The Old Ice House

It was funny and yet it was serious, at least at the time it all happened. It concerned the old ice house with the big earthen pit and the huge bricks of ice that were occasionally put down in the hole to keep everything cool. We didn't have a fridge as of yet in the house and the put was used to keep the dairy products, meat and other perishable items from spoiling. In the summer time, we children used to use the building as a play area.

Mother and Father used to ship cream in cream cans and it was here that the cream as well as the eggs were kept until it was time to ship it all to the creamery and wherever it was the eggs went. Well, somehow or the other, the door of the building had been kept open or he had dug his way in into the pit below the building. I suppose the skunk fell into the pit and couldn't get back out, but there is was busy feasting on the food that was down there.

When my father went out to the ice house to get our morning supply of cream, milk and butter, a bellow erupted from the interior of the ice house. a lively and heated discussion took place as to who was to blame, but the fact still stood that the skunk was down in the ice house pit and we were out of our dairy products for breakfast and a few days after.

Dad decided the only was to get the animal out of the pit was to shoot it. I could never figure out why he just didn't trap it. My mother was quite adamant that he not shoot the creature as it ruin the put when he did. In the end and after a period of waiting to see if the slunk would vacate, Dad shot it.

It was weeks before the pit was cleared and his clothing were irretrievable. It was soon after this that a brand new refrigerator was sitting in the corner of the kitchen.

That's all for today. Enjoy.