Comments On Article: Back To The Old Well "again"

Lynda wrote

GDonna, I love reading your posts on the old ways and am thrilled you have started this new section. It reminds me of our mum talking of her family living in a small mining town in the bush and what they did to get by, in the 1940s and 1950s. Looking forward to more of Back to The Well!

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Kathryn wrote

Hello Grandma Donna! I, like others, want to extend a huge thank you for your blog. Both you and Rhonda Hetzel have inspired and encouraged a simpler, slower life. While outside forces push for continued expanse, you pull us back into quiet gratitude.

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Cate Nunan wrote

I always enjoy and appreciate your posts, thank you. One thing that I do not seem to have passed on to my own children is to hang up your clothes, polish and care for shoes, items, etc but it was passed on to me by my Grandma. Now I can see it in my 4 year old granddaughter so that makes me happy. Our 24 year old son is temporarily needing transport and help and I pack his lunches for his manual job each day. He is now commenting on how much money everyone else must spend on their takeaway food. So like you, we are trying again to live in these old ways and to learn and to show the younger generation that there is a better way. I grew up on a farm in high country Australia and river water was our only supply so it was precious. I love that you now have a well. Hello to everyone in this delightful community from Australia.

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Julie wrote

GDonna, I have been reading and enjoying your blog for quite some time now. Thank you for sharing and giving me great ideas to implement also. Yes, it is interesting how sometimes life can bring us full circle and I appreciate the connection and comfort of doing things that remind me of family and friends that our now gone.

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Michele wrote

I’m so excited to be able to leave you a comment so that I can tell you how much your blog has meant to me and my family. Thank you for the hard work that you’ve put in! I have learned so much from you. This is our third year of water bath canning and we are about to learn pressure canning. So far we have put away 73 jars of tomato sauce—our tomatoes were quite prolific this year! We also have a freezer full of meat and blanched green beans as well as green peppers from our garden, well the meat isn’t, lol. But as you have taught on your blog we want to diversify and I want to can some of the meat. We have also put a wood-burning stove in our living room and if necessary we can cook on it. And we pretty much exclusively line dry our clothing, even in the winter as we put laundry lines into our basement. I cannot thank you enough for the influence you’ve had on my life and my family’s lives.

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Alice Damsteegt wrote

Oh, Donna, so glad to see comments.

My husband and I try to live very economically (you do better than we do!) and have earned the name "old fashioned" by my youngest child. Quite sure it is not meant in a nice way but I would have it no other way. I lost my mom 4 months ago and she lived in the Netherlands during WWII (as did my dad) and they taught me frugal living. I am so glad I know how to do a lot of things that my parents did and though I set the example for my three kids, I'm not sure the youngest lives frugally. The older two do as I see it in them. We shop frugally, cook frugally, wash dishes by hand and rarely eat out. We can't live without electric and water due to some health issues for hubby but we're happy where we're at in life.

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Karen wrote

How nice to find a comments section where I can thank you for all the effort you put into your blog. I enjoy it so much and have followed you for several years. Everything is so interesting and helpful :) looking forward to seeing your tiny house.
Karen uk. Xx

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Deanna wrote

I don't even know how I found your site but I love it! I am a 52 year old mother of 6 who has lived frugally so that I could be home with my children. I love your perspective on living simply. I cook from scratch, grind grain, bake, try to garden, and hope to get rid of the excess of my life!! Thank you for your gentle words and great ideas!

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Christina wrote

I love that the new little get away helper cabin has a well. When we visited my grandparents they had well water and I remember that it tasted so sulfer-y I being raised in the city could not stand to drink it. We have a well here but it is spring water and tastes nice. The lady before us hooked the house up to city water and the well is just for outside use. Our orchard and gardens do well with the well water. I am glad I do not have to haul it though.

