Zipping horses

You have probably never heard of zipping horses but I recall it to be one of the most fun things to do when in the car or pickup.  By the way let's clear this up right now, a pickup is 3/4 ton and below while a ton pickup and up can be a truck but usually a one ton is a flat bed pickup, not a truck.  Now we country folks have accommodated folks for a long time and let everyone call them trucks like Ford f150 truck.  We know who is from the city by the way you talk.  You think we talk funny but you talk funny too.

Alright back to Zipping.  Now this has nothing to do with zip lining where folks get on a long wire and harness up and zip down the line and it certainly has nothing to do with a horse on a zip line.  However it does have a lot to do with counting horses.  You see when we got to go to Grandma Annie's in Oolagah (birth place of Will Rogers and it is right close to Aunt Erlene and Uncle Harley's place on the Oolagah lake) for entertainment we did not have ipads, iphones, or even a radio, we talked about things and zipped horses.  Now that I think about it, would it make more sense that Kimberly Clark used the name for feminine hygiene (ipad) than an electronic company?  Zipping horses or counting horses was a lot of fun and being the youngest I was always disadvantaged  as Debbie and Larry were faster than me.  But if I was lucky enough to sit behind Dad he would reach back and tap my leg when he saw a horse and I would ZIP without even seeing one.  Mom did not get too involved in this game but typically Dad liked to help Debbie the most as he kind of favored her.  He always told me that she was such a well behaved child he would do about anything she asked.  He loved her a lot.

At times there would be several horses on a hill or around a corner and everyone would see them at one time and then the fight was on.  We had to negotiate how many each person got.  For example, if a person saw all of them first but only said, "ZIP ZIP" technically they only got two points and of course when you see 10 at a time it is next to impossible to figure out who did what with everyone Zipping louder and faster.   It became a frenzy and OH it was so fun.  Another aspect of the game is that if you remembered where the horses were last time we traveled to Grandma Annie's you had an advantage.

Those drives were a lot of joy to our family and we learned a lot of life lessons about value of family and love of the country.  We laughed and talked about where to turn to go to Grandma Annie's based on where we saw the turkey in the road.  I don't know why it was such a point of conversation but it was fun arguing about just where we saw the turkey in the road as if it were supposed to be there every time we visited.  You see back then we took the back roads which are the only roads from Grainola and Shidler on your way to Oolagah.  There was no four lane or super highway and frankly we were happy that most roads started to have blacktop (that is the same as pavement) instead of just gravel roads.  As we traveled the roads we would recall things we had seen in the past or talked about who we knew lived in a certain farm house.  We just learned a lot about friends and family.  Probably the highlight of every trip was hearing stories from Mom and Dad's past.  There were hundreds of stories and I just wished we would have recorded them.

Well thanks for listening and, What do you learn in the Osage?

• Time is more important than quality time with family or another way of saying it is, "quality time is quantity time with your family"
• Take time to listen and learn about your history
• Mom and Dads have a lot of wisdom if we will just learn to listen

Thanks for your time,
Gary@thepioneerman.com

Tunnels in the hay barn

Every farmer and rancher had hay barns.  Those are barns where you store hay for the winter.  Generally every barn had a Lien-to where the cows could get undercover from the heat or cold and also it was a place where there was always a manger (I called it that so you would know what it was) where you could put feed or hay for the cattle to eat.  Also back in the old days we had what we called square bales of hay which we loaded on trucks and stacked into the barns whereas today folks have round bales that they leave outside and then put in hay rings (like the ones made by Joe Payne at http://www.centurylivestockfeeders.com/).  Holton and Jane did not raise any dummies if you have not figured it out.  Ok, back to the story.

Dad, Cliff Olson, was pretty cool in that he allowed us to play in the hay barns.  At the end of the summer the barns were always full but after a few months in the winter the barns had room to play.  And believe me there was a lot of fun to be had in those barns.  One of the things I loved to do was take some boards and build tunnels in the hay.  We would have large rooms where several of my friends could sit and talk or hide from the world.  We played hide-and-go-seek hundreds if not thousands of times in every barn, nook and cranny.  But the tunnels were great as a lot of folks did not like to go in there for fear of spiders, snakes, opossums and chickens.  Yes, chickens.

Another thing we got to do in the hay barn was locate eggs that chickens would lay and then we would have egg fights.  Kenny Kelsey was particularly good at this and I think it was Joe Conner who was pretty good with a throw or two.  Pat Conwell pealed a rotten one and tossed it into the air only to land on my innocent sister's head.  It stunk really bad.  In fact Mom was not too pleased and Debbie was down right mad.  I don't know what all  they put on her head to get rid of the smell but it was pretty bad.  I would say egg fights were great fun.  Kenny waited for me knowing I was coming to the corner of the barn then splatted me right on the chest with eggs.  He was pretty fast and he knew if I caught him I was going to do my best to beat the tar out of him.  He was four years older and still is.  I can say that I have more hair.  He lost his because of his bad behavior.

There was one more game that I really liked that was in the hay barn.  During the early spring and summer months I would get a spray tank or sometimes just rocks and do my best to knock down the wasp nests.  I am certain there were thousands of wasps and when you knocked them down you had better be on the run.  Now that I am older I will admit that a few times I took the single shot 22 rifle with shorts (not shorts like pants but shorts are a type of bullet) and shot wasp nests.  It was a lot of fun.

