Hey, It Works Better If You Plug It In! Quiz

Answer: On a wood fired stove

Grandma rose early every day to start breakfast in time to have everyone fed and organised, and grandpa sent off to work with a full belly. To light her stove, she needed small logs of wood to keep it going for as long as she needed the heating. Wood was chopped in advance, usually by the men of the family, and stacked in neat piles for grandma to access. The iron stove, for such it was, was peculiarly called a wood stove, but that was because it was wood-fired. To get this going, one of its many small doors was opened, the wood was stacked in - not too much, mind - a few smaller chips of wood were placed on top and this was topped off with some paper for kindling.

The paper was then lit, which in turn ignited the smaller pieces of wood, and they in turn set the larger pieces ablaze. In no time at all, the stove would be hot enough to cook upon, and heat water to make a welcome cup of tea. The fire was kept going during daylight hours to provide heating and hot water, and maintain the heat in the oven part of the stove for cooking cakes, baked dinners and other goodies. The heat to the various parts of the stove was controlled by opening and closing vents built into the stove.

Answer: By hand and in wood-fired boilers

Laundry was done by hand if the load was a small one. However, if several loads were waiting to be washed, an outside boiler was filled up with water, a fire lit underneath it, and the laundry placed inside with finely cut up pieces of soap. Loads were separated strictly into whites and coloured materials, and the whites came out of that boiler so white it almost hurt your eyes. A large stick was used to stir them round and round to make sure all the dirt was removed. The coloured clothing was done next. The next step on laundry days involved rinsing the clothes out in crystal clear rain water. This was piped in from the large external tanks which stored this every time it rained.

White clothing was given an extra rinse with a product called Blue added to the water. This made them whiter still. Laundry was then wrung out by hand, or put through a hand wringer once grandpa bought grandma one of those new-fangled contraptions, and then hung out on the line to dry, pegged there with wooden pegs. The smell of that dry laundry, when eventually carried inside, was pure delight. It had a scent of sunlight, fresh air and utter cleanliness. Sometimes, just for added perfume, sheets were thrown over lavender or other scented bushes to dry.

Answer: With large blocks of ice

Several times a week, a huge truck pulled up outside the farmhouse door and a burly man carried huge blocks of ice in to place in a top section of grandma's old ice box, for that was what an early refrigerator was called. Those blocks of ice were extremely heavy, and the man carried one, held in steel clamps, in each arm at a time. When the freezing section of the ice box was kept securely closed, that ice lasted a couple of days at a time, and the food in the bottom half of the ice box remained completely fresh. Even ice cream, home made of course, could freeze there as well.

Before the ice box came along, perishable goods were kept in a huge suspended fine wire mesh enclosed box on the verandah, safe from the flies and readily available at a moment's notice. Or, it was stored in deep cool cellars built into the cool earth. The added benefit of living on a farm was that milk from the cows was always available. That was used to create cream, cheese, and butter as well. Grandma also made her own bread, and sliced it as fine as any purchased in the shops today, with a large serrated knife kept for that purpose. And she made her own jams and pickles, cakes and scones, puddings and dinners as well in that delicious smelling old farm kitchen from long ago. No electric egg beaters of course. All done manually with a hand powered egg beater. It was fascinating to see.

Answer: With an iron heated on the wood stove

As simple as that. Grandma's old iron was a shaped piece of steel, always kept sparkling clean, into which a steel and wooden handle had been inserted. The ironing board was placed not too far from the stove, on the top of which this early iron was placed from time to time to keep at a good heat. The wooden handle kept her from having her hand burned as she ironed away on her home made ironing board covered with an old blanket and sheet. As the iron cooled, it was placed on the stove again to reheat, a cycle that was repeated over and over until the ironing was completed.

Grandma occasionally used her sewing machine on these afternoons as well. No electricity again you say? True, but her old machine was operated with her feet on a large pedal which rose up and down as she worked it, and moved the needle and thread in and out of whatever she happened to be sewing at the time. Never once did grandma have to have that trusty old foot pedalled machine repaired either, so no expensive repairs bills to pay. Besides, if she did, grandpa simply took it to the local blacksmith to have any work carried out, or mended it himself. He was just as skilled at all his jobs as grandma was at hers.

Answer: On an old hand-wound record player

That old hand-wound gramophone out on the farm was hilarious. It was worked by winding a handle on the side of the machine a certain number of times, and then placing a large old record, known as a 78, on top. A movable lever, into which was attached a finely pointed needle, was then lowered onto the grooves of the record, and a switch was released. The record then began to play any one of her favourite lovely old songs that still make me a bit misty-eyed whenever I hear them today. She of course hummed along with it, or even did a little dance or two if feeling really skittish. Sometimes, if the machine was wound too high, the voices on the records would go very fast, or, as the machine began to wind down, they became very slow and deep. We thought it was immensely entertaining whenever that happened. Time for another record and a fresh burst of energy to wind the machine up again! That was the children's job. Grandma was having a little break from work.

