Redbow
Senior Member
From the past. When I was a kid lots of cars came to our house on the farm with running boards. Us youngon's would see a neighbor or kin a coming down the dirt path to our house especially in summer. We would run to meet the car as it slowed down then jump onto the running boards and hang on until the car stopped. My Grandma used to pitch a fit when we did that. She used to say if you youngon's don't stop doing that I am going to whip every one of you. She was afraid we would slip and fall underneath the car and get run over. Thankfully that never happened.
I remember in the fall of the year the local ladies would have a quilting party at our house. That was a time when the women did not cook for several days nor were the men welcome in the room where the quilting was going on. Sometimes my cousins and I would go in to see what was going on and my Grandma would say now you youngon's just go on and play. We are busy in here and you ain't staying around. That quilting party always produced a great looking quilt for someone to use on a cold winter's night when it was finished. Then the women broke up the quilting party and resumed their everyday chores. It was also a time for the neighborhood ladies to catch up on their gossip and news from around the farming community.
Summer Sundays in the afternoon, a time for neighbors to gather and talk about the weather or the crops the men did while seated under the huge oak trees in our yard. The ladies were usually seated around our table and talked about whatever women talk about. Us youngon's as Grandma called us usually stayed clear of them. Then someone would say lets make some ice cream. Yeah lets do I got my freezer in the car. Then a car load of the men would go downtown to the ice plant and get the ice and then go by the store and get all the ingredients we needed to make the ice cream. Most of the time about three churn fulls made enough for everyone to have a bowl of vanilla, or banana and sometimes fresh strawberries out of our strawberry patch. The men took turns at turning the churns as there were no electric ones to be had in those days, we did not have electricity back then anyway. They turned the churns until the handles were very hard to turn then waited for maybe 20 minutes or so before serving the ice cream. A very refreshing treat on a hot Sunday afternoon. Us kids often played baseball in Grandpa's hay field after the ice cream was served and we had eaten our share or cowboys and indians while riding a tobacco stick for a horse.
My Grandpa after everyone had sold their tobacco in late fall and the weather had turned pretty cold would sometimes organize a gunless Rabbit hunt on a thanksgiving day with several of the neighborhood men. I went on a couple of them when I was a small boy. There were usually a dozen or more men with sticks ready to club a Rabbit when one was flushed out of a thick place on the ditch bank or a brush top down in the woods. I had an Uncle who was pretty efficient at spotting a bedded down Rabbit I never could figure out how to spot them like he could. Uncle Herman would say, alright boys there he is get ready now. The men would surround the Rabbit and my Uncle would flush the critter out of its bed right into the middle of the neighborhood men waiting with their sticks ready to club the animal to death if one of them were lucky enough to hit it. The old Rabbit could make some pretty amazing maneuvers to avoid getting hit by the sticks. Sometimes a Rabbit was harvested that way but most of the time the bunny escaped with it's life to live another day. Sometimes one of the men would say, durn Ralph or John or Harvey be careful you almost hit me with that stick trying to kill that Rabbit.
The old mowing machine my Grandpa owned was kept under our barn shelter. When hay mowing time came I would watch Grandpa sharpen the blades and then oil the moving parts of his mower. The machine was pulled by one of his Mules. On the chosen day for the haying time to begin Grandpa hitched his Mule up to the mowing machine and off we went. Of course I followed along behind him there was only one seat on the old mower. I would watch as Grandpa and his Mule made rounds in the hay field until all the fresh hay was cut and flat on the ground. Then Grandpa would go back and hitch his Mule to the hay rake, another machine with one seat and curved tines on the back for raking up the hay into piles. Once that was done Grandpa put out three poles tied together like a tripod and stacked his hay for his Mules to eat. I loved seeing the haystacks in the field, Grandpa would tell me as he stacked his hay, now boy you have to stack the hay like this so the water will run off it and it won't rot. I never learned his technique and I am most sure that today you would be hard pressed to find anyone on a farm in this modern time who knows how to stack hay the way my Grandpa and the other farmers did. Finally the day came when a neighbor bought a hay bailing machine and the haystacks disappeared for good, kinda sad in a way to see them go.