If you don't think I am silly enough another thing I liked to do was kill red ants.  We had this huge mound right outside the hay barn where thousands of red ants lived.  I spent many an hour there trying to kill those ants as they were pests to me and the cattle.  Generally I would just pour diesel fuel on them but on occasion I would pour a little gasoline then light it.  Yes, I know that was dangerous and yes there was a danger of burning down the barn and yes I was stupid for doing it but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Besides Larry, my brother, poured gasoline on a pile of wood then bent over and struck a match.  He burnt the hair on his forehead and his eyebrows completely off.  Personally I thought it was a good look.  How could you ever say farm life is boring?  We made it fun.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• There is fun everywhere, you just need to find it.  Kind of like finding a needle in a hay stack, get it?
• Something about farm life makes people better and small town folks are better and the reason is  .... drum roll...... they care about other folks and take time to know them
• Hay is not just for horses

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

How to look like you are from Osage

I always thought it kind of interesting to see what everyone was wearing depending on your background.  When you are a farmer or rancher, at least when I was growing up, you wore Levis or Wranglers but mostly Levis.  Until the boot cut I think there was only one cut.  None of this loose fitting and stoned or ragged things we see today.  In fact if you said stoned there was only one possible answer, you were on dope.  Anyway we basically wore normal shirts and bluejeans all the time with tennis shoes or cowboy boots, never sandals.  So what was normal?

Dress or formal wear was a heavily starched shirt and starched bluejeans with a crease down the front which was a little white from being pressed as they aged.  There were NEVER holes in the jeans and if there was it lasted until you got home at which time Mom would patch them with a piece of an old pair sewn to cover the hole and then that pair of jeans was put  in the not formal category.  Formal or dress was NO holes and NO patches.  As we got older someone came up with iron patches but again those were not dress.  Formal dress required a summer straw hat with no sweat marks or for winter a beaver hat which was a very crisp and clean looking hat and it was not hairy hat like a beaver.  We did wear cowboy belt buckles which typically represented your hobby like showing cattle at the livestock show or roping or steer wrestling.  Now in the part of the Osage where I was raised we did not have many of the rodeo types except Johnny Payne which is a known entertainer (www.theonearmbandit.com).  Now we all went to rodeos but just about everyone I knew were working cowboys and farmers and not into the competitive side.  I will have to say my wife's family which is from around Calvin and Kiowa Oklahoma area are much more into the competitive rodeo culture.  Uncle Wayne Sexton which married a Sartor(this is a correction which I painfully made) from Kiowa is a team roping champion and there are plenty of others in the family with a passion for the sport.  OK, back to the dress from the Osage.

On a general basis formal attire was for church and weddings or dances like square dances.  I remember one time we had a square dance in the Grainola school gym and Carl McConaghy played the fiddle (violin).  I was shocked as I never would have guessed he could plan music.  I should say that I am not 100% sure it was Carl but I know his father played the fiddle and there were other musicians in the community.  Now that I think about it I think Carl called the square dance but I don't remember who played the fiddle.  Another aspect which I always found interesting is that every church had a hat rack in the back of the church where folks would hang their hats.  Something about that was cool to me.  I think it was the respect they gave the church of not wearing their hats and it just looked cool.

Now informal wear is what was everyday and it was still bluejeans and shirts but the hats were generally baseball types unless you were of the older folks who still wore the straw hats with the sweat ring stained into the hat.  Generally everyone wore boots but it was a worn pair and not the Sunday dress pair of boots.  Most of the time it was a set of work boots and a lot of times for us younger folks it was a pair of tennis shoes.  A lot of times a pair of tennis shoes was a good way to get your foot damaged by something smashing it or a nail being driven through the sole.  Tetanus shots were common as I think I stepped on at least one nail a year.  Let me tell you, that smarted real big especially when you lifted your foot up and the board or nail did not come out but stayed driven into your foot.  Also cowboy belts were not the best thing for working if you were going to be bending over much as they dug into your belly.  Back in those days this was not as big of a problem as it would be today.  Just in case you can't figure that one out it was referencing an overweight condition where the belt buckle would dig into the belly.   However I don't wear cowboy belts today.

Not too many of us wore cowboy shirts with those snap buttons although I thought it was pretty cool.  We certainly did not have the Mobeta shirts and fancy clothes of today.  The other thing is I would say we took a few shots or jokes at folks who were over cowboyed on a work day.  Cowboy attire was more for formal things and work days were just more practical.  Even our famous Johnny Payne, The One Arm Bandit not to be confused with a gambling machine, dressed on a normal basis without the extra cowboy garb.  One other thing I should say about Johnny, he is not a gambling machine although he is a gambling man.  Confused?  When you work we wore boots and generally they could be cowboy boots but we always wore Levis.

OK, what do you learn in the Osage?

• Respect for church, God and country
• Hard working real cowboys don't necessarily look like what folks think
• Real cowboys don't depend on clothes to make them but they depend on their character

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Summer Visitors

It was always one of my favorite times during the summer when my cousins would come visit.  I was a little too young to remember when Big Wayne (my brother Larry Wayne was little Wayne) came to live with us for the summer but there were others like Stanley (Wayne Patterson's brother) and Sunny which is my Uncle Olie's son from Minnesota.  But there were the weeks when entire families would come and stay. By the way Larry Olsen is big larry and Larry Olson is little Larry, just so you can be confused a little more.

Uncle Phil Olson and family would come from El Centro,California.  There were three kids and it was always fun to hear about what they did in California.  Gary, Phyllis and Warren were the kids.  The boys wrestled in school and always seemed to have big stories but it was just fun to take them fishing on the creek and swimming in the pond.  I don't know what they thought of it but it was a break from normal for me.  It always seemed like they came around Fourth of July so fireworks were a big part of what we did.  They seemed to go crazy with all the freedom of being on the farm.  They wanted to learn to drive tractors and cars and shoot guns and anything else we could think up.

Then there was Uncle Stack Olson and their kids from Anoka, Minnesota.  Again they had three (David, Catherine and Lee Roy).  Now they were a little different than my California cousins in that they loved the outdoors and participated in it growing up in Minnesota.  They knew more about fishing and they would tell us about fishing for walleye and other fish we just did not have.  What always amazed me was they told us the fish we caught were about the size of bait for walleye.  The biggest fish I had ever seen was a catfish caught in Tanny Olsen's pond which weighed 16 pounds.  Now I heard many of my cousins on the Lane side who had caught catfish in the Caney River weighing a lot more but I never saw one growing up.  In fact the biggest fish I caught except one was about 6 or 7 pounds and it was a bass.  Of course now I have to tell you that I caught a sword fish weighing over 175 pounds and 9 feet long while in Hawaii.  My wife claims it because it was on her line but I reeled it in.

