Memories of growing up on the farmstead where my husband and I still live.

Life on the Farmstead

My Life: Growing Up on the Homestead
Not everyone is as privileged as I am. I still live on the farmstead where I came as toddler. Here I only need a quiet moment to see myself as a happy child playing about the yard and buildings. Many yearn to return to their childhood home, mine surrounds me.
My earliest memory is sitting on a rock in front of the barn and playing with a make believe miniature village with houses made of mower teeth and stick soldiers. I remember I had a make believe playmate I named Mert that battled in war games with me. I often pleaded with my parents to buy me a cap gun like my neighbor friends had to shoot the enemies. It never happened. World War II had a definite influence on my childhood games.
I was about the same age when something special happened once a year. No child who has lived the experience of seeing and hearing that giant threshing machine pulled by a puffing steam engine will ever forget it. The harmonious sounds of the chugging thresher and snorting engine are still very much in my memories. I can still see the neighbor men arriving with their teams and wagons. The ladies helped my Mother cook a special dinner that would-although never a spoken word said so-out do all other meals served. I can smell the worker’s sweat, see them washing their faces in the pan on a bench and drying with feed sack cloth towels. A crew of men carried bags of wheat into the granary and up the stairs. I would sit in the bin and they would pore the grain over me. I liked that. It was a wonderful day.
I have only to enter the barn to see my mother milking the cows while Dad did other chores. I can see the horses, Fannie and Barney. I remember slipping them ears of corn and enjoying their chomping noises as they ate. Their noses felt so soft. Later there was another team, Sam and Bob. They were sold when they were of no more use. My father did not ask what would become of them.

I hear the business of the barn: the squeak of the hay wagon and hollow sound of horses hoofs as they walk across the wooden floor, the creak of that loaded hay fork as it struggles along the track of the barn, and rattle of impatient horses shaking their harness. I hear the sound of machinery: the slap of the drive belt as it powers the feed grinder, the pulsation’s of the tractor as each grain bundle is received into that noisy thresher or the corn shredder. I can hear the talk of horses, bellowing bulls, mooing cows crying for weaned calves, cats with kittens, and chickens clucking in nests in the hay. I definitely will not forget the hissing of geese as they chased me. They are sounds so alive and gratifying to my ears.
One of my jobs as a child was pulling the hay rope back. Of all the jobs my parents did I remember harvesting hay the most. My dad pitched hay to my mother who arranged it on the wagon. Later in the barn, she ran the hayfork while my father worked in the mow. ...The tractor driven by my sister pulled the rope that pulled the fork with the hay into the loft. I pulled it back. It always seemed to be very hot day.
Many of the chores I could not do because of a health condition. When I got old enough I cooked dinner while my parents worked in the fields. For some reason I especially remember cooking corn. Home grown corn from the freezer is still a favorite of mine.
I have many special little memories. My father had a special way of keeping the grass mowed. He would tie a calf in the yard. For years afterwards the lawn had special little patches where the grass grew especially high... I can remember playing in the haymow and on the straw stack. I can remember my father helping me learn to ride a bike.
I can say in all honestly I do not have one unpleasant memory from my youth. God gave me a very positive outlook on life and good parents. And a very special place to grow into adulthood. I say ‘thank you’ to him with every memory.