Then of course, there was always the piano as well. Almost every farm had one when grandma was young. They were used every single day, either just with the family gathered around singing and playing, or, when visitors, arrived, with group sing-alongs and solos, or, even, with the rugs rolled back, small dances with one person playing while the rest danced.

Answer: Cooked on large forks held over the stove

Cooking toast was the easiest job of all without electricity - and one of the most sought after jobs in the middle of winter, because it was cooked on the old wood stove, so deliciously warm and snug on a cold and frosty morning. Slices of grandma's freshly cooked bread were placed on the end of a large fork kept for that purpose. Then, with the small compartment in front of the blazing fire opened, the fork was dangled and turned in front of the flames until the bread turned golden brown and crisp. Spread with home made butter and jam, no queen in any electrically powered palace under the sun had a better feast, I can promise you.

Because she was so familiar with her old stove, anything grandma cooked on or in it turned out to perfection, but becoming acquainted with its little tricks was most definitely a matter of trial and error for new brides. Every stove, you see, was different, in spite of them all looking the same. I remember when she finally had to have her old familiar stove replaced with a new wood one, that grandma was heard to call it a nasty name or two under her breath as she initially sought to learn all its whims and fancies.

Answer: With old board games and imagination

Great fun! There were card games, board games, outside games, inside games, games of imagination, swings, swimming, cubby houses, you name it, we played them all, and each one, without a spark of electricity. It was a magic kingdom of imagination, sharing and creativity. We played in the fresh air, the sunshine, out in the open or on the verandah of the farmhouse, or, in rainy weather in front of the woodstove or the lounge fire.

Oh, incidentally, no electrically-powered heaters then either. We played in front of the kitchen stove, or the lounge room fire, on very cold and rainy days instead, until it was time to escape outside once more. There were chores to do of course. Every one of us had a small number to perform each day. That too was a great learning process. We were living and learning the history of a bygone age although we lived in a modern one.

Answer: With oil-filled lamps

Every room in that old fashioned farmhouse had its own kerosene lamp, candles or hurricane lamps. Candles are self explanatory, but hurricane/kerosene lamps are seldom seen today in our modern world. These lighting devices often came with exquisitely decorated bases, and were filled with kerosene, paraffin or oil from which wicks protruded up into a glass enclosed container. When the fuel soaked wicks were lit, with just enough of the wick wound up for safety purposes, the enclosed light within the glass could make any room as bright as if it were lit by electrically powered lights from above. The extra bonus to these lamps were that they were portable and could be moved into various locations in any room for extra illumination.

Grandma had other oil-lit lamps attached to tiled walls as well, ones that were always lit as the sun began to sink. The peculiar thing was that, out on the farm, playing and working in all that healthy air every day always saw us yawning our heads off not long after the sun had set, oil lit lamps or not, and we tended to topple into bed early. The day wasn't quite over yet though, because, following dinner, it was bath time.

Answer: Wood-fired external boilers

These large steel boilers or heaters were all wood-fired and attached at a safe distance from the external wall closest to the bathroom. Water was heated up in this fashion (grandpa's job) and kept hot within these containers until ready to be piped into the bathroom at just the right temperature for the bath and sink there. A long, hot bath was a particularly delicious treat for grandma after a long day's work on the farm. We children however, merely suffered through the daily cleansing process with great fortitude and endured it as best as we could.

Other hot water used on the farm was heated up on the wood stove in the kitchen in a small attachment built onto the side of the stove nearest a tap. It was always available for washing up purposes and any other daily hot water need, and was supplied to the kitchen sink by a simple flick of a tap.

Answer: Hot water bottles

That was another electricity-free part of life, and one that has been around for hundreds of years. By grandma's time, rubber hot water bottles were available. These were simply filled up with hot water from the stove, and with each one covered in a little wool jacket, placed in the bottom of each bed for cold toes to wiggle into to keep warm. They heated the beds amazingly, in no time at all. Before they were invented, however, people either filled sturdy glass containers for the same purpose, or, earlier still, heated up bricks in the fire before covering them with blankets and slipping them in between the sheet to warm the beds for each forthcoming occupant.

All the work and electricity-saving devices used in this quiz may seem like hard work, perhaps. It wasn't at that time, or even back through the ages, however, because people had known no other life, or electricity hadn't yet been invented. To them, their daily chores were just a part of everyday life, easy for the most part, human powered, sun powered, fire powered - and free. I always left grandma's serene and healthy farm after school holidays to return back to the background buzz of the electric city with the most profound sadness, eased only by the knowledge that I would return once again within a few short months when the next school holidays rolled around.