Well there was one other uncle that would come to see us on the farm and that was Uncle Ollie Olson and his wife and son.  His son was Sunny and he was much older than me but a lot of fun.  He actually lived with us for one summer but the thing I remember most about him was he loved the outdoors and loved us but it was his bicycle that amazed me.  He had a bicycle that he told me about which was required to have a head light and a license plate.  I just could not believe he had to have a license plate for a bicycle but he lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Anyway it may be unfair but Uncle Ollie was my favorite and it was probably because Dad and he were best friends growing up and Dad told me gobs of stories about Uncle Ollie.  He also loved to come to my baseball games and he spent time teaching me how to fish and even how to gamble.  Yes, gamble.  He and I would sit together at the baseball games at Phillips Park and bet on everything you could imagine.  We would bet on the next pitch or whether the batter would get a hit and just about anything you can imagine.  For some reason I seemed to win more than my fair share and he would just laugh and go along.  The most amazing thing to me was how strong he was and how deep his voice was plus his laugh.  Dad told me how Uncle Ollie could carry seven sacks of cement.  A sack of cement in those days was 94 pounds, go figure.  I don't know why but every year when they would go home about a week or two later we would receive a box in the mail.  It was filled with gifts for all of us.  Every year there was at least one gift of some type of fishing lure.

Now I don't want to give you the idea that everything was perfect but the great thing in life is we can choose to remember the best or concentrate on the negative.  Personally I don't have the time or energy to deal with the bad but having company from all over the country coming to see you each summer was a highlight.  I got to meet my relatives and learn about their lives and most of all I listened to the brothers share stories of growing up on their family farm.  Strangely enough there were five brothers and the last three passed away within about 60 days in 2002.  They all served in the military during WWII.  Can you imagine what their mother was going through?  and how about their dad?

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• A vacation can be staying at home and enjoying folks coming to see you
• Family is more important than getting more stuff
• Choose the best in people and concentrate on their strengths

Thanks for your time

gary@thepioneerman.com

Summer memories

Being farmers and ranchers and especially in my earliest years when we had a dairy vacations were to Grandma Annie's and Pope Jess's which was in Oolagah, Oklahoma.  Basically farming and ranching was seven days a week with small breaks for church and VBS (Vacation Bible School) and we would squeeze in an occasional trip to Shidler to the swimming pool or to summer baseball at the the Phillips Ball Park.  It was a lot of work and we were always busy during the summer getting ready for the winter but most of all it was a great life.  I always told my folks I would never come back when I left unless they got blacktop on those gravel roads.  TALK IS CHEAP!  I learned to love the farm and ranch as well as the satisfaction of hard work.  But today I want to share some fond memories and life lessons of the summer.

Before I was old enough (actually I am not sure there was an age limit) to go work for Don Kelsey hauling hay I fell in love with working with my dad.  Today is Father's Day and it seems appropriate to remember some of those times.  Most folks work 8 to 5 with an hour off for lunch and benefits but at our house it started by daylight and ended after dark unless there was a ballgame or church event.  The other thing unusual is working with Dad started somewhere around 10:45 A.M. as Dad had gone to work around 7 to carry the mail after he completed chores (he did not read the paper or watch TV, he planned his day).  So what happened in those first few hours each day, plenty.  We cut hay, built fence, plowed the fields or chiseled or drilled or harvested/combined (all farm words for preparing the fields for planting or harvesting) but most of all during the summer when I was small it was working in the garden growing food for the winter, gathering eggs and anything Mom could think of to do until Dad got home.  The only break to that came when Dad had left a list of things to do.  City folks always say there is nothing to do in the country but I would tell you that is why kids move to the city, to get away from the long list of never ending chores.  The other thing you know if you are a farm boy and that is YOU NEVER WANT TO STAY IN THE City.  So if it is all work why would a person prefer farm life over city life?

Well, it depends on how old you are but:

• At 8 years old you know how to drive a tractor and a pickup
• You have responsibility for helping the family prepare food for winter
• Not only have you prepared fields for planting all the way to harvesting but you have prepared and planted a garden and harvested the rewards of your hard work
• Family is known to be more important than your self interest
• Hard work is a badge of honor not something to hide from or get out of
• Walking in the footsteps of your father is your passion
• During drought and hard times you don't give up but you depend on God.  An old farmer once said, "Work like everything depends on you and pray like everything depends on God"
• Love for this world and what God has provided 
• Not only do you know your neighbors but they are your friends and you help them in small things and big things
• The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence meaning you are not always wishing for what someone else has but you take care of what you got (have is a better word but it just seems appropriate to say, "what you got")
• People live and understand what preserving the environment means more than those who have never lived on the land.  I will write a blog about this one.
• People with common values
• You own your own gun and you know how to use it
• You carry a knife and you know how to use it 
• Common sense is common
• Everyone is made equal but everyone is responsible for their own decisions and its consequences

Like a lot of my stories they start out one place and end up at another.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• It is not your circumstances that guide you but your decisions and your actions 
• It does not matter how many times you get knocked down but it does matter how many times you get up
• don't blame others for your failures, you can do anything you set your mind to do

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

My most embarrasing moment growing up?

Now I know everyone has a few of these and I just thought I might share it with you so that you might not feel so stupid and embarrassed.  I should also state that there are lots of these and if you look up Polled Herefords in my blog you will find one of my stories where I was very embarrassed.

