Florence in Wayland.

Friday --- Henry admits getting up late after being out late to meeting last night. Omar draws three loads of sand from the Terneys. When I was a kid there was a gravel/sand pit near where I understand the Terneys lived. Sarah is still in Wayland. Someone named Shaver has come to visit, and leaves around 5PM. Mrs. Stephen Stanton comes to see if Henry and Sarah can go to Middlesex, NY to a church meeting tomorrow night.

Saturday --- Henry and Omar wedge up the barn? (Maybe a process of using wedges to raise up part of the barn and was sagging... possibly the sand was used to fill in under the raised area?) Stephen Stanton and his wife come by around 11AM, and they all go to Middlesex, NY for a Freewill Baptist Church Conference after Sarah gets back home from Wayland. They get to Middlesex around 6PM. For the time, this is a fairly long trip - about 14 miles. They stay overnight with a fellow Grange member - Mr. Stebbins..... apparently not someone they knew, but someone willing to offer housing to someone attending the church event.