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PIONEER LIFE IN KIPLING As we look back and realize the struggles and hardships they . encountered, some of us can only imagine. Their courage and perseverance helped mold this community and we would not be enjoying the modern way of life today but for these efforts. Pioneer homes were small and crowded as usually the families were large in number. They basically consisted of a kitchen and living room combined and a bedroonm. Additional bedrooms were added as required. The centre of activity in a pioneer home was the kitchen. This remains true today as most people feel the most comfortable in the kitchen. The most common feature was the woodâ€"burning stove. Until the early 1800‘s cauldrons and kettles hung inside a fireplace used for heating and cooking. The first woodâ€"burning stove was a little cast iron box with a lid, nicknamed the "Black Monster". This stove was usually made of cast with stubby legs that held it up off the floor and rings on the top that one removed in order to feed the fire. There was often a warming overn on the top, a reservoir to hold warm water and hooks on the side to hang up utensils and pots. Beside the stove sat a water barrel and a woodbox. Usually it was the responsibility of the children to see that these two items were kept full at all times. The furniture in the home was usually homeâ€"made from packing boxes, wooden orange and apple boxes and also by chopping down ‘ the dry chicos left behind after the great fire that had gone through the township before the pioneers came. The homes used these dry pines for building and for furniture and for coffins. The kitchen table later on was covered with an cilcloth. The table was large to accommodate family and friends. They were sturdy and used for eating, baking, washing dishes, ironing clothes, homework for the children. A home usually had a stand in the kitchen where drinking water was kept in a pail. A metal dipper was a common drinking utensil. Also, in the kitchen was a washâ€"stand with a basin and pitcher for water where the family was able to washâ€"up before meals and bedtime. Under the stand was a slop pail where dirty water, vegetable peelings, etc. were placed and then carried out to feed the chickens and pigs. Also many a rhubarb patch benefitted from the slop pail and produced great crops of delicious rhubarb for pies and crisps. The whole family usually bathed once a week and usually on Saturday before going to town or the store or to church. The tub, if you were lucky enough to have one, was brought into the kitchen, water heated, and everyone took his or her turn, starting with the cleanest person and ending with the dirtiest. A kitchen did not have cupboards as we know them today. . Instead ;;,t had only one cupboard in which dishes and cooking utensils"are kept. Pioneer homes usually had a pantry because they shopped once or twice a year purchasing only those items they could not produce themselves. Sugar, tea, coffee. rice, salt, pepper, baking powder, baking soda, molasses and yeast to ' name a few were kept in the pantry. Pioneers would barter for some of the staples they needed 1