So let me set the stage a little.  When I was in the first grade I was considered a monster because I was very tall for my age but by the second grade I was over five feet tall.  No exaggerations here either and you can call Jon Tanny Olsen, Jimmy Heath, Denise Logue or Hugh Allen Jones and even Joy Fink (Frank).   Yes this is my ENTIRE class for the first 8 grades accept that Joy was confused a lot and she went to Shidler and then Grainola and then Shidler and so on and so forth.  She was good looking but the problem was she was a lot too smart and as a percentage when she showed up I was moved way down the class rankings.  Basically we were the Grainola 5 and sometimes 6.  One time we did have 7 when Ralph showed up but he did not stay too long.  The good thing about Ralph is that he was big like me so I was not the only giant.  The way I knew I was over five feet tall is Mrs. Casselman marked on the door our heights and she made a big deal out of how big I was.  She was 5'2" and we were almost the same height.  Mrs. Shumate, my 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teacher was barely five foot tall.  Did I tell you the Mrs. Casselman was my first and second grade teacher?  OK, back to the story.

Each year Christmas was a bit production and we did plays/acting.  I should also point out that we said the pledge to the flag every morning and prayed before class every day and sang songs that were motivational and about God and country.  I guess I might as well admit that I am POed about everyone wants me to be sensitive to their opinions and beliefs but they don't want to be sensitive to mine.  My opinion is we were better off when the majority won and in general God and country were more important.  Family and discipline were primary and children were guilty until proven innocent.  OK, OK! Back to the embarrassing moment.  Those Christmas productions required me to memorize things I did not want to memorize and dress like I did not want to dress and be up in front of everyone I knew like I did not want to do but I did it because I was told to do it and I would have been in big trouble if I did not.  It is called fear and discipline.  Well this one year I was an elf and being way bigger than I was supposed to be for my age I was big all over if you know what I mean and they made me dress in a tight fitting leotard and stretchy shirt with funky antlers but it was all brown.  It was HUMILIATING!  Also every time I put on that outfit it just seemed to get smaller.  It was always getting in  my crack, if you know what I mean.  But even worse is that my mother had one of those Polaroid instant cameras that was huge.  She took pictures during the play and one of them was showing me trying to get that tight leotard out of my crack.  Out of all the pictures she never lost or threw away that was the one.  I would pay even today for it to be tossed.  Luckily I don't know where it is.

So I think you can see why this one tops the list.  It messed me up for life.  Lately I have been involved in Toastmasters which is a club to help folks learn how to speak in public.  Everyone thinks I am a great speaker and I will have to tell you it makes me nervous and sweat every time.  Anyway one of the girls in the club suggested that I am an introvert that cannot hide.  I think she is right.  I find it easy to talk to folks but difficult to stay with it.  In fact what I really am good at is analysis and problem solving.  I prefer not to ever get in an argument as I think everyone is better at talking and articulating their thoughts even when I know the facts better than they do.  I find it interesting in life that I am a financial planner who studies investments and helps folks plan their financial futures but never find it easy to just talk to folks.  I think I really am an introvert  but desire to talk to folks.  Confusing for you?  What about me?  I have to deal with it and it all goes back to being a giant elf in a skin tight leotard that was too small.  I never grew out of it, so to speak.

Well what do you learn in the Osage?

• being embarrassed once in a while is good for your humility quotient
• I am only one standard deviation from being a total recluse - figure that one out will you?
• That play would have been rated R based on that costume if it were today
• Bad stuff happens - get over it

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

What gets you up in the mornnng?

Nowadays, which is really slang for "these days" I use my cell phone for an alarm and generally I get up before it goes off.  When I was growing up I think kids like to sleep a lot but folks like Cliff and Opal Olson did not think that was a good idea to sleep late or sleep in.  Perhaps we should discuss what the definition of "sleep in" means.  Well in the 'good old days' it meant if the sun was up you were definitely sleeping in.  If it was daylight outside and the sun was not up you might be sleeping in but overall if it was even beginning to lighten up outside, YOU WERE LATE.

If you were in bed and Dad was looking for you he better not find you in the bed.  He had a couple of thinks he enjoyed doing if he found you there:  The first one was taking ice and putting it on your belly and holding it there as you screamed.  I guarantee I was not strong enough to stop him.  Second he liked to take the baby puppies or kittens and throw them under the cover with you and particularly he liked to put them on your bare chest.  I never slept with a shirt on growing up.  On that subject for a few seconds, on occasion mom would purchase a set of pajamas for me but I really never liked them.  I don't know what motivated her but basically I always liked to sleep in my shorts.  Boxers or briefs you ask?  Guess?  Anyway if dad was in a hurry there was no mercy and he would just yank the covers off the bed and tell you to get outside and help.

Mom's methods were a little easier but if you wanted to eat breakfast you had to get your chores done and you had to be dressed else you did not eat.  She also had a few rules about what you ate.  If you did not like it and would not eat it she would save it and serve it again until you were hungry enough to eat what she put before you.  But the best part was and is that she was a great cook and she really did spoil us to a certain extent.  Luckily Mom and Dad did not like liver so we could use it for fish bait and never had to eat it.  We did try it but everyone agreed liver was for cat-fishing.  Hopefully everyone know what cat-fishing is and if you don't or there is a possibility you think it has something to do with cats then you should call me as soon as possible so you don't embarrass yourself.

Overall I would say it was not a problem then or even today for me to get up in the mornings.  I always wanted to get up and get going, there were things to do.  I am certain it was a genetic things as Larry and Debbie are just like me and Mom and Dad.  In fact I would say that Debbie has it the worst as she gets up early and works late.  She is the hardest worker you have ever seen.  She does suffer from a hard head and that has nothing to do with the thickness of her skull.  When she makes up her mind the party is over and you had better be out of her way.  She does not take time for anyone or anything when she is on point.  But let me tell you one thing about her.  Even when she is acting tough and hard headed if you just let her know you love her and she melts like butter.  She has the biggest heart you have ever seen.  I don't know of any person who will do more for you without expecting a return on her investment than my sister.  On yes, she will give me crap for telling you about her soft side but she is the best.

