Submitted June 3, 2004 by Joyce Barnes
I have always loved living in Maine and have wonderful memories of my childhood in Maine. In the summer I spent time on my grandparents farm in Litchfield, playing in the hay mound, fishing in the brook, bringing the cows in, helping my grandmother in the garden and making home made icecream with fresh milk from the cooler. We would churn the icecream until it hardened. It was the best ice cream I've ever had. I learned how to drive a tractor and would ride through the fields. I would sleep up stairs in the farm house under numerous home made quilts. There was no heat up stairs. In the morning you could see your breath. We would run down stairs to dress by the old wood cook stove in the kitchen where my grandmother would be making home made donuts for breakfast. She would feed all the farm hands and every meal was huge. She would have 2 kinds of meat, potatoes, gravy, vegetables out of the garden, home made bread and something for dessert. She would serve a big meal like this for lunch and another for supper. I wonder how she managed to get away from the stove. We would take turns going into the cellar to throw a scoop of coal into the furnace for warmth. There was always a jar of fresh cookies to snack on, and the smell of fresh mowed hay always lingered in the air.
From there I would go to my other grandparents camp on the Eastern River. It wasn't polluted in those days but my granmother would make me wear my sneakers into the water anyway. I would feed the chipmunks from my hand with peanuts my grandmother would bring. They would let me pet their cheeks when they were full of peanuts and I would wonder how they fit so much in there. One day I thought I would make their work easier for them as winter was getting near. I took the bag of peanuts and followed them to the hole in the ground that I thought was their home. There I dumped the bag of peanuts down the hole until no more could fit. My grandmother was looking for the peanuts the next day and I told her what I had done. She just laughed at me. I would go out in the row boat with my grandfather and we would have to stay in the channel so as not to run aground when the tide was out. He taught me how to row a boat.
I now have a camp up in the Forks Plantation where my great Uncle had his. He left me his camp (house) when he died and I loved it. It was one of the old Railroad buildings. Unfortunately I had to sell it and now I have another place up there, which is also one of the old Railroad buildings and has a lot of history behind it. I love reading about the history of the Northern woods and wish I could of been there when the train came through. I was fortunate enough to have been there when they used to float the logs down the lake and into the Kennebec. There are still signs of the lumbering operation with the bark and pulp that still show up on the banks of the lake every spring. Life in Maine has given me many memories that I will always cherish. I couldn't live anywhere else.
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