Rock Piles
One of the monuments on the Prairie has always been Rock Piles. They are sadly disappearing because farmers don’t like to farm around them anymore. They take a bull dozer, dig a pit next to the Rock Pile and shove them in to bury the rocks. Very sad. These Rock Piles are tributes to hard, hard work done by hand by many people on the Prairie. My parents were some of these hard working people, they knew how to work hard. I grew up watching them work. When I look at these old Rock Piles I think back to how they were built. Most Rock Piles years and years ago were put there one rock at a...
read moreDarn stinkin Sheep
Growing up on the farm I had all kinds of animals. I had rabbits, ducks, chickens, cows and calves, horses, dogs, cats, pigeons, and sadly sheep. I never liked sheep. I didn’t want them around and I hated the day my Dad decided he would bring sheep home to the farm. His favorite saying was, All day you smell their stinkin hides and at night you hear ’em bleat. Yep that about sums it up, still don’t understand why he brought them home. For those never around these smelly creatures here are a few facts learned a long time ago. First of all they have no gumption. When a ewe...
read moreRattlesnake Tales..
One of the constant things in Northern Montana where I was raised was snakes. Rattlesnakes. They are the Pits. We had a whole jelly jar full of Rattles we cut off the snakes when we killed them. A trophy jar so to speak. My mom always killed them with a sharp shovel, cutting their heads off. She said my Grandpa Light killed them with a whip snapping their heads off, he did the same with chickens. No gun ever for Grandpa. My sister tells about shooting one near the wooden garage when babysitting me and my cousin Bobby G. The story got more telling as the years went along and people were...
read moreUnique Good Montana Folk
My Aunt Achsah was there when I was born at home. She was my mom’s closest neighbor and between the two of them they had more than a passel of kids. So I suppose she was the midwife at my delivery. We lived just north of my Aunt Achsah and my Uncle Fred’s house at that time in a little grey house. They could holler at each other in the yards, we were that close. My mom’s first husband Hollis was my Uncle Fred’s brother so technically they weren’t my Aunt and Uncle but my sisters. This made no difference to me growing up they were my Aunt and Uncle. My Dad, Bill...
read moreThe Headless Chicken
My first memory as a child was when my folks were butchering chickens. It was late fall or early winter as there was snow on the ground. I can remember the old piece of black railroad tie lying against the white snow. The hatchet used to cut the chickens heads off was stuck in the black wooden RR tie. The first order of business when you butcher chickens for those of you gentle souls who have never witnessed this is to kill the chicken. I’m sure there are thousands of ways to do this, from wringing their necks to shooting their heads off, etc, etc. My folks cut their heads off with a...
read moreAnother RR tale from the Greasy Spoon
One of my old Engineer Friends from Havre, Montana used to say all the time, “Good On You.” Oliver S. said he’d picked this up in the South Pacific during WWII from his Australian Friends while they were fighting the war together. He was a large and powerful man who everyone liked and respected. He always treated us younger “Rails” like equals not underlings. He was a great guy. One day in the old Johnnie Café in Glasgow, Montana we sat down to eat. The special that day was chipped beef on toast. As every soldier and Railroader knows this is also called sh#t on...
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