Just to brag on her a little bit.  When Debbie was in grade school and high school (we only had the two - that is no middle school or pre-school) she would go over to old folks homes and clean and cook for them.  If she thought you wanted some cookies or a cake she would mix up a batch before you knew it.  If I could be more like Debbie it would be a good thing.  She loves people and especially those who need a little help.

Back to getting up in the morning.  I try everyday to do a couple of things to get me started and I have been doing these for years to keep me on a straight path:

•  I read something positive and many times that includes the Bible but I would have to say most of the time it is a good book built around principles of the Bible
• 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth
• The power of a praying husband
• Beating Wall Street at its Own Game
• No Easy Day
• Finishing Well
• Road Signs for Success by our own Jim Whitt
• The Power of Influence
• I pray for my friends and family every day at least once and most of the time more
• I make a list and prioritize my day
• I do take a shower and get dressed but I was hoping you would assume that and I do brush my teeth and you should at a minimum do all of these.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Get a good start on the day and you will feel good about yourself and what you accomplished
• If you get up a little earlier and do a little more than everyone else you will reap the dividends in life way above your friends and piers
• Outreach the expectations of those in authority and you will surpass them 
• God loves a cheerful giver and especially those who give to others in need and yes I am bragging, like my sister Debbie

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Tornados

With all this tornado stuff going on I am inclined to remember a few myself.  If you look back you will find one of my stories about the tornado we saw while on the Custer land and while our school bus had a flat.  I am not sure buy it was over close to Joy Frank's house and she may have been on the bus as well that day.

Anyway, I only remember one time when a tornado hit and really made a mess of things.  It was at Tanny Olsen's house (grandparent of Jay, Jon and Jamie Olsen then Eddie, Janis, Bob and David Harris plus Tanny and Levi) and the tornado came down the creek from the west and took one barn and picked it up and smashed it across the creek to a pile of rubble.  Then it came to the next barn and picked it up and then sat it back down on the foundation but turned about two feet.  The next barn it came to it sucked a barn full of corn out and there was not even a rat left.  Then there was the grain bin which is a round metal bin that looks like a giant tin can setting on a cement foundation.  The tornado sucked all the wheat out of it then came straight at the house where Tanny and Nanny were sitting.

Now they were typical ranchers and farmers they just pulled up their chairs and sat in the garage which was an underground garage built into the side of the hill under the house.  It faced the west and you could sit there safely and watch the goings on.  I cannot say whether they were scared but my suspicion is they were.  Tanny was taking us around showing the damage.  He told us the tornado was coming right at them then suddenly jumped up and went over the house an on to the cattle pens on top of the hill where it did some limited damage.

I know this sounds crazy and my dad got mad at me one time when I said I wanted to see a tornado but I did.  I really enjoyed watching those tornadoes crawling across the wheat and grass fields in the spring.  There was no apparent damage but just a site to behold.  Dad taught us how to look in the sky for those fingers or circulating clouds that could become a tornado.  It was always amazing how you could just sit in the open prairies and watch the clouds move across the sky so majestically with the dark black and sometimes green but mostly giant white clouds shooting up in the air thousands of feet.  If you could separate yourself from any danger it was absolutely gorgeous to watch.  I should note to you that when you saw green and other shades of colors it typically meant there was ice or hail in the storm.  Of course it was easiest to see the beauty of a storm when it was coming and before a large blanket of dark clouds and rain was on top of you.
I guess as a kid I was probably not scared enough and Mom and Dad always protected us especially when things were getting too close.  I do remember one time in the cellar we could hear the roar of the tornado and that was the only time it was just a little too close for comfort.

I should also mention that thanks to my sister and her wonderful mothering nature (she gets all the credit) raised a son Richard Crow who builds, owns and runs Groundzero Storm Shelters www.groundzeroshelters.com which is the largest maker of tornado shelters in the country.  Somehow those Osage roots make a difference.  If you want one give me a call and I will put you in touch with Debbie.  In fact if you look it up on the Internet and make the call you can ask for Debbie.  There are others there but she is the best and she is my favorite sister.

One last thing and that is something my brother, Larry, told me two days ago on the phone.  He said that when you are laying in the wheat fields watching the clouds that you should be careful of green piles of cow manure as that can make a good time bad.  This is referring to one of my stories a few days back.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• look for the beauty in things 
• remember there is always danger in good looks, that reminds me of a girl I dated, HUMMMM
• Without the rains and storms in life there would be no water and no tornadoes, so be careful what you pray for

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Osage vs. England Part II

What else is different about England from the Osage?-

No. 1 - We have Mollie Bivins and they don't.  We are blessed she moved to the Osage and built her gardens.  Go visit Bivin's Gardens in Shidler.

Breakfast - They make pretty good jellies and they have this lemon curd which is pretty exciting but they cannot beat Mom's home made jellies.  They do seem to use real butter which I really like and we use to have that all the time but when someone invented STICK butter from the store and then Margarine I don't believe we ever made HOME MADE BUTTER again.  Besides if you have never done it you should try it.  Here are a few methods:
1) just find some whole milk and let it sit for a day until the butter fat rises to the top and then dip it off and put it in a Ball Jar with a lid on it.  Shake it until you can shake it no more then shake it some more and you will get butter.  2) get an old fashioned butter churn and there are several models and put the same whole milk combination as above in it and get after the cranking.  Yes, it is a manual crank and your arms do get tired unless you use the churn where you pump it up and down and then your arms will still get tired.

I would also have to say that they do a nice job with the potatoes but the tomato which they cook just has no appeal to me at all.  Their toast is store bought and when we lived in the the Osage Mom made the bread and it was excellent especially with real butter and home made jam or jelly.