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Ann lee sweeten wrote

Hello Donna, I am back with a new iPad, once again enjoying catching up On your lives and what’s happening in your home and garden. What fun to have a tiny house to work on, I’m sure there will be a quilt and cotton gingham at the window! I turned 80 in august, as well we had a lovely lawn wedding overlooking the ocean for my granddaughter and husband from Dallas. It was a beautiful day. Now I hurry to clean up garden beds and mulch it all to help w weeds…days are suuny and warm but Fall can be felt in evenings. That’s all for now, I’m glad to be reading you again! Ann lee s, Vancouver island, bc, Canada

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Elizabeth wrote

Thank you so much for all the time, effort, and dedicated work you put into your blog. I have been a reader for many years. You have been an inspiration and influenced my life in so many ways. I am grateful. I love your posts about your home and your garden, and also your diary posts, too. Take good care. -Elizabeth

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marcia Martins wrote

Good morning, My name is Marcia and I live in Brazil. I've been following your blog for a long time, it was a change in my life! I started to live more simply, and with that, I gained peace and time to dedicate myself more to the things I like to do. I always look forward to new posts.
A fraternal hug to you and your entire family.

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Lissa wrote

I love that we can now leave comments. Your posts are so encouraging to me. I was born in 1955 and have wonderful memories of my very frugal maternal grandmother. She would send me such funny boxes when I was in college (she and my GF had divorced and she was a school teacher). A shoe box would have a saved ball of rubber bands (because you never knew when you might need those), some 5 cent postal cards, a few stamps, a candy bar, a drawing from one of her 5th graders, a teensy tinned candle with a heart on it (which I saved until I was in my 50s) and few other doo-dads. She wrote a letter every week. I have all of her old linen tea towels from back in the day when you could buy 12-15" wide. We'd buy the yardage and she taught me to hem them for Christmas presents. I thought they were kind of lame at the time, but now I cherish them every day. When she died in 1986 she was to happy that she was able to leave both my brother and me $20,000 and her stock to my dad. Who knew! A funny memory is my worry about her retirement: she mentioned at the time that she bought a several new brassieres. I fretted that perhaps she wasn't going to be able to afford more in the future :). She was always so cheerful even though her life was often difficult. "If you want to have a friend you need to be a friend".

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Tara wrote

I join the chorus of voices who are glad to see this latest addition to your lovely blog. It’s heartening to see how many other people share the same vision of a simple life amid the chaos of this crazy world.

We get our water from a well on our rural property and you’re right…you can’t beat the taste. My dad who is 87 and youngest of 9, loves to tell a harrowing story of the time his oldest sister, probably 16 at the time and charged with looking after her 6 little brothers, held baby Charlie over the well and threatened to drop him if they didn’t mind her! I’m happy to report that they shaped up quickly after that or I wouldn’t be here!
Please keep your soothing words and calming photos coming. They are needed.

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Dianna wrote

I love this! Thank you, Dianna

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Debby in Kansas wrote

Donna!!! Been reading your blog for years. I love the peeks into your lifestyle as it's very inspiring.
I look forward to seeing more of your tiny house.

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Deborah wrote

so happy to see a comment section, and to "meet" some of your other readers. I think I told you in an email once that you remind me of my beloved grandmother and it is such a comfort to come here and feel that I am getting a glimpse into her life. Although you and I are probably about the same age, you live like my grandparents did. I love a simple and quiet life and find much encouragement here.

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Ann wrote

I've been following your blog for quite some time and always enjoy it. Your 1943 study has been particularly interesting for me because I was born in 1943. My baby book has my ration books my mother saved and copies of V-mail from my uncles overseas in WWII offering congratulations on my birth. My mother told me that just having the ration stamps did not mean the store would have the product. BTW my mother passed away 9 months ago at age 100 and I miss being able to call her with questions like I did when you were doing the information of rationing.

Life in rural Southern Iowa where I grew up was not much changed from the 1930's until TV came along around 1954. People in town raised big gardens, sewed their own clothing and walked everywhere. Farmers came to town on Saturday nights to "trade" and visit. I recall the main street being packed with shoppers and people standing and visiting.

During summer months there was a weekly band concert in the park. Us kids went to the 15¢ movies and enjoyed 10¢ bags of popcorn. An ice cream cone was 5¢ at the drug store and a soda was 5¢ although we weren't allowed soda.

Of course, those were also the years of polio so during polio season we did not go much of anywhere out of town (pop. 450). If there was a polio case in town, we stayed home.

With the advent of TV, people started staying home on Saturday night, so businesses stopped staying open and the theatre closed. People had money so bought cars and stopped walking everywhere which meant less visiting with neighbors as you passed by. Many of the small towns are now gone. In the late 1950's and early 1960's schools started consolidating which was a major cause of the demise.

