As I mentioned in the previous post, sod walls were typically two-feet thick. If you compare the exterior window pictures to this one, you'll see a generous ledge on both sides. Also notice the plastered walls. In MAY B. I make mention of this nicety through a conversation with Mrs. Oblinger, the new bride from the city, and May, the frontier girl.
from poem 29:
"I hate this place," she whispers.
Before I think better, I say,
"He's left a shade tree out front,
he's plastered the walls,
and he's putting in a proper floor."
"What'd you say?"
Does she even remember I'm here?
"Mr. Oblinger's a good man," I try again.
"He wants to make this home for you."
She stands over me now.
"You think plaster makes a difference in this place?
Look at this."
She holds out her mud-caked skirt.
"It's filthy here!
The ceiling leaks.
Sometimes snakes get through!"
The cool sod's where they like to nest.
"They help with mice," I offer.
She glares.
Sod houses were one room with little to no privacy. Here you see a bed right up against the stove, a tree trunk meant to support the roof also used to hang clothing.
These benches are made from hewed logs and are a great example of the wood used for puncheon floors (the proper flooring May mentions above -- many lived with packed earth underfoot) : the smooth side of a log faced up, the curved side down.
One way families kept dirt from falling from the sod above was to cover the ceiling in muslin.
How would you fare living this way?
In the years I've been blogging, no topic has drawn more visitors here than sod houses. I hope this post, showing the exterior of a Kansas soddy, and the next, its interior, will satisfy the curious!
My mother took these pictures while on an Elderhostel tour in 2009, just as I was putting some finishing touches on MAY B.
This sod house is located outside Gaithersburg, Kansas. You can see the family had access to enough wood -- perhaps a sawmill nearby? -- to build a door, frame out several windows, and lay lumber for a roof (though they still chose to place sod on top).
A pitched roof would have made rainstorms more comfortable, as it was typical for water to seep through flat-roofed sod houses, where it would continue to "rain" inside well after a storm.
Sod bricks were typically 1' x 2' x 4". They weighed roughly fifty pounds and were stacked, grass-side down, so that walls were two-feet thick. These sturdy homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Structurally, they weren't especially neat and tidy. This poor wall looks like it's melting.
While researching for MAY B., I'd read about women who'd left comfortable lives determined to make this new world as familiar and lovely as possible. My mother included a note with this picture, the words of her tour guide:
Bird cages were kept to show some gentility or civility attesting to their previous lifestyle.
I included a stanza in MAY B.'s poem 80 that was inspired by this bird cage picture:
I button Ma's fine boots.
I wish I had insisted on keeping Hiram's old ones,
but I know Ma gave me hers
for herself as much as me,
a message to Mrs. Oblinger,
fresh from the city,
showing that women out here still have some grace.
My feet will hurt, I reckon,
before I make it far.
Come back Wednesday for views of the interior.
Things officially wrap up here tomorrow, with my participation in t
he Kidlit Progressive Poem, but for today I wanted to share my reading experiences, thank my guest post authors, and give out some prizes during our
Month in Verse.
Reading Experiences:
For the month, I planned on reading three verse novels: THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN (which I decided wasn't a verse novel but was a lovely book nonetheless), SONG OF THE SPARROW (which made it back to the library, to be read another year), and NEW FOUND LAND (which I'm close to finishing).
NEW FOUND LAND: LEWIS AND CLARK'S VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY is told in the multiple voices of the explorers' expedition and even includes Lewis's dog, Seaman. As I've read, I've marked figurative language I've especially enjoyed. Here's a taste:
The arrows passed through him as if
his body had been river mist.
Sandbars began to rise from the water like huge loaves of bread.
And the squirrel,
wet as a fresh turd, is humping it up the slope
My new novel in verse, THE WILD BOOK, was inspired by stories my grandmother told me about her childhood. She grew up on a farm in Cuba during the turmoil that followed U.S. occupation of the island after the Spanish-American War. She also suffered the inner turmoil of dyslexia. Choosing verse rather than prose gave me a chance to distill that complex historical and personal situation down to its emotional essence. How did my grandmother feel? What were her choices?
Poetry forces me to be brief. All the facts and figures won’t fit on an un-crowded page of free verse, so I have to choose only details that mean the most to me. Historical research is painstaking and meticulous, but poetry is expansive and imaginative. My hope is that the two moods will blend, offering a glimpse into the life of a young person who found hope in times that must have seemed hopeless.
Margarita Engle is the Cuban American winner of the first Newbery Honor ever awarded to a Latino.
April is poetry month, and the focus around here will be on (gasp!) verse novels. I've got plans, friends, and I hope you might join me!
reading goals: I plan on reading three verse novels during April, two young-adult historicals and one middle-grade contemporary.
blog posts: I'll run posts reading and writing verse novels, share quotes from verse novelists, include comprehensive lists of books out there, and share my thoughts on the books above.
your part: Want to participate? Here are a few ways you can join in:
- Commit to reading three verse novels during April. Sign up below, linking to a blog post where you list your three titles.
- Consider writing a guest post about verse novels. The possibilities are endless: reviews on one of your three titles, what you do or don't like about verse novels, favorite stories in verse, quotes on poetry -- anything! Though my blog has a modest following (462 through Blogger and 485 through Feedburner), guest posts are a great way to draw attention to your own blog. Email me with ideas if you'd like to participate.
- Spread the word! If you're reading along, be sure to link below. Talk it up through all your social media venues. Let readers know verse novels are accessible by writing about titles you love.
goodies: All who sign up and read their three titles* will be entered into a drawing.
You might remember earlier in the month I posted about my March goals: four poems a day five days a week on my new historical verse novel. Here are my stats so far:
day 1: 4 poems
day 2: 4 poems
day 3: 4 poems
day 4: 2.5 poems
day 5: 2 poems
day 6: 4 poems
day 7: 3.5 poems
day 8: read through and notes
day 9: research
day 10: research
day 11: research
total: 48 poems overall
My day 8 read through showed me I couldn't move forward until I did some more research. So I've set writing aside in order to better ground myself in some historical specifics. I'll be honest: this has really frustrated me. I've felt like I'm shirking a goal. But as the all-wise Valerie Geary has reminded me, any work toward the draft is moving forward, even if there's nothing immediately added to the manuscript.
Here's to reading, thinking, and transforming facts into story.
Have your writing goals ever changed in order to benefit your story?
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By: Caroline Starr Rose,
on 2/17/2012
Blog:
Caroline by line
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I always wondered about the ceilings... Great pictures!
Wow, this really brings the image of living in a sod house to life! And I thought I had a pretty clear idea after reading May B. It's like living in a small cave; maybe even worse.
Yes, dark and cavelike. But the efforts to prettify things is really something.