[AT] Putting the tractor to use - Ice Houses

[David Bruce]

My maternal grandparents had a sweet potato hill - dug into a clay bank, 
lined with straw then the sweets, more straw and some dirt (in our case 
clay).  It had a simple roof to keep the rain away.  I remember 
grandma's table always had leftover biscuits, honey and molasses and 
baked sweets under the tablecloth.

My paternal grandfather had a room in the tobacco packhouse for irish 
potatoes.  Also lined with straw, potatoes filled in and covered with 
more straw and some old quilts.  All kept in the dark of course.

About early Feb these were very welcome - I remember being sent as a kid 
out to grandpa's to get some 'taters (we lived next door to my paternal 
grandparents.

David
NW NC

On 6/16/2014 12:44 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> My grandfather used to put his potatoes and sweet potatoes under a hay stack
> in the pasture.
> He'd dig a shallow hole, line it with straw, pile the potatoes on it in
> layers with straw, cover the
> complete pile with dirt and then build the hay stack so that the hay covered
> the potato mound.
> When he needed potatoes he'd "scratch out" what he needed, recover the mound
> and re-arrange
> the hay to keep it covered.
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Bealke
> Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 12:19 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] Putting the tractor to use - Ice Houses
>
> On 6/15/2014 11:13 PM, Ralph Goff wrote:
>> On 6/15/2014 7:25 PM, Mike wrote:
>>> If I'm not mistaken they used to pack the ice in sawdust to keep it from
>>> melting, maybe that's why it's lower. I'm not old enough to remember any
>>> of that, but some of the guys might be.
>>>
>>> Mike M
>> Yes, sawdust or straw was used to insulate the snow/ice that was put in
>> the ice house in winter. We used to have a nice little log ice house
>> here when I was a kid .. Long gone now but I have dreams of building a
>> replica of it some day..
>>
>> Ralph in Sask.
> Ralph,
>
> Remember a neighbor talking about storing ice sawed off ponds in such
> houses.  Another trick his family used to preserve vegetables was to
> store them under a huge straw pile. He remembered this well, as one of
> the men that would roam looking for work (depression in the 30's?) on
> farms got mad about his dismissal (for reason) after being hired for a
> while and sneaked back at night and torched the tall straw pile they
> had.  It had wisely been situated well away from buildings.
> As you probably know, there was a huge worldwide ice trade in the late
> 1800's.  Found a nice taste of that in Wiki:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_trade
>
> Chuck Bealke
>
>
>
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