Ironically, I think the rural country schools which closed in the late 1940's and early 1950's and then the consolidation of small-town schools in 1950-60's, has contributed to the decline of quality of education.

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Lady Locust (JL ????) wrote

What wonderful memories. It's interesting to me how people think "they had to work so hard, how awful." The thing is, I think they were happier as a whole than we are now. Good work feels good: like making a meal from scratch or taking care of your things.

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Sendee wrote

I love your blog and am so impressed with how you live your life! You are an inspiration to me! Thank you for all that you do.

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Debbi wrote

I have been learning so much from your blog over the last couple years. I am so thankful to have come across your blog. I continue to look forward to reading more of your memories, experiences and ways to live a simple life.

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Myra wrote

I love your blog and have enjoyed it for some time now. I've read it all. I am so glad you added a comment section.

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Lana wrote

I remember the well pumps. As children we loved to pump until the water came flowing out. I am thankful that our home of 28 years has delicious well water.

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Lisa wrote

Yay, a comment section! I've wanted so many times to comment on how much your latest blog has blessed me. Thank you!

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Joy wrote

Hello G.Donna. Thank you for sharing your memories. Life was more simple back then. I know people worked hard and had problems of all sorts, I know they did. But we didn't have evil running rampant back then like we do today. I told my husband today to think about how your grandma would react if she knew about how the world is today, and her reaction would show how far things have gone downhill. The world is in a sorry place, and coming here and reading how things were in my Grandma's day ministers to my heart, but at the same time, it can bring me to tears for what has been lost! There is so much value in the simple things of life.

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Jenny wrote

Oh my, I've binged your blog over the last month or so and now I'm happy to see a comment section :) I shared with a friend that I read the paper from 100 years ago each day and that our goal was to keep the "baby" from the past and only toss the "bath water," so to speak. The friend said I would dig your blog, and they were right.

I love finding Kindred spirits, and thank you for all the wonderful goodness you share!

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Grandma Donna wrote

Thank you everyone for the wonderful emails. I am so happy that you that are new have found my blog and Jenny, I am glad that you dig my blog. Lol.

Thank you to all of my blog friends that keep coming back, I feel that you all are family. I have read every comment, with the work we have been doing on the tiny house, Myrtle I have had little time to answer but have time to read. Love to all of you, Donna

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Lena wrote

Dear Grandma Donna,
I have been following your blog for so long now and I am writing today just to say how much I appreciate it. I lost my grandma when I was very young in the early 70s and I have traveled quite a lot through Europe, North America and even far to Asia afterwards. Although it has been an amazing life experience and I discovered different places to live in where I met great people, I missed a real family and a home. Now being older, I have created my own simple home wirh my own family. When I started reading your stories and beautiful memories, told the way a caring grandma does, it made me happy. I realize that there are wonderdul people who care for others and share what is precious: their time, experience and life memories. Transmission is a treasure from the past that can help build the future. You are right when you say that our world is full of nonsense and has gotten complex and stressful. Slowly getting older, I slowed the pace and can see better now. Listening all the time to people from different generations and culrures helps undestand lots of things and put them in perspective. Thank you so much for sharing this precious life knowledge of yours. I am doing some things the old way now, after reading your posts, and I am happy to improve and learn more every day, even if I did not have my own grandma long enough to teach them to me. Beauty is in caring, sharing and in simplicity and when we are aware and appreciate what we have, I guess. I hope that I can be an inspirational grandma like you some day, if I have a chance.
Reading your stories is a wonderful gift for your relatives probably but also for people like me, across the ocean, who keep going with a smile every day, knowing that in this worrying world, there are inspirational and caring people like you.
Kindest regards from old Europe and all the very best to you and to the ones you love,
Lena

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Grandma Donna wrote

Hi Lena,
It sounds like you have a lot of wonderful life experiences to share with your family. You said that you slowed to a pace you can see better. This is important and it would be nice if people could do this without it being because we are getting older. Everyone needs to slow their pace to where they can see better, to have time to work slower and find that some of the most wonderful experiences can be right here at home. Thank you for your comment.

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