In my older age after watching some of todays modern equipment I find myself swapping farm stories as a kid growing up in the 60's on a small dairy farm. Some of them I often bring up is spreading manure in the winter time with the freezing cold nasty wind blowing manure back at me (never had a tractor with a cab) and combining oats and the oat dust blowing back at me and being itchy as all get out for the entire day. I can also add things like being sun burned and tanned by mid May, cleaning gutters by hand, caught behind a cow with diarrhea, getting caught in the rain while chopping grass for the cows, picking rocks by hand, carrying 100 lb bags of feed all over the place, lots of 80lb fertilizer bags and enough other stuff to write a book. Can't figure out how I ever thought that was a good life (but it was).
- Thread starter Charlie M
- Start date
I agree with you Charlie,,I was doing the same thing here in Ohio back in the 60's, we were carrying feed buckets as soon as we were tall to get them off the ground..Chores before we got on the bus..chores as soon as we got home,,and we did it all with no complaints, it was just what we had to do.
johnyquest69
Member
Absolutely! I grew up in the 70's and 80's but had older parents and it made a difference. Probably spoiled in both your eyes but learned about work...and grew to love it!
Our baler did not like to tie the knot on all the bales so I rode the left twine box (right handed) and my older brother rode the right box, (left handed) give the string a yank. If the knot failed, tie it before it got to the tension bar. Worst we got was when hay was in short supply so we baled the soybean straw. I still itch thinking about that.
We milked up to about 65 or so, 2 at a time. Every day, before school and after, feed the cows and pigs. In sickness and in health. Never had a vacation until I went in the Air Force.
We had one of the earliest Cub Cadets. One year we got a late, wet start to the corn and beans. Dad was getting behind cultivating the weeds so I took the Cub Cadet with 1 row cultivator and started on the soybeans. First dad thought we were crazy but did not stop me. When he told the parts man at the IH dealer what was going on, we got an audience with cameras.
I could go on with memories, some good, some not so good.
We milked up to about 65 or so, 2 at a time. Every day, before school and after, feed the cows and pigs. In sickness and in health. Never had a vacation until I went in the Air Force.
We had one of the earliest Cub Cadets. One year we got a late, wet start to the corn and beans. Dad was getting behind cultivating the weeds so I took the Cub Cadet with 1 row cultivator and started on the soybeans. First dad thought we were crazy but did not stop me. When he told the parts man at the IH dealer what was going on, we got an audience with cameras.
I could go on with memories, some good, some not so good.
Done lots of that stuff too and I'm probably 20 yrs younger than you may be? The only part I hated was shovelling grain inside the tank for an afternoon and the dirt would make me sick,Dad would always make me wear a mask but once it plugged and your gasping for air it soon got flung out the door lol
gtractorfan
Well-known Member
You mentioned hauling manure in the winter time. Dad made a cab for the Farmall H, closed in all sides but the back, and it was cozy hauling manure in the winter with the new John Deere pto spreader. Another memory is pulling hopper wagons of ear corn through the woods path in the dark. I keep saying, it's too bad not many young ones get to experience the things we did.
K Effective
Well-known Member
We were part-time farmers, Grandpa was already retired from his store when I was born, so he farmed at a leisurely pace. IF work really needed done, it was Saturday when Dad was off work, except hay time, when we would wait for Dad to get off at 4:30.
I remember a couple of families of kids who would get off school to help with grain harvest, probably as early as third grade? Never me, of course. Most folks around here are fruit farmers, done by the time school started.
Biggest job was shoveling ear corn from the crib into the 64 F-100, get three bags of oats from the bin in the granary, and going to Baroda to get it ground at the mill. Add some molasses for the girls, and don't forget your empty bags.
I remember a couple of families of kids who would get off school to help with grain harvest, probably as early as third grade? Never me, of course. Most folks around here are fruit farmers, done by the time school started.
Biggest job was shoveling ear corn from the crib into the 64 F-100, get three bags of oats from the bin in the granary, and going to Baroda to get it ground at the mill. Add some molasses for the girls, and don't forget your empty bags.