Now here is something that has changed over time about breakfast and that is coffee.  It hard to believe but I think coffee has made more change than anything over the years.  First when I was a kid you would grind up the coffee beans and put them in boiling water after which you would strain the coffee through what we called a cheese cloth to get the grounds out.  Some folks did not strain the grounds out but just let them settle to the bottom of the cup.  I would have to say that was one of my favorite ways of coffee even with the grit in the bottom of the cup and on occasion having a little coffee grounds stuck in your teeth.  The second and way that folks prepared and drank their coffee and which was my Grandpa Olaf Olson's way of drinking coffee was to pour you a cup of coffee made like the first method but then he would pour the coffee out of the cup and into the coffee saucer from which he would tip the saucer toward his mouth and kind of suck it in.  I think the idea was the coffee was too hot (remember it was boiling) and by pouring it in the saucer it cooled faster.  Third was was the new fangled percolator coffee pots.  There were really two styles here and one of them you plugged in to an electric socket and turned it on and the second was you would set the coffee pot on the burner.  The real difference on these is that there was long aluminum tube in the middle of the pot with an aluminum attachment on the top of the stick which held the coffee grounds.  The idea was to keep the coffee grounds contained.  Mom used a new fangled type of pot which came about because of the space industry, Corning Ware.  It was a pretty pot that sat on the burner and it made great coffee.  This was my favorite.

But then something else came from the space industry, INSTANT COFFEE, Folgers instant coffee crystals.  Nice idea but it just ruined coffee for years and Mom liked it and it was easy and convenient. I don't know how long that lasted but I was out of high school before real coffee came back into play.

OK, back to England.  Their coffee was outstanding as they made it the old fashioned way and they brewed it.  Now one problem they do have over there is they load it up with a LOT of milk and sugar. The funny thing is some of you probably agree with it since Starbucks has transformed folks into spending $4 and $5 for some fancy coffee desert and even if you are old fashioned they still got you paying $2 for a cup of coffee WITHOUT free refills.  In fact if you are in London or some of the big cities they are over run with Starbucks.  Are we stupid or what?

Here you can see a typical breakfast except they NEVER cook eggs over hard unless you ask for it.  They were shocked I asked for it.  That black piece of stuff is Pigs blood and I refused to try it.  It cannot be good for you.  And bacon is ham not bacon as we know it and sausage is very good but not sausage like we know it either.

Now here is one last thing about coffee and that is they take a break every day in the afternoon and have coffee or tea and scones with jelly, strawberry jelly and curdled milk which is really just cooked cream but it was pretty good.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Coffee is best the old fashioned way, HOT and black - try drinking it from a saucer
• Tomatoes are to be cold and sliced not cooked
• No matter how special anywhere else is, HOME is where the heart is

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneerman.com

England vs. the Osage

The Osage, Oklahoma and England, what is the difference?

We just finished 11 days traveling England and we visited about 20 gardens and 12 castles or homes, 8 bed and breakfasts, The Tower of London, Big Ben, the home of Lizzy as one person called the Queen, and the list goes on and on.

Here are a few comparisons:

The People - exceptionally friendly and proud of their homeland and very helpful to strangers.  Am I talking about the Okies or English folks?  BOTH, absolutely amazing how nice and friendly every single person was.

The Roads - their roads are for the most part all black topped and very or extremely narrow with no shoulders and in fact generally have a hedge and mound of dirt preventing you from getting out of the way.  They have very minimal pot holes, we have very little roads without pot holes.  They are very courteous drivers and don't use sign language when you mess up.  This is an area we could learn to do better at.  The picture shows basically a two way street made of cobblestone and folks just drive and park on the sidewalk to either let you buy or they just park to get into their house.

Breakfast - they eat way too much for breakfast in that they have cereal, yogurt, fruit, juice, coffee or tea, then they eat an English breakfast with small potatoes, mushrooms, cooked tomatoes, eggs always sunny side up and toast plus unless you stop it they have this black thing which is pigs blood and it looks like toast.  We never ate that, not even close.

They have no idea what a real drought is and they have no idea what hot weather is.  It rains a little to a lot every day and it stays fairly cool every day even into August.  

They think a castle is for the rich but we think a castle is where you live and ours is surrounded by creeks and rivers but they have motes.  I have to admit it would be nice to have one of theirs but a newer modern version.

They like fancy hats and we like baseball and cowboy hats.  They have stores just for hats.

Gardens - their gardens have trees older than Oklahoma is a state and older than the USA is a country.  Their gardens are like a story book as they include statues and older buildings which all have stories around them.  Many of the gardens are 200 to 300 years old and then older and the oldest building was in Bath which was built just before the time of Christ.

They get into statues a little more than we do.  Sir Winston Churchill takes the cake for most statues and most of his statues were placed where he was either born or the house he lived in for most of his life after retiring from politics.  

They have a little more detail in their woodwork.  absurd!  They have an extreme amount of detail in the woodwork.  

They are excessive compulsive about gardening and cutting grass.

Our churches have bigger hearts and theirs are in design and they bury dead folks in the floor.  Most of the ones buried in the floor are famous, at least to them.  The churches are incredible designs.  Actually a lot of fun to visit and very interesting historically and spiritually.

Well I have had fun with this so here goes.  

What do you learn in the Osage?

• We have trees just like they do but maybe a little smaller
• We have taller grass thanks to the bluestem
• There are great folks everywhere, you just have to look for the good in people.

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Building Fence

I was visiting with a father of a young man who was getting ready to play football in Edmond, Oklahoma.  He was sharing with me how his son had to train almost year-round.  During the off times it was expected that a son would get special training in weight lifting and quickness skills.  Other times he was expected to attend training camps and then of course spring practice and fall practice.  In fact I remember when our oldest son was playing football for Deer Creek High School and he was expected to do all of these things if he wanted a chance to play.  Well that is not how it worked in the Osage.

