bringing in the ice harvest

[wallytoo]

what i used my 1.5-ton for today.

[Bob_Koch]

Wow, great shots. Glad your truck is so useful in the wintertime.

[Don Coatney]

That is cool! Pun intended.

[DanOlson]

Very cool. Is the ice for a winter festival or something?

Dan

[wallytoo]

Very cool. Is the ice for a winter festival or something?

Dan

believe it or not, the ice is used by a local farm for refrigeration. the blocks were delivered to the farm, and put-up in an ice house. sawdust covers the blocks, and insulates them throughout the year.

the farm will use the ice during the growing season for cooling drinks, making ice cream, and keeping veggies cold for longer storage, all without electricity.

mostly, the day is a great way to relive some of our history, before the days of the refrigerator and A/C units.

at the ice harvest, i got to take a ride on a ford model-T snowmobile conversion, made by the "snowmobile company inc" of West Ossipee, NH. pretty cool.

[greg g]

What lake??? Looks like about 18 inches of ice. nice clear hard ice. Perfect for ice racing and not much snow. I know a bunch of guys who are wishing they had about 300 truck loads of that to lay down a course.

No worries abou falling through, 18 inches will hold about 12 tons of static load.

We used to go to an ice harvest years ago up by Watertown, NY. Used horse drawn sledges to haul it to the ice house. During the towns July 4th celebration, ice was hauled out and used to make fresh strawberry ice cream.

The blocks were still amazingly large not having melted much snugged down in their sawdust.

[Zeke1953]

My grandfather used to own an ice company here in Massachusetts. I haven't seen handsaws like the ones in your first picture since I was a kid. Your truck is in amazing condition for a New England vehicle. Don't they use salt on the roads up there in New Hampshire? Zeke

[greg g]

here is a site with some interesting old photos and other info related to ice harvest and storage.

http://www.iceharvestingusa.com/iceharvestingusa.html

[wallytoo]

What lake??? Looks like about 18 inches of ice. nice clear hard ice.

Kezar Lake in Sutton, NH. and it was 18 inches

My grandfather used to own an ice company here in Massachusetts. I haven't seen handsaws like the ones in your first picture since I was a kid. Your truck is in amazing condition for a New England vehicle. Don't they use salt on the roads up there in New Hampshire? Zeke

they use salt for sure. i oil undercoat the truck entirely with used gear oil every fall, and wash it completely in the springtime. indeed, the truck came from michigan, where they also use salt. however, i believe the truck didn't spend much time on the road and wasn't heavily used in the winter, which contributed to its decent condition.

[Merle Coggins]

If it weren't for the modern jackets and the nice color photos, I'd have guessed that you had photos from the past.

There was a thread on the car side recently with a link to a site that would convert a modern photo to look like an old B&W. Those would look cool that way.

Merle

[Jim Gaspard]

Wow! Net zero energy at work. Wouldn't it be nice if we could chop up blocks of our 120 degree heat in Texas during summer. We could pack them in sand and you could easily make it through a bitterly cold December and January with plenty left to brew hot cider.

Jim in Dallas

[Merle Coggins]

Here's what I was talking about. Here's one of Wally's pictures adjusted to "back in the day"...

Here's the link to the web site... http://labs.wanokoto.jp/olds

Once there, click "English" in the upper right corner.

[Andydodge]

Well my wife ,Libby & I enjoyed the pics, as at 7.30 pm its 92 F here in sunny Sth Grafton NSW Australia, I have seen snow twice, my wife never has, and the pics of you guys doing something that is completely foreign to us is what makes this site truly great, many thanks for including us in your local and to us very interesting doings.......many thanks and regards, Andy Douglas......the sawdust acually works?.....amazing!.....andyd

[Frank Elder]

Andy, take about 6 cubes out of the freezer,line a container with sawdust, drop in cubes, cover with sawdust and put the lid on. You'll be amazed how long they will last.

I would rinse off before using....heheheh!

