Years ago fishermen used to use a large metal pot to bark their nets. There were two reasons why the nets called traps had to be barked. The bark, reddish brown in colour preserved the new twine and it also turned it very dark. The dark net was not easily […]

Early on in Newfoundland and up to the time that it became a province in 1949, a lot of small outports did not even have schools. Many of the ones that did, however, had to put up with rough poorly built structures with one classroom that had very poor heating […]

As young children we found lots of ways to play and have fun. There were all kinds of games to keep us active and busy. I believe we didn’t know “Boring “. What was that anyway. One time when my grand kids wanted to know what we did when we were young, I wrote […]

Randying is a term that was used in Heart’s Delight -Islington to describe riding on a slide or coaster down a snowy hill.  Randying was a favourite past time when we were young. Am Perry’s garden and Uncle Al Reid’s garden being some of our favourite places on the Northeast Side of Heart’s […]

When we were young, most of our houses didn’t have indoor plumbing. Families were larger then with many children. In our family there were 13, 7 boys and 6 girls. That meant that we had to be lots of water. A good many families had their own well, but for […]

Back in the day before plumbing and washing machines, mothers and Grandmothers used to wash their clothes in a tub and scrub it clean on the old scrubbing board. I even remember standing up in the tub and getting scrubbed myself. All the clothes were wrung out by hand. I […]

Years ago people weren’t so fortunate and financially so well off as they are today. One thing was for sure though they took a lot of pride in their families, what they had and their properties. Those were the days of Lime and Whitewashed fences. Almost every household had a […]

This is a painting in my series of “Memory Paintings” Years ago before there was very much TV and no computers an video games children played outdoors whenever they could.There were many, many games to keep them active and busy. Boys had hockey, piddley, trouting and a host of other […]

This high wooden rack was made to be placed on the horse cart especially for hauling hay. In order to carry as much hay as possible young people was asked and encouraged to get in the rack and jump the hay down as tight as possible. We called jumping in […]