Homesteading and Eating Pancakes With Almanzo

I often ask myself, "How did Laura Ingalls Wilder get through hard times?"  The Ingalls family didn't lack challenges.  There were dangerous 3 day blizzards, men with old-fashioned views on work, and unreliable trains.  During this period of self-quarantine, I decided to reread The Long Winter to discover - What Would Laura Do?

In Chapter 11, "Three Days' Blizzard," Laura opens her eyes to a ceiling fuzzy with frost.  She immediately notices there isn't a snow drift on her quilt because Pa's store is so well built.  "Laura was stiff and sore and so was Carrie.  But morning had come and they must get up."

Millie - my currenet role model.  In this photo, she is taking her 3rd mid morning nap.

Stephen King - my role model, starting tomorrow.  (King has written at least 96 books.)

Here is a reoccuring LIW theme - when it is morning get up and get going.  At the beginning of the quarantine, I set my alarm for 5 o'clock.  I would get up, make coffee, and start writing.  My writing was moving forward and I was loving it.  I wrote furiously, with a copy of Stephen King's book, On Writing, nearby.  

Fast forward a couple weeks. (No idea how much time has actually passed.)  I no longer set my alarm, and am emmulating my overweight cat, Millie, instead of Stephen King.  My writing project is neatly stacked on top of books I don't intend to read.  Tomorrow I am back to setting my alarm and getting right to work.  If Laura can get up early to huddle around a stove all day, I can get up and start writing.

FYI:  Royal is the Wilder brother who is always lounging about.

For the first time in The Long Winter, LIW takes her focus off the Ingalls family and travels down Main Street to Royal Wilder's Feed Store where Royal lives with his brother, Almanzo.  Almanzo is making his brother fluffy buckwheat pancakes.  He is only cooking because there are no women around.  "But since they had come west to take up homestead claims they had to cook or starve."

Hmmm.  I need to take up this "cook or starve" anthem with my kids.  I am tired of cooking.  Surely they could figure something out if I stopped doing "women's work"?

A young Almanzo and his sister Alice.  Almanzo took a break from "men's work" to get his photo taken. 

Next we find out Almanzo is only 19 and the law says you need to be 21 to be a homesteader.  Luckily - " . . . Almanzo did not consider that he was breaking the law and he knew he was not cheating the government."   The chapter rambles on about the many ways homesteading rules weren't working as intended and how Almanzo was a hard worker.  "He  (Almanzo) had been doing a man's work on the farm since he was nine."  (Parents, this is a good reminder to review the chores you ask your kids to do.  Perhaps teens can do more than toss clothes down a laundry chute.) 

Royal and Almanzo have a good chit chat over breakfast.  They pose many unanswerable questions:

• Can winter last 7 months?
• Will the train be able to get through all the snow?
• Will the town insist on buying or taking Almanzo's seed wheat?

The chapter ends with Royal saying, "So long as we keep on eating, we don't have to wash the dishes."  (As if there is any chance that Royal will do the dishes.) 

WWLD:

• Get up and get going when it is morning
• Marry a hard worker who can make fluffy pancakes (if there isn't a woman around)

See you soon for Chapter 11 - "Pa Goes to Volga."

Prairie  Eydie - social distancing on Easter Sunday.

Prairie Eydie