[wallytoo]

Well my wife ,Libby & I enjoyed the pics, as at 7.30 pm its 92 F here in sunny Sth Grafton NSW Australia, I have seen snow twice, my wife never has, and the pics of you guys doing something that is completely foreign to us is what makes this site truly great, many thanks for including us in your local and to us very interesting doings.......many thanks and regards, Andy Douglas......the sawdust acually works?.....amazing!.....andyd

temperature that morning was -14*F, but it was up to about -5*F when the pics were taken.

the sawdust works pretty well. according to the folks loading the blocks into the ice house, there was still a layer of ice blocks remaining from last year's harvest. consider that there are approximately 100 blocks loaded into the house, with each block being about 180 to 200 pounds. takes a lot of energy to turn ice into water.

[Zeke1953]

Probably a lot more sawdust availabale from the timber industry in New Hampshire. In Massachusetts, they used hay to insulate the ice. The only problem was that as the ice was removed from the ice houses in the summer, they were left with a lot of damp hay. From what I've been told, that sometimes led to spontaneous combustion and on two occasions, the ice houses caught fire and burned to the ground. So, between that and the invention of the refrigerator, my grandfather was out of business.

[Andydodge]

So that little building is where the ice is stored?.....it would be basically a solid block of ice I suppose.......the things you learn..........thanks, andyd

[RHDSP15C]

116 degrees here today. Birds and possums falling out of trees. Railroads

starting to buckle. what a contrast.

[Don Coatney]

So that little building is where the ice is stored?.....it would be basically a solid block of ice I suppose.......the things you learn..........thanks, andyd

There was an "ice house" in the small town where I attended high school in Ohio. It was on a remote side street. It had been in service for several years but by the mid 60's it was not making money. This (doomed) Ice House (still using harvested ice packed in sawdust) started selling beer. In a last ditch effort to stay in business they did not fully check ages of the customers. What is a high schooler to do:confused:

[Andydodge]

So, Don........I suppose this where you got your taste for ice from...........lol.........just realised that that could be taken a couple of ways........I am referring to the frozen water based stuff.......lol....andyd

[greg g]

Check the link I posted to the website, there are quite a few photo albums of ices houses from the 1800's, some were quite large.

[55 Fargo]

believe it or not, the ice is used by a local farm for refrigeration. the blocks were delivered to the farm, and put-up in an ice house. sawdust covers the blocks, and insulates them throughout the year.

the farm will use the ice during the growing season for cooling drinks, making ice cream, and keeping veggies cold for longer storage, all without electricity.

mostly, the day is a great way to relive some of our history, before the days of the refrigerator and A/C units.

at the ice harvest, i got to take a ride on a ford model-T snowmobile conversion, made by the "snowmobile company inc" of West Ossipee, NH. pretty cool.

Exactly what my Grandparents did in the 1920s,30s,40s,early 50s, My Grandad, would go and cut ice out of a pit, and bring it home

[JoelOkie]

And if you wanted your ice crushed, or shaved, you could use one of these......this one was my Grandad's. We used to get block ice which my dad and uncle would bring home wrapped in burlap bags in the back of the pickup after work and shave it to make ice to churn ice cream. Us kids grabbed the ice by the handfulls and ate it while the cream was making. I remember a time or two we ran out of salt, and our neighbor, (unbeknownst to him of course) sacrificed a salt lick or two. We made it in the yard in front of my grandad's two room house, which still stands just outside my kitchen door. Joel

[55 Fargo]

Very cool Joel, pardun the pun.

Here is a pic of where my Ma grew up, the weathered country Dude is my Uncle, this old homestead stands just out his door on his property, where they all grew up.

[JoelOkie]

Small houses, but they didn't have much stuff back then to clutter up the place. Your uncle looks a lot like an oilfield roughneck that came too close to stomping my a$$ at Enid, Oklahoma one time.

Edited September 7, 2011 by JoelOkie
clean it up