| Description | Farming diary, no. 13. Contains details of move to Mosshead farm in May 1887.
This medium-sized hardback volume has a plain, worn brown cover. The diary's dates are written on a sticker on the front cover and also on the spine. The volume is faintly lined and the writing is generally neat and legible. Scots words, particularly farming-related terms, and idioms sometimes appear in the text. The action of the diary is mostly limited to areas in and around Balmuir and latterly Mosshead, Mr Mathieson's farms.
Most diary entries record agricultural or road building and maintainance tasks such as: emptying the urine tank, levelling the dung hill, caring for livestock and horses, breaking stones, road coating and patching, thrashing with steam thrashing mill, road cleaning and dressing, driving, road blinding, casting turfs, holing gravel, thrashing, maintaining equipment and facilities, quarrying, thatching, wisping, winnowing, filling dung, delving, sowing, cutting, breaking and driving out dung, ploughing, graping, harrowing, drilling, gathering weeds, hoeing, coling hay, raking, pulling crops. On Sundays Mr Mathieson usually worships at Church along with his wife Bella, and other family members. Friends and relatives sometimes come to visit.
Notable events from this diary: paid off for harvest - £5..17..6; visits Robert Adam in Walkendale; attends Aulton Market for the first time; measures corn then sells it to a Mr Thomson in Aberdeen; attends Church thanksgiving for the good harvest; receives telegram giving news of Uncle Alec's death and travels to Glasgow with Auntie Mary and Uncle John for his funeral - Alec's body is interred in Cathcart Cemetery; on 30 November 1886 arrives home 'just in time to see my Mother, Mary Sey, die' - she dies at 6pm; goes to Aberdeen to arrange Mother's funeral, which is held on Saturday 4 December - her body is interred in St Peter's Cemetery, Aberdeen; pays rent at Mains of Skene and gives up croft; funeral of Margaret Smith Mckay, wife of H.H. Currie, Free Church Minister; walks across the Loch of Skene's icy surface; receives £2..7..6 for sale of pig; practises singing at Skene Free Church; Julia Sharp gets married; attends 'very good meeting' at Skene Free Church; buys new shovel for 1/6; heavy snow in March; cannot cycle home due to a 'perfect hurricane'; works the garden and sows fields at Mosshead; attends Bible reading meeting; learns Mr Lessel, merchant at Waterton, has died; attends Evangelical meeting at Kemnay at which Mr Easton speaks; attends Bible reading meeting at Bogfur; does some business in Aberdeen; engages a boy, G. Cooper, at the Echt feeing market for £4..15; prepares for move to Mosshead; buys cow for £15..15 at Asloun roup, but it collapses on the way home; buys four cattle in Aberdeen for £38..10 in total; attends event at the Free Church Manse in Echt and is presented with gifts - a barometer, Gold Albert and a book entitled 'John Kennedy D.D.'; sells cow on for £8; moves to Mosshead on 26 May 1887; buys pregnant cow for £12; buys cow from Burnet Stevenson for £12; buys six cattle at Aberdeen; receives cheque for £37..17 from Mr Coutts of Bervie for the valuations of the croft; the blue cow calves; the children attend a picnic at Kemnay on the Queen's Jubilee; conducts business at Skene; signs lease for Nether Aquithie; works on the milk house; has to entertain Andrew Brechin and his wife when they visit; engages a harvest hand, John Mackie, at Inverurie market for £3; repairs paling after cattle break through it; attends John Diack's funeral; plasters the house; visits Uncle Robert in Aberdeen; Auntie Helen visits from Glasgow; joinery work on Mosshead; takes clyack; attends Dalmadilly prayer meeting with Bella; builds W.C. for Mosshead with assistance; buys a cow from Henry Downie for £5; goes to hear Mr Johnston the evangelist - 'liked him very much'; sees lots of Skene folk at Kinkell market; attends evangelistic meeting with Bella and John; snow in October; the slater repairs the house; John Ross sells nearly five tons of potatoes for Mr Mathieson among the quarrymen; has the monthly communion for the first time; attends old Mr Emslie's funeral; John Valentine of Nether Affloch visits. |