farm
In years gone by, most farmer’s children worked on the farms of their parents. Many still do, but the way they worked has change quite a bit. Back in the old west and beyond, the fields were plowed on foot using team of horses or oxen to assist in pulling the plow through the hard ground. It has hard work, and usually resulted in the blistering of hands that were not used to it. In those days, the women didn’t usually work the farms, unless there simply was no other choice, and women with calloused hands were looked down upon and thought to be…well, not really a true lady…at least, not by Eastern standards. They just didn’t understand what it took to build the West. Many times, people moved out West with the promise of a homestead, and 5 years to prove the land. Money was scarce, and you did what you had to do…including setting your children to the task of helping out on the farm.
It is my opinion that the way things were done in the old West better trained the children for adulthood. I have watched so many kids go through life without having to shoulder any responsibility, and then continue on in life in the same way. Some becoming “professional students” so that they won’t have to get a job, while their parents pay their way. It’s a sad, sad situation, and one the parents find themselves having trouble getting out of.
The kids in the old West understood that their help was needed or the family was not going to make it. School became a luxury and one that often ended after the eighth grade, if not before. Their time was needed elsewhere. Things have changed dramatically since then. Farm equipment has made the work on the farm much easier, and the children aren’t needed to the degree that they used to be. That is a good thing in that more kids finish school.They also have time to just be kids these days. I’m still not sure which is better…or maybe there is no better…just different.
By the time my Aunt Dixie joined the family, there were already seven children in it. That meant lots of help to take care of the new baby. If she was anything like she is today, my guess would be that she laughed easily and often. Aunt Dixie has never been a melancholy person, but rather always seems to look for the positive things in life. That is a trait that few people have these days, and one that will make her life always rich.
Aunt Dixie has a creative side to her too. She has a talent for making things that add a touch of beauty to her life and to those around her. I can remember the many family Christmas parties that Aunt Dixie and her family have put on, and her talent is easy to see. We have all been blessed by the things she and her family have made for those parties. They always bring something new to the feel of them.
Aunt Dixie has always loved living in the country, and has had her little farm for many years now. I remember when she came to the rescue of my sisters and me, when she took the chicken/rooster my mother ended up with after one of the kids brought it home from the fair. It was cute at first, of course, and Mom’s plan was to have eggs. Having chickens in town was against city ordinance, of course, but Mom didn’t think anyone would know, since it was just one chicken. Then it started crowing, much to the embarrassment of all the rest of the family. Finally Mom gave up and admitted that it was indeed a rooster. Then she had to figure out what to do with it. Aunt Dixie saved the day by adopting the rooster. 
Now, I’m sure he became fried chicken or chicken soup, but there are worse things in life…like having to listen to that rooster crowing every morning.
Aunt Dixie loves kids…especially her grandchildren. She has 5 grandsons, and then…finally, three short years ago, she received the granddaughter she had longed for. Now her life is complete…at least until the great grandbabies start coming, but that’s another story. Today is Aunt Dixie’s birthday!! Happy birthday Aunt Dixie!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My dad was always a cowboy at heart. In his younger days, he rode horses, worked on the family farm, and did all the other cowboy type things. He listened to country music, and liked old westerns on television, or attend the rodeo. But, the one thing that that, in my opinion showed his cowboy style the best, was the cowboy hat that he so often wore. You almost never saw him in any other hat on vacation, and he wore it if they went someplace that it would fit in for. I’m quite sure he hated not being able to wear it to the places that it just wasn’t appropriate.
Dad always took such good care of his hat, and you could always tell that he was one of the good guys, because his hat was always white, and of course, the good guys in any old western, wore a white hat. I suppose that was like the football teams of today. If all the helmets looked alike, how would you know which team was yours. So we always knew that Dad was a good guy, because he wore a white hat.
Oh, Dad had other hats too, and in fact I can vividly see him is one of the many baseball type hats he had, and of course, there was the hat that was a tool of his trade…the hard hat. I clearly remember him in those, but I never felt like they fit his personality like the cowboy hat did. Dad was always the guy I thought of when someone said cowboy. He wore the Bolo ties, and the western belt and vest, and what cowboy would be complete without the cowboy boots, but none of that said cowboy as much as the cowboy hat.