In the Osage if you lived on a farm or ranch you hauled hay as soon as the weather permitted putting up hay.  That means after school in the spring until after dark and there was NO spring practice.  In fat SPRING BREAK was not at all what it is today.  It was only an opportunity to work full time building fences, hauling hay and more.  During the summer you hauled hay from daylight until dark and only stopped for lunch.  And that was only if you did not have time to eat it while in the hay truck between loading and unloading.  If that does not make sense to you then you need to learn about how to be more efficient and save time.  It was also seven days a week unless it rained.  That was the only excuse for not hauling hay.  Even the city kids helped hauling hay.  Steve Chrisco always talked about hauling hay for the Jacques and working with AJ.  I think every guy had the opportunity to haul hay.  

If that was not available there was fence building which really was a year-round sport.  Don’t assume this is the only things we did because we still had to do our normal chores of feeding cattle or taking care of the show animals we had for 4-H livestock shows or even feeding chickens and everything else. 

I do believe building fence was the hardest of the jobs on the farm.  It seemed like it took forever and basically before automation it was even harder.  Let me explain automation.  Automation was having a post hole digger on the back of a tractor to dig holes for wooden posts.  In case you did not know it there were several types of posts.  The new ones which are still used today are called T-posts.  When they came about it was a life saver but it was still back breaking work.  Let me tell you how that worked.  Basically you had about a 16 pound hunk of steal that you pounded the top of the post with and drove it into the ground.  It was called a sledge hammer.  Then someone got real smart and welded a piece of steel pipe where one end was closed and there were handles on each side.  It only weighed about 20 pounds but once it slid over the top of the post all you had to do was lift it up and drive it down on the post until the post was deep enough in the ground to satisfy Dad.   No easy task either.  After driving one post your arms weighed more than the piece of steel and you had to lift it off and get ready for the next post.   This may not sound like that hard of a deal but when you do it for 12 or 14 hours a day your ass is dragging and you can hardly lift your arms.  The good thing is after a few weeks it was not near so hard.  I will put any young farm boy up against the greatest weight lifter and the farm boy can wear the weight lifter out.

Now the second way to build fence which was the old fashioned way  and before the tractor with the post hole digger was to take a manual set of post whole diggers and dig a whole about 3 feet deep to put an oak post into.  Sometimes they were cedar posts.  There is a type of oak tree we called a post oak which is a narley oak tree that does not grow very tall but makes a very stout post.  You would think that is not so hard but there are several issues with this.  First off Dad had a set of steel post whole diggers that weighted over 20 pounds and maybe even 35 pounds.  And picking them up and down was difficult enough much less trying to drive them into the hard ground and twisting and squeezing until you got a load of dirt to dip out of the hole.  The second issue is once you got the post in the hole you had to put dirt back into the hole and then tamp with a steel piece of iron that Dad got from the railroad which was made to move railroad tracks.  I think it weighted at least 20 pounds as well.    The point is to get the dirt packed around the wood post tight enough that the post would not move easily.  And then no matter what type of post you put in the ground Dad expected every post to be the same height sticking out of the ground and in an extremely straight line.  I should mention that I am not talking about building a fence around your house but around a field or pasture.  These fences could be a mile or more.  Can you imagine keeping posts the same height and in a straight line and perfectly aligned for hundreds and thousands of yards.  Each post had to be the same distance apart.  Farmers take pride in their fences and their property and Dad was no exception.  I would also have to say that Mom reinforced the same values in everything she did as well. 

Next time you drive down the road I want you to take a look at the fences and fence posts and appreciate the work that went into it.  And remember that farm boys got in shape for football by building fences and hauling hay.  In fact I would have to tell you that every year I started football practice in the fall I gained weight and I appeared much faster the first couple of weeks.  If you can’t figure it out that means the faster kids were not in shape in the beginning but as they caught up they were faster than me. 

So what do you learn in the Osage?

·       You teach values to your children by building fences

·       High expectations are to be admired and achieved no matter how many times it takes to get it right
·       Building fences and doing it right is more important than football

• Building fences and mending fences is like a good marriage - it takes time and it is hard work but the straighter and more consistent you are the better you feel about yourself and your marriage and people admire you for your efforts

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Building our house

When I was about 5 or 6 and before I started the first grade Dad and Mom decided to build a new house.  I don't know what was wrong with the old one but we started building one about 2 or 3 feet from the old one.  All I can remember is it was so close to the other one it was a challenge getting up on a ladder. 

 After we moved into the new house they loaded our old house and moved it to Grainola where Mrs. Heath would live and build onto it a post office.

Just as a side note which I am prone to do we did not have pre-K or kindergarten and it seemed that everyone turned out ok and in fact I would say better than what I am seeing today.  Now I am just a country boy but do we really need all of this since the country is broke?  Don't get PO'ed but it is something to think about.  I just think a little more parenting might do our kids some good.  In fact I had a healthy fear of being punished at home if I miss-behaved at school.

Back to the house.  I think it was about 30 feet by 40 feet and yes it was a rectangle with one roof line.  That means we had 3 bedrooms and about 1200 square feet with 2 adults and 3 kids.  Larry and I shared a bedroom.  We turned out ok as far as I can tell but you might want to ask some of my friends.  Debbie got her own room and it was kind of girlie if you know what I mean.  There was one bathroom and no shower but the great thing was there was an old time stove in the bathroom which served multiple purposes.  First of course it would warm the room so when you got out of the shower it was warm or if you were on the toilet it kept you warm.  The other advantage was when there was a smell generated by someone taking a dump it burned up the gas if you know what I mean (do I need to explain and I don't know why we did not say leaving a dump vs. taking a dump).  That little stove was an open flame with grates and it was a delight.  I am certain that some activist group got those outlawed because you never see them anymore.  The rest of the house was heated by an old brown furnace with grates in it set in the hallway.   The living area, dining area and kitchen were heated by the fireplace which was huge.  I bet the limestone seat was at least 10 or 12 feet long.  We moved up in the world as we now had linoleum floors NOT that old fashioned oak floors.  Things have changed again.  The dining room table was made by dad out of a new door and it was pretty cool.  Mom had copper tone appliances in the kitchen and there were no microwaves back then.  Like most houses we had multiple entrances and the main one was never used as it faced the south and the north entrance was most often used by company while we used what we called the back porch.  The back porch which was inside the house is where the washer and dryer and a freezer big enough to hold at least a quarter of a calf and I remember having a hog in there plus all the frozen vegetables from the garden.  I bet the freezer was 8 to 10 feet long and it was a chest freezer so it stood about four feet tall.

