I am still young but it is a relative term so let me start by saying that when I was very young I anticipated the end of school and the additional freedom it provided. About the time I was in 5th, 6th and 7th and maybe the 8th grade each summer started off with hauling hay and getting ready for wheat harvest. As soon as school was out and Bob Scott delivered us home we would head out to load up the fresh alfalfa hay and put it in the barns. The smell of fresh alfalfa was wonderful. In fact I liked the smells of farm life of every kind. I never minded the hogs or chickens or the whatever was in the air. The sun was warm and the winds were cool and the new babies were popping all over the farm. It was often that in the night there would be a sow (female mother hog) delivering babies and with anticipation we wanted to know how many! Generally there were at least 6 but sometimes 10 or more and mostly around 7 or 8 new babies in one litter. The concern there was that the sow would not rollover on top of one of the babies and kill one or that there would be too many and not enough spigots on the sow to feed them all. Hopefully that is self explanatory. Then there were the new baby calves born early winter that were jumping and running and it was fun to catch them as long as the momma cow did not get too mad. Back to the alfalfa.
Generally Dad or Larry had bailed up a bunch of hay so Larry or Billy Snyder (Gladys Snyder's son) would help and we would load the hay and put it in the barns. In the early days you had to buck the bails on your knees and put it up on the truck while one person drove the truck and one person was on the back stacking the hay. Luckily someone invented a hay loader which would pick up the bails and throw it up on the truck where you would grab it and stack. I don't know why but it seemed that the objective was to always put on 100 bales on a load. Typically at our house we had a four wheel flat bed trailer but when we were hauling at Uncle Snyd's we would load on a flat bed truck or a trailer or both. As you may recall Uncle Snyd was the uncle who spent years in WWII in a prison of war camp run by the Japanese. He was not very fond of them.
Another great thing about the spring was the anticipation of wheat harvest. When it came, it came and went in a hurry. Every combine in the area was hooked up, cleaned up and greased to make sure it was in working order and would stay that way. During the early years we used an Allis Chalmers combine pull behind which attached to the Allis Chalmers tractor. It cut a swath of about 8 feet as compared to the new combines which have cabs, radio, air conditioners, 40 foot headers (40 foot cut swath), and no tractor was needed to pull it. That old combine could even harvest corn when it came time. I don't remember for sure but I think it held 50 bushels of wheat before you had to dump the wheat into the truck. It took several loads to fill a bobtail truck with racks on it. The new ones have about 500 bushel hoppers and the trucks are bigger and most of the time the combine unloads while cutting into a cart which takes the wheat to a semi-truck/trailer which is several times bigger than the old bobtail trucks. Amazing! The fun thing was many of the farmers would work together and of course as we all hauled our wheat in to the elevator to sell it there would be a line of trucks waiting to be weighed and dumped at Dale's Feed Seed and Fertilizer store and Elevator. Everyone got to see each other in one place and everyone was in a hurry to get there then wait their turn. Everyone would be talking about wheat prices and how many bushels they were making. I think this was actually an effort to be the best liar about how good your crop was. We would all take the time to have a pepsi and a babyruth candy bar or a butterfinger while waiting. It seemed that everyone took a little liberty to spend a little money at this time because it was basically one of the only two times a year a farmer would get income. Can you imagine only getting a check twice a year and not even knowing for sure how much it might be? That is farming and ranching. It is the real gamble in life but one that is loved by many. Just in case you don't know it the other payment is for when you would sell your calves that are ready to go to the feed lots and it would happen in the fall for the most part.
I think we were helping the Mcconaghy's one year when it was especially hot and I was riding in the back of one of the bobtails full of wheat and someone passed out beer to quench the thirst. I had never seen my dad take a drink until that day and I got to taste it as well. I really never cared too much for it but when it is hot and dusty like it gets during wheat harvest it tasted really good. I was probably in the 7th grade then.
In my mind there was never enough time to get all I wanted done in a day then and still today. Maybe there is a trend? But I sure anticipated a break to go fishing after school was out. It was that time of year when the fish seemed to bite the best and sitting under a shade tree anticipating that cork to go moving around a little just tickled my interest. I loved it.
So how could it get any better than living in the Osage?
Generally Dad or Larry had bailed up a bunch of hay so Larry or Billy Snyder (Gladys Snyder's son) would help and we would load the hay and put it in the barns. In the early days you had to buck the bails on your knees and put it up on the truck while one person drove the truck and one person was on the back stacking the hay. Luckily someone invented a hay loader which would pick up the bails and throw it up on the truck where you would grab it and stack. I don't know why but it seemed that the objective was to always put on 100 bales on a load. Typically at our house we had a four wheel flat bed trailer but when we were hauling at Uncle Snyd's we would load on a flat bed truck or a trailer or both. As you may recall Uncle Snyd was the uncle who spent years in WWII in a prison of war camp run by the Japanese. He was not very fond of them.
Another great thing about the spring was the anticipation of wheat harvest. When it came, it came and went in a hurry. Every combine in the area was hooked up, cleaned up and greased to make sure it was in working order and would stay that way. During the early years we used an Allis Chalmers combine pull behind which attached to the Allis Chalmers tractor. It cut a swath of about 8 feet as compared to the new combines which have cabs, radio, air conditioners, 40 foot headers (40 foot cut swath), and no tractor was needed to pull it. That old combine could even harvest corn when it came time. I don't remember for sure but I think it held 50 bushels of wheat before you had to dump the wheat into the truck. It took several loads to fill a bobtail truck with racks on it. The new ones have about 500 bushel hoppers and the trucks are bigger and most of the time the combine unloads while cutting into a cart which takes the wheat to a semi-truck/trailer which is several times bigger than the old bobtail trucks. Amazing! The fun thing was many of the farmers would work together and of course as we all hauled our wheat in to the elevator to sell it there would be a line of trucks waiting to be weighed and dumped at Dale's Feed Seed and Fertilizer store and Elevator. Everyone got to see each other in one place and everyone was in a hurry to get there then wait their turn. Everyone would be talking about wheat prices and how many bushels they were making. I think this was actually an effort to be the best liar about how good your crop was. We would all take the time to have a pepsi and a babyruth candy bar or a butterfinger while waiting. It seemed that everyone took a little liberty to spend a little money at this time because it was basically one of the only two times a year a farmer would get income. Can you imagine only getting a check twice a year and not even knowing for sure how much it might be? That is farming and ranching. It is the real gamble in life but one that is loved by many. Just in case you don't know it the other payment is for when you would sell your calves that are ready to go to the feed lots and it would happen in the fall for the most part.
I think we were helping the Mcconaghy's one year when it was especially hot and I was riding in the back of one of the bobtails full of wheat and someone passed out beer to quench the thirst. I had never seen my dad take a drink until that day and I got to taste it as well. I really never cared too much for it but when it is hot and dusty like it gets during wheat harvest it tasted really good. I was probably in the 7th grade then.
In my mind there was never enough time to get all I wanted done in a day then and still today. Maybe there is a trend? But I sure anticipated a break to go fishing after school was out. It was that time of year when the fish seemed to bite the best and sitting under a shade tree anticipating that cork to go moving around a little just tickled my interest. I loved it.
So how could it get any better than living in the Osage?
- It just can't
- I have found that life is good everywhere but you have to decide that for yourself.
- Tough times happen to EVERYONE but that is what makes good times and small things seem and feel soooooo good.
- Love living where ever you are and love the one you are with, it is a choice NOT an emotion.
Thanks for listening,
gary@thepioneerman.com
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