Harvest awhile ago..
Harvest time is very stressful for all concerned. Your whole year as a farmer depends on the Harvest. This is true now, but when my folks were farming in the late 40’s thru the 1960’s it was especially stressful. The yields and the prices were never that much and they couldn’t afford insurance to shield them from loss of a crop. My Dad hardly ever slept more than…
read moreElly, A Gift Horse
We always had horses. There was old Joe when I was very small. My Dad always called them “Hay Burners.” We had a variety when I was growing up. As they say there are a thousand tales and this is just one of them. This gift horse was called Elly. She was an orphan. We got her from the Great Northern Railroad. They used to ship horses, cows, pigs, and sheep by stock cars. Elly was with her mother and apparently the mare died in shipment. The Railroad official gave Elly to my Dad and we bottle fed her as she was still a small foal. She grew up without a mother to show her right from...
read moreHard Work Never Hurt
Working when I grew up was just something you did. There was no excessive sitting in the house watching TV or listening to the Radio if there were things to do and there was always work to do. We picked rocks, we picked weeds. I picked a weed called cheat grass out of our fields by the gunny sack full. I hoed weeds in the garden and pulled more weeds affectionately called “Fire Weeds.” For two summers I hoed and pulled weeds on newly planted rows of trees, which totaled 7 miles. These are called “Wind Rows.” I remember calling them many other names. We butchered pigs,...
read moreRock 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...
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