When I think of my dad, I have to say that one of my favorite pictures is of Dad on a horse with his white cowboy hat. He was doing one of his favorite things…taking his family on a vacation. They had taken a horseback ride on a trail, and Dad looked so happy. He was in his element, in the mountains on vacation, and riding a horse. Just what a cowboy would want to be doing.
I never got the chance to get to know my grandmother, my dad’s mom, but I have heard so many great things about her. She was such a strong woman, running a farm, much of the time with just the help of her children, and carrying on the day to day workload that it takes to run a family and get all the kids headed out for school and such. She was not a big woman, as the size of this dress told me, and yet, she has always seemed larger in my mind, because of her capabilities. The dress shows that she was maybe a little taller than I am, and slender. I had noticed that too, in other pictures, but she also had to have been very strong, to carry the load of the work and home 
responsibilities that she did. I’m sure it was the size of the work that she did, and not the size of the woman, that made me think she had to have been a bigger woman that she really was.
My grandmother’s parents immigrated to the Unite States from Germany in the years before she was born. I’m sure that many of the traditions for Germany came along with them too, and I know that my dad’s grandma spoke much German or a combination of English and German to my dad when he was little, including “So, du bist a ocha man” which would translate to “So, now you are a big man” when he fell after rocking back too far in his chair at the kitchen table. I have to wonder what other traditions were passed from parents to daughter.
One thing that I’m sure was passed along was a good work ethic. My grandmother was a very hard working woman, who was really nothing like the frilly, lacey wedding dress that she 
wore on her wedding day. The dress, while beautiful, was soon replaced by the everyday work dresses of a woman with a pioneer spirit and the strength to do what needed to be done to make a living on a farm. Of course, I suppose there are very few of us who would wear clothing during our marriage that would be anything similar to the gown we would choose to wear for our wedding day. Still, I think that the gown we choose for our wedding day does depict the type of woman we are…at least at the time. People change as they mature, and life events play a huge part in that change. I’m sure that my grandmother rose to the occasions in her life to become the strong woman I have heard about all my life.
Every once in a while, you find a person who seems to be living in the wrong time. My Aunt Ruth always seemed like that to me. Don’t get me wrong, she functioned very well in the time she lived in, but her true calling was always in the wild. She thrived on it. She was at home the most when she was out in the woods and especially with her beloved animals. She loved the land, and everything that went with it. She probably should have lived in the old west, when the pioneers were making their way to the wide open spaces where they could get land.
Sure, she did just fine when she lived in the cities too, but her heart always seemed to yearn for the land. She reminded me of the women of the west, for whom the land seemed to almost run in their veins. It was a part of them and they 
were a part of it. When her family moved to the mountains of Washington, she finally found the place of her heart.
When my Aunt Ruth was a girl, her family spent a lot of time at the family farm, when her mother taught her to garden and cook and live off the land. And all of her beloved animals where there too, and she loved them all. Animals of all kinds. She had several dogs that always seemed to hang around her, because animals can tell if you have a kind heart. She was a natural on a horse, and was able to ride like a pro, of course, again, the horses knew that she was the kind of person they wanted to be around. They loved her as much as she loved them.
There are people who seem to be living in the wrong time. They love everything about a 
past era, and they seem to be so suited for a different time. And yet, here they are, in this time and this place, because what era we are born in is simply not our choice. And maybe they don’t even think about the fact that they seem more suited to another era, but it is something that can be obvious to those around them. That is how my Aunt Ruth always appeared to me. I had never known someone who so loved the land…the woods…the animals…gardening, growing things out of her precious earth. But that was my Aunt Ruth…a beautiful face, a loving heart, in an era where she seemed a bit out of place, because she was more of a pioneer spirit. And that is what she will always be to me.