Just some of the things we did and the way most people lived decades ago on the farm, life was nothing but hard work and little money for it but people loved and respected each other back in those days and helped each other any way they could. Something that IMO is sorely lacking in many people of these modern times.
I remember in the fall of the year the local ladies would have a quilting party at our house. That was a time when the women did not cook for several days nor were the men welcome in the room where the quilting was going on. Sometimes my cousins and I would go in to see what was going on and my Grandma would say now you youngon's just go on and play. We are busy in here and you ain't staying around. That quilting party always produced a great looking quilt for someone to use on a cold winter's night when it was finished. Then the women broke up the quilting party and resumed their everyday chores. It was also a time for the neighborhood ladies to catch up on their gossip and news from around the farming community.
Summer Sundays in the afternoon, a time for neighbors to gather and talk about the weather or the crops the men did while seated under the huge oak trees in our yard. The ladies were usually seated around our table and talked about whatever women talk about. Us youngon's as Grandma called us usually stayed clear of them. Then someone would say lets make some ice cream. Yeah lets do I got my freezer in the car. Then a car load of the men would go downtown to the ice plant and get the ice and then go by the store and get all the ingredients we needed to make the ice cream. Most of the time about three churn fulls made enough for everyone to have a bowl of vanilla, or banana and sometimes fresh strawberries out of our strawberry patch. The men took turns at turning the churns as there were no electric ones to be had in those days, we did not have electricity back then anyway. They turned the churns until the handles were very hard to turn then waited for maybe 20 minutes or so before serving the ice cream. A very refreshing treat on a hot Sunday afternoon. Us kids often played baseball in Grandpa's hay field after the ice cream was served and we had eaten our share or cowboys and indians while riding a tobacco stick for a horse.
My Grandpa after everyone had sold their tobacco in late fall and the weather had turned pretty cold would sometimes organize a gunless Rabbit hunt on a thanksgiving day with several of the neighborhood men. I went on a couple of them when I was a small boy. There were usually a dozen or more men with sticks ready to club a Rabbit when one was flushed out of a thick place on the ditch bank or a brush top down in the woods. I had an Uncle who was pretty efficient at spotting a bedded down Rabbit I never could figure out how to spot them like he could. Uncle Herman would say, alright boys there he is get ready now. The men would surround the Rabbit and my Uncle would flush the critter out of its bed right into the middle of the neighborhood men waiting with their sticks ready to club the animal to death if one of them were lucky enough to hit it. The old Rabbit could make some pretty amazing maneuvers to avoid getting hit by the sticks. Sometimes a Rabbit was harvested that way but most of the time the bunny escaped with it's life to live another day. Sometimes one of the men would say, durn Ralph or John or Harvey be careful you almost hit me with that stick trying to kill that Rabbit.
The old mowing machine my Grandpa owned was kept under our barn shelter. When hay mowing time came I would watch Grandpa sharpen the blades and then oil the moving parts of his mower. The machine was pulled by one of his Mules. On the chosen day for the haying time to begin Grandpa hitched his Mule up to the mowing machine and off we went. Of course I followed along behind him there was only one seat on the old mower. I would watch as Grandpa and his Mule made rounds in the hay field until all the fresh hay was cut and flat on the ground. Then Grandpa would go back and hitch his Mule to the hay rake, another machine with one seat and curved tines on the back for raking up the hay into piles. Once that was done Grandpa put out three poles tied together like a tripod and stacked his hay for his Mules to eat. I loved seeing the haystacks in the field, Grandpa would tell me as he stacked his hay, now boy you have to stack the hay like this so the water will run off it and it won't rot. I never learned his technique and I am most sure that today you would be hard pressed to find anyone on a farm in this modern time who knows how to stack hay the way my Grandpa and the other farmers did. Finally the day came when a neighbor bought a hay bailing machine and the haystacks disappeared for good, kinda sad in a way to see them go.
Just some of the things we did and the way most people lived decades ago on the farm, life was nothing but hard work and little money for it but people loved and respected each other back in those days and helped each other any way they could. Something that IMO is sorely lacking in many people of these modern times.
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