Tuesday August 24, 2004
Finally, some long overdue pictures.
A chalk drawing by Zane from earlier this month. It looks sort of like an angel to me.
To my parent’s farm a bit over a week ago
On the way out to the farm, we ran into a stretch of road where the blacktop was STEAMING! There was fog like steam rolling off the top of the roads. We couldn’t really get a great picture of it since the most dramatic areas were also the most dangerous to stop due to low visability, but it was really interesting.
Shelby & Zane
Zane picked up Shelby’s (black lab) toy (an old milk carton) and handed it to him. Shelby gingerly took it before running energetically and playing. It was so sweet to see how gentle Shelby was with him…all her energy contained when she was next to Zane. I still get a little nervous with dogs around him. I have never had a problem, but I know stuff can happen so incredibly fast with even the most gentle dogs.
Sandpile fun
Time to Eat!
Typical summer fare…burgers and chicken breasts on the grill with corn on the cob. We were getting such a kick out of dad. He kept explaining the best way to prepare corn. He never used to cook before mom worked…a big reason why I learned to cook at such an early age is because dad just didn’t cook. To hear him repeatedly telling people that “all you had to do is put it in the microwave for 3 minutes” was just so cute and sweet.
Playing with Grandma and Grandpa in the sandpile.
A day at the farm is not complete without a ride on the 4 wheeler with Grandpa
Grandpa and Zane exploring the workings of some antique farm equiptment.
I can’t remember the name of this one of the top of my head, but it is pulled behind a tractor and is essentially a giant rake. It pulls the hay into piles so the thresher can come by and pick up the hay to make bales. Dad hasn’t made hay bales since I was a kid, so this isn’t a peice that has been used in a while. The thing I remember the most from baling is the smell of the fields..it is a sweet and pungent smell. It is also a harvest that requires many hands to do well because you have to have somebody running the bailer, and people pulling the bales out and stacking them on the trailer. It is hot and itchy work.
Personally, I think the chalk drawing is a self-portrait!
About your dad’s cooking, When you were little and I had my big surgeries, he kept you at home, unless he went to your grandparents to work. If he stayed home, I guess you ate a lot of scrambled eggs and hot dogs. He didn’t do corn then.
Re: The hay rake, this is one my grandpa W. used. By the time we did haying everything was mechanized, pretty much. We even had a bale loader. There was an attachment behind the baler to put the bales into a certain order, in a square. The bale loader was an attachment on the front end of the tractor. They drove up to the bales, put the loader on top of the bales, throw a lever and a series of hooks came down into the bales, they lifted the bales up and drove to the trailer. They placed the bales next to the other bales and pulled the lever to withdraw the hooks, lifted the carrier off of the bales and went to the next bunch of bales.
Your dad was better at this than the other men in his family.He could stack the bales the with the most layers. Your brother was about 3 or 4 at this time and loved it. The main reason being that he was taught to drive the 4 wheel drive pickup (the same one we use now, Robin.)from one area of bales to the other. He couldn’t reach the PU pedels, (he sat on his knees to see over the steering wheel) so dad put the pu in 4 wheel ‘grandma’ (very slow) gear and he turned the engine off and on to stop and go. If he ever felt like he was in ‘trouble’ (too close to something, ran out of field before the turn, etc,) he was to just turn off the engine and we would help. Even back then he had a good sense of space. It was a huge field, so he couldn’t do too much damage.
He also used this driving skill early to help us lay down and pick up irrigation pipe. I don’t remember that he ever ran over anything. The pu was going slow enough that we could trot to catch up with it, if we needed to. He learned to drive when he ‘helped’ dad check the fields on the home place. NEVER on the road! It was very handy.
Our hay field was several miles W of your school town. The owners’ son ran one of the biggest homeless shelters/refuges (interfaith) in the city you are living in now. He even got on TV once in a while.
The sand we are playing on in the pix is from my home place, the place that my grandparents homesteaded. Your dad always stirs the sand with the township backhoe for Zane, when he knows you are coming. He smiles as he stirs it.
Thought you’d like to know.
mom
Love the photos, thanks for sharing. Especially that one of the “steaming.”
Um mom, that was ME that learned to drive like that in Robin. Steve might have also done that, but I did it too, and I am pretty sure I did it before he did it.