I came across an old friend on Facebook today…one for whom I had been searching a very long time. It was a relief really, to finally find her. Even though I am still waiting for her to respond to my friend request, I feel like I have to write a little bit about what a wonderful person she was…and what a great family she had. Very rarely could a friend spend the night and have the sisters and the friends get along too, but that is what Gale, her sisters, Lynne, Lea Ann, Michelle, and I did. When I would spend the night at her house, Gale, her sisters and I would have so much fun. They lived out in the country, and actually had two houses. The main house, and the little house where all the girls slept. It was an unusual arrangement, I know, but the girls were all old enough for it to work, and all were good girls.
They had, as I recall, chickens, pigs, cows, and horses on their little farm, and I would help out with the chores when I was there…something I found fun and interesting, but I’m sure that Gale and her sisters would disagree with me on that one. We would ride horses, and lots of other fun things that I couldn’t do living in town, so going to Gale’s family’s place was always a favorite thing to do in my book. I do remember a couple of bad things too…well not real bad, but I remember a time that Gale was riding a horse, and she was heading back into the coral, and the horse was in a hurry I guess, so he got a little too close to the fence, and ran Gale’s leg into the fence. I don’t recall if it bled or not, but it wasn’t broken. I just remember being real scared for my friend right then. Another thing that happened was that one of the cows was in a hurry to eat, and he stepped on my foot trying to get into the barn. Good thing it was a calf and the area was a little muddy. My foot sank into the mud and wasn’t hurt to badly. I don’t even think I ever told Gale that it happened, but I sure remember it. Not my last encounter with a hungry cow, as those who have read my blog for a while can attest. I seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time where cows are concerned. It’s probably best that I don’t spend time around them anymore, lol.
The evenings in the little house were probably the most fun, however. We would watch movies and eat popcorn, and when we would hear the phone ring, then the real fun would begin. You see they had a party line. Now I’m sure most of you don’t even know what that is, but they were somewhat common back then. A party line is when several families share the same line. The odd thing about this is that you can pick up the phone during a conversation…provided you can do it quietly…and listen in on the conversation. And that is exactly what we did. Sometimes it was pretty boring, but sometimes you would hear a boyfriend/girlfriend conversation, and then…well, it could get interesting. After a while, we couldn’t stop laughing, and that would end the eavesdropping for that call. The people talking would start yelling at us to get off…right now!!! And so we did, but we laughed about it the rest of the night. I’ll never forget the great fun I had with Gale and I can’t wait to re-connect with her and her family again…hopefully soon.
When my dad was a boy, he and his family, including his sisters Laura and Ruth, and his brother Bill, lived on a farm in the Great Lakes Region. The winters were bitterly cold, and long. The snow got deep, and you only went places if you had to. This didn’t stop the kids from getting out and playing in the snow, which is typical. Bundled up warmly, their big sister takes the boys outside to pull them on their sled for a while. I’m sure the free time that provided to their mother, who had been cooped up with these bored children, was a blessing.
Living on a farm back then, the kids needed a good imagination to entertain themselves, because there were no video games to play with. Kids had to make their own fun, and my dad and his brother were very imaginative. What began with two sweetly innocent little boys, would soon graduate to the pranks and antics 
of boys with big ideas. Once summer arrived, the possibilities were endless. From setting off dynamite on the forth of July at daybreak…a prank that makes me wonder how many times their mom wanted to throttle them, to sneaking out by the river with buddies to cool off and maybe try their hand at smoking. You put a group of boys together on a summer day with nothing much to do, and they will be sure to come up with something…a thought that makes me cringe.
Of course, there were the chores too, and my dad and his brother were never real troublemakers, just typical boys.The did use the dynamite to work the place too. The would blow tree stumps out of ground that was needed for some other uses, and they fixed fences and gate posts…sometimes after the sunk the post into the ground with one of their dynamite adventures. They took care of the family pets, and other such chores, like cutting and stacking wood. 
But they always found time to play, and of course ride the horses…a mode of travel that was far more common to that era that this one. My Aunt Ruth, however, was the one who seemed to me anyway to be the one to thrive on the horses. She can be seen in many of the old pictures riding a horse or in a wagon hitched to two horses, to take her to a quiet place where she could sit and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun.
That was just a different time and place, when life wasn’t so fast paced. When people worked hard, and then took time out to relax and enjoy the beauty of the country they lived it. It was simply life on the farm.
