This week’s diary excerpts include Ella’s observations about haying. Ella didn’t participate, but was a keen observer of the weather. Her entries mention a number of neighbors and relatives – there were too many to review them all. Key figures were her boarder/farm hand Mr. Wood, and her brother Bartlett, who lived across the road.
This is a fairly recent photograph of the house Bartlett Sargent lived in on Norford Lake Road. Incidentally this is where Ella spent the last 13 years of her life with Bartlett’s daughter, Henrietta Higginbotham.
Imagine the amount of work to mow, hopefully with the help of a farm horse or team, and then to rake it all by hand.
Early haying picture from Hillside Farm on Pattrell Road.
This week’s longer entry gives an idea of how much was going on at the farm on a typical day.