Our Alma Homestead

Last evening my siblings and I took in our parents winters wood - here my 81-year-old father instructs my brother Kerras (of folkart fame) on how he wants it stacked.  Seven of us took in 8 chords in 3 hours.

I spent the night uphome and was up early this morning - when I went for the Journal Pioneer I took my camera!

 Below: the farmstead from the road.

Below: The main part of the house was built in the late 1860's - my great-great-grandfather came here in 1860 - he first built a log house then this house.  He was a blacksmith and farmer.

Below:  The house was remodeled and the back kitchen was built on around 1920 for my grand uncle David's new wife Bessie - Bruno Peters (Pitre) did the carpentry work.  In 1973 my parents built on a new bedroom, porch and verandah to accommodate our family of nine.  In the 1990's the vinyl siding went on - I look at vinyl siding as a protective covering for the old shingles - someday I'll take off the vinyl, scrape the shingles and give it a fresh coat of paint!

Below:  looking northward into the farmyard.  The 1987 addition to the old barn is on the left; in the middle is the garage built by Uncle David around 1940 to accommodate Aunt Bessie's 1937 Dodge Coupe; and the building to the far right was a little store where my great-great-grandfather Stephen E. Jeffery sold supplies such as tabacco and his blacksmithing - the building is small, measuring 10'x20' and built of post & beam and sheathed with wide vertical boards.  Dad uses it as a storage building.

Below: inside the blacksmith supply store.

Below:  Looking in to the pasture fields - we had the fields beyond the brook planted with spruce and pine through a program of the P.E.I. Department of Forestry.

Below: sunrise on a misty calm morning.