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Saturday, March 5, 2022

MEMORIES: PART 1

 

The family: Mom, Dad, and 5 of the 6 children

Writing a tribute to my dad brought back so many wonderful memories. 

The things we did and the adventures we shared as kids growing up on a farm was, in my opinion, the best way to grow into adulthood. We learned so much from both our parents about hard work and responsibility. 

We had wide-open spaces to run and play, with LOTS of cousins to join us. We never worried about checking in until we were hungry because our parents, aunts, and uncles knew exactly where we were from the sounds of laughter and the screams.

Working the farm was difficult but taught me about challenging work and accountability.

Twice a day, every day, we had to milk the cows. Dad usually was the one who managed the actual milking; the rest of us brought the cows up to the barn, fed them, and made sure the troughs in the barnyard were filled with water.

It always amazed me how intelligent the cows were. SERIOUSLY, they were really smart! We would bring them from the pasture to the barn, and they would form groups - the same groups every day. When we opened the barn door, the first group would file in and walk into their own stalls. When the milking was completed for the first group, and they were released into the barnyard on the other side of the barn, the second group made their way in to be milked; and so it went until every cow had been milked, fed, and released.

My dad told me that wasn't intelligence; it was just dumb animals following what the humans had taught them. But I still believe that, even though they may not have been the intelligent bovines I imagined, they had to be smart enough to learn that routine. I don't believe the cows, or any other animals, are dumb. Maybe they act dumb, so we won't expect too much from them.

The accountability lesson came one week when we children were put in charge of feeding the chickens. There were six of us, so we all agreed to take one day that week to do the job.

Well, we would be so busy doing more important things during the day: playing hide and seek or climbing trees; swimming in the creek, even though we were told many times not to; playing cowboy.

Now, you would think that at least one of the six of us would remember to take care of the chickens; NOT ONE OF US DID OUR JOB. And quite honestly, by the time we remembered what we were supposed to do, it was late, and the chicken yard was dark. We would say to ourselves, "Someone else is responsible for tomorrow; they'll take care of them. One day won't hurt." 

Chickens in a hen house (borrowed by permission

Well, one day turned into six days; the chickens were starving.

On the seventh day, Mom went out to take care of the chickens. A few were staggering around and falling over; most of them were already dead. 

Mom opened the big barrel of chicken feed to try and save some of them. Any hens that still had the strength to move dove headfirst into the barrel. Mom couldn't get them out quick enough to pour the grain into the feeders because they kept jumping back in, so finally she just dumped the barrel over. Chickens ended up buried under the grain on the floor. Mom said as she and her sister started digging from the top, the chickens were eating their way out from the bottom!

We lost nearly the whole flock that day. I don't remember what our punishment was for that careless act. I tend to block out upsetting memories. But I am sure we got exactly what we deserved, so it must have been a good one!

 Baling hay and storing it in the barn was also a treat. Once the hay was baled and brought back to the barnyard, that's when the fun began. To get the hay into the top of the barn, also known as the "haymow", Dad would put big claws into a stack of four bales. The hooks were attached to a long rope that ran through a pulley system that was hooked above the door of the haymow and then down to a tractor. Mom was usually the one driving the tractor. As she drove forward, the bales were pulled up to the door where two helpers would grab the bales. Someone would shout "STOP"; the person driving the tractor would make a rapid halt, the hooks were released, and the bales would fall into the haymow, where the helpers would stack them with the rest of the bales.

I rode on that tractor with my mom...once. When the "STOP" came, Mom quickly lifted her foot off the gas pedal which stopped the tractor with a hard jerk. I lost my balance, fell off the back, and landed hard on my face. I looked like someone had punched me in the nose. It was broken and bleeding, and my whole face was one big bruise! I never got on that tractor again.

 

Shelling corn; what an adventure! If you never lived on a farm, or if you are a millennial, you probably have never heard anything about shelling corn. We don't have anything like that on most farms anymore. It's a bygone adventure; let me explain it to you.

First of all, field corn in the old days was picked off the cornstalks by a machine (called the picker, of course) drawn by a tractor. This machine would collect the ears of corn from the stalks; the ears were still dressed in their finest leaves which wrapped tightly around the corn. Also, they were adorned on top with their fancy silk hair between the ear and the husks.

All of this - the husks, the silk, and the cobs inside - had to be removed to get the corn out. 

The ears of corn were stored in a corn crib - a wooden building with a shoot at the top where the corn would be poured after it was harvested. To get the corn back out, there were little doors along the bottom of the crib that were raised. The corn was pulled out and dropped onto a conveyor belt that would haul the corn to a sheller - the machine that took everything off of the corn cob. With shoots attached and situated over three ton trucks, the process began. 

Three to four people would open those small doors and start dragging out the corn to the conveyor belt. The corn traveled along that belt until it reached the thresher. Once the corn was dumped into the machine, the magic began. How that machine knew what to do I never learned. But it knew which truck to put the corn in, which truck the shucks should be dumped into; it even knew that the third truck must become the new temporary residence of the cobs.

As the level of corn in the crib began to drop, it was harder to get the corn out to the belt. Someone had to crawl up into the crib to push the rest of the corn out. That usually meant my brothers and me.

You meet all kinds of lovely critters living amongst the corn. Corn snakes. Spiders - giant ones. Mice. And an occasional rat that would run up your leg to say "hi"! Lots of fun was to be had in a corn crib.

Well, that's enough fun for today. I have a ton of memories to share with you, but I don't want to put you to sleep. I will just end this post with a wish for all of you, especially the young ones still finding their way, to do what you love and enjoy life as much as you can

Be Happy!

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