Simpler Times

When we lived on South Main Street, the house was only a portion of the land that went with the place. There was a cinderblock chicken coop in the back and one other shed.

Ironically, we used the older building--also once used as a chicken coop, but the newer cinderblock coop was one we didn't really use. At least I think I remember it being cinderblock.

The land extended from the house eastward to the state roadway. There were corrals in the back and a stack yard.

On the other side of the state road was another good portion of land that touched the cemetery, which dad eventually sold.

It had a feedlot at one time, one that dad and I built with railroad ties and pine poles.

In the far northeast corner, there was a reservoir. Dad built it and tried growing some crops there before we began using the land to feed calves. The soil was poor. But in the picture on the right, dad has his pants he used for irrigating.

Grandma Liza took the picture. Aunt Janice is in the middle of the photograph. Dad always teased his mom about the fact that the pictures were not set correctly. In some cases, some people were at the edge of the photograph.

I like this next picture, because it shows the front of the old house. I have no idea who took it. The two picture windows face the water lane, where our range cattle could get access to troughs each day. I remember looking out that window, while we ate breakfast.

We had a lot of cats to keep mice under control on the farm, and kittens would play in front of the window. I also remember how we always had clover mix in the grass. If it began to die, dad would scatter a bit more seed around the front yard. I was always beautiful, and the trees in the yard also offered shade, relief from the hot summer days.

Days began very early, and I remember dad and a couple of hired men taking a short nap before heading back into the fields, where they remained until well after dark. Mom always had a large meal ready for them when they returned in the evening.

The old house wasn't fancy by any means, but it was the family philosophy. If it wasn't "farm-related," you didn't need it. The family took a very pragmatic view about life.

When I was young, I also remember eating beef that was very tough on occasion. Dad decided, that if he was going to raise them, we would eat a couple of them too. That began in the early 60's, but until then, a steak dinner was much different in those early days.

I remember on one occasion not being able to cut the steak.

Just behind Janice is a small partition of narrow wood planking. There was a walkway there, and for years, the family put pea gravel there.

It appears that this was very early in the years of grandpa and grandpa being on the ranch. There appears to be no grass, and trees were most likely not there either. Grandma Liza planted those.

There was also a lilac bush and raspberries. Dad took those out. Neither one was a good deal in rattlesnake country. I remember the lilacs. Dad took them out, just after we killed a snake there in the late 50's or very early 60's. It's a story I told at my mom's funeral during the biographical sketch, which is also an entry on the blog.

I have no idea where this picture takes place. The mountains don't look familiar to me at all, but Grandpa Cles was an incredible farmer. He taught everything he knew to dad. Dad taught those things to me.

Grandpa knew how to farm the land. He was honest. He paid his taxes.

I do know that grandpa was a staunch Republican. He called Truman Harry A$$ Truman instead of Harry S. Truman. I don't know how he felt about FDR. I do know, however, that my family survived the Great Depression through hard work and sound investment.

Grandpa did not like government interference in any form. He would not have liked the subsidy program, but who knows how he would have reacted. It was something very necessary to us, and dad used it to an incredible advantage to build things we needed for waterlines and other water storage. Soil conservation was also an issue, due to erosion problems.

Dad took care to ensure that those things didn't ruin fields.