What I remember was I carried nails and anything Dad wanted as I loved being there to help him.  If he needed boards I insisted on carrying them.   He would not let me get on the roof when he did the shingling but I carried shingles up the ladder and handed them to him.  The entire process took several months because Dad had to take care of the farm and carry the mail as a rural mail carrier each day then work on the house in between all the chores and work.  Larry and Debbie were at school so I was the main help.  Bill Head helped do the finalelectrical wiring as Dad and I ran the wires but Bill wired all the connections.  Yes that is Bill as in Mrs. Head, my English teacher, and their Barbeque sauce son Danny who runs Head Country.  Dad wound up becoming the builder for about everyone around Grainola and a bunch in Shidler and he always used Bill Head for the electric work. 

That house was pretty spiffy and it was about the only house I remember that was totally landscaped.  Mom and Dad loved landscaping and gardening and they went to a lot of effort to learn about landscaping from the county agent which I remember being Mr. Dowell who lived in Fairfax.  The last few things I thought were really special is that the house was built between a few really big trees, one which became my tree house tree and you could not put your arms around the trunk it was so big and then in the front yard there were originally 3 really big cedars but one was split by lightening and we had to cut it down.  The front porch faced the east and we would sit out there in those old metal lawn chairs for hours watching the evening activities of coyotes running across the hill side and listening to the crickets and frogs making racket plus literally thousands of fire flies flashing their yellow lights on and off.  Usually the dog was sitting there with us and a few cats.  At one time I had 23 cats.  Of course NO animals were allowed in the house.

I guess I should correct that.  Once the dog was allowed in the house because it was so cold and we have a picture of the dog lying on the couch and DAD sleeping on the floor.  Another time I brought my show steer which weighed about 1200 lbs. into the house at which MOM started telling me to get him out of there.  I thought it was pretty funny myself.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Kids learn a lot from watching their parents
• A new house is not a home unless the family is together
• Don't you wish it was your choice how you want to heat your house rather than the government?
• If you hold on to something long enough it will be in style again, kind of like wood floors

Thanks for your time,

Gary@thepioneerman.com

The first warm day of spring

What happens on that first warm spring day right after that last cold snap?  Life bursts forth!  The new calves are running and the mother cows (obviously that is redundant but city folks say it that way or at least they understand it better) are trying to keep up with them.  Just in case you did not know it cows are females and bulls are males and calves are babies, steers are castrated and females and heifers are young females that have not been bread, and all together they are cattle.  It is especially refreshing to watch the young calves and their moms in the wheat fields along the creek side lined with trees which are popping with new life and plush green.  If you get lucky you will even see a deer or now days a turkey eating in the wheat fields.  The air is fresh with spring clouds and a few rains coupled with the new heat from the spring sun making things grow really fast.  The oaks are beginning to bloom and wild flowers are everywhere.  The best of times are spring.

One of my favorite things is when its starts warming up is to go out in the wheat fields and lay down in the cool green wheat grass.  If you try it just watch out for those cow piles but it doesn't getting any better.  Another thing I use to do in the spring wheat fields was take out my bow and arrows and set up a few targets while it was still easy to find the arrows that missed the mark.  Now I never promised I was the sharpest arrow in the quiver but I thought it was a lot of fun seeing how far up I could shoot those arrows and see how close they came down to where I was standing.  On occasion it was scary but not too often as the wind would drift the arrow over.  Another fun thing we did was build kites and attach them to a Zebco rod and reel and see how long and how far we could get it to go.  We use to buy our kites for 10 cents at the Otasco store in Shidler or sometimes at the grocery store.  Back in those days at the check out at Lawrence Dehl's grocery store there would be displays of kites and not those trashy magazines of sexual encounters of the rich and famous. At least that is what I remember.

Spring was my time of year because I could plant flowers and other garden items.  I thought it was pretty cool watching the potatoes we had planted about a month earlier popping out of the ground plus the rhubarb was coming up pretty good at that time.  Fresh green beans picked and snapped plus   those small new potatoes put in a pot with a little water, salt and pepper then cooked until the potatoes are soft to the fork then add a LOT of butter (real not fake) and you had a meal that you will never forget.  OK, back to the flowers, Zenia's and marigolds were the most common back then and the colors would just burst out at you.  Flags, commonly known as irises, were in every yard, along the roadside and around the trees or the propane tank.  The old fashioned rose bushes climbed up the fences and hung over the wires and there were those bushes covered with white blooms that I literally never knew what they were but every yard had at least one.

If you have never seen or experienced what I am talking about just go to a small town right now and drive up and down the streets.  And when you are done find out where all the small cemeteries are and go drive through them.  Every cemetery had those same flowers planted by loved ones to honor those who went before us.

I know this sounds crazy but I have a friend who I don't see very often but he suggested if i wanted to know history I should visit old cemeteries   He was right.  At an old cemetery you will see all the old plants and flowers but you will also see that there were a lot of children that died early and many times you will find entire families who died from a disease and you will find a lot of folks who fought for our freedom long before WW I and WW II.  The ornate statues and the writing on the stones will amaze you.

OK, will I have meandered a lot here but warm days of spring are a delight so GO and enjoy the outdoors and get a little exercise.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• There is no way this happened by chance.  I  feel sorry for those who believe it was totally by a BIG Bang.  Now that I think about it why would they believe in the big bang theory and not believe in using guns that go BANG?  I never was good at humor.
• Honor those who worked to preserve our freedom, not those who restrict it(politicians).
• Do your part and plant some flowers!

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com