olgentdc
Well-known Member
said this elsewhere ,. My earliest memories of my mother and dad and sisters milking the cows , the smell of baking bread , playing with my sister and brother behind the stove.... playing in the creeks , shelling popcorn with my sisters and bagging it for sales and Christmas gifts ,my dad getting a new Massey 35 DEluxe ,the new holland 68 baler being dropped off by the dealer in his green pikup.2 of my sisters getting prom queen and my mother so proud she cried..waiting for the scholl bus and thinkin as a little kid that everyone just rode around all day and learned to read while riding the bus.. my 1st time driving a SC CASE pikin hay,. the oHIO river flood that took the lives of my 2 teenaged older cousins that i was very close with ,they had fed the stock on the mainland .hyperthermia got them when their boat took on water after they snagged the prop in fence wiere .. i was their little buddie and i just could not understand that they were Not Living anymore.. they were so full of Life and lived it LARGE
37chief
Well-known Member
- Location
- California
lots of memories. Grandma had an ice box, the ice man came around about every week or so. We would try and talk him out of a piece of ice. Before the auto tie bailers, the wires were poked through a divider block to a guy on the other side who would tie the wire. Very dusty. Later on Dad would borrow the neighbors New Holland auto tie bailer. It would be stationary. Dad would bring the shocks of hay near the feed side, with his buck rake mounted to his F12. I would pitch hay until I thought my arm would fall off. It's a wonder one of us never fell in to the feed pickups. I can almost hear the 4 cylinder Wisconson motor rev up as a big charge of hay was pitched in. Hoeing beans down a few rows, get to the end and back again. There was a lot of better things I cold have been doing, but Dad didn't think so. When Dad delivered hay I was brought along to drag bales while he stacked them. Seams it was never cool. As bad as I thought some of it was I would to it again tomorrow if I could. Stan
I remember all those things, fortunately we only had one small field of rocks. About my least favorite job was green chopping twice a day rain or shine, open gate/ pull tractor through/ close gate/ hook up wagon and reverse process then at the chopper unhook wagon/hook up chopper/ then wagon/ chop a wagon load/ reverse process and back to the barn yard and if you were lucky 10 or 15 cows didn't make a break for it while driving through the gate. When I was about 15 I tried to stream line the process with a rope to the drawbar pin on the tractor and on the chopper I had 3 or4 fence insulators down the pto shield and up the pipe with a rope from the tractor to the wagon pin. Copied that idea off of something I seen somewhere. Brother told me I was gonna screw around and loose a wagon which is exactly what happed eventually, pulled the pin on a loaded wagon and it didn't stay put, surprising how much speed a run away wagon can pick up before going of a ditch bank backwards.
At the time I was growing up was thinking how much fun the kids in town were having. Looking back would not trade it for the world. Barely remember fixing fence and dad had the team of horses hooked to the box wagon. Dad taking the wheels off and greased the axles with Black Sambo grease.Then remember dad taking the wooden wheels off and putting car front axles under the front and rear. He put a seat on the back of the IH lister. Had to ride back there and make shore it was planting alright, Then add fertilizer boxes the the lister. Then dad telling mom, could get more planting done if didn't have to stop and fill them fertilizer boxes. Could not get out of the house fast enough when dad would say. Go get the tractor out of the shed and fill it up with gas and then hook it up to what ever we was going to use that day.
I was young, probably around 10 when I started driving a tractor baling hay. It was a Massey Ferguson MF35 with a Perkins Diesel pulling a New Holland 68 baler with a 2 cylinder Wisconsin engine. I can still hear the sound in my head of that engine working hard on a heavy windrow, especially when pushing hard trying to beat the rain!
I don't think there was a hotter place on earth than driving that old 71 Ford 600 with a hay loader on the side driving around the field picking up bales while my dad was stacking. Couldn't wait to be done so I could get out of that truck just so I might get just the slightest amount of a breeze as it blew by. It was a happy day with my endless begging dad finally bought a small dash mounted fan for the old truck.
When I was in my teens I remember working in the hayfield seeing the beautiful girl next door outside and not being able to stand the wait till I was done with the work day so she and I take a cool plunge into our favorite swimming hole. At times I wandered what she saw in me covered in dirt and dust from head to toe, but I will say she loved her farm boy. Those memories have faded, a lot of good times and bad but I wouldn't trade any of them for the world!
I don't think there was a hotter place on earth than driving that old 71 Ford 600 with a hay loader on the side driving around the field picking up bales while my dad was stacking. Couldn't wait to be done so I could get out of that truck just so I might get just the slightest amount of a breeze as it blew by. It was a happy day with my endless begging dad finally bought a small dash mounted fan for the old truck.
When I was in my teens I remember working in the hayfield seeing the beautiful girl next door outside and not being able to stand the wait till I was done with the work day so she and I take a cool plunge into our favorite swimming hole. At times I wandered what she saw in me covered in dirt and dust from head to toe, but I will say she loved her farm boy. Those memories have faded, a lot of good times and bad but I wouldn't trade any of them for the world!
We did not have frozen ground to contend with but plenty of water and mud in the wintertime. As kids, we did most all of the farm work but at the same time we somehow had time for fun, fishing, swimming in the creek or river, hunting, camping out, showing livestock in 4-H. I would not trade a minute of my childhood, learned to work, learned to think, learned to put the welfare of livestock above my own immediate needs, learned that a man does all of these things and more for his family.
Traditional Farmer
Well-known Member
- Location
- Virginia
Being out in the Sun,no cab on the tractors,handling 100 lb sacks of feed,picking up rocks by hand sounds like what I did this past week.Ain't no big deal just doing what needs doing.
Bruce from Can.
Well-known Member
- Location
- Woodville, Ontario, Canada
Up until 1970, we still barn threshed,and traded work with a neighbour, those meal time memories are with me still. Started milking the cows with surge bucket milkers and carrying the milk in pails to the bulk tank at 13 . I could barley lift a milker full of milk out from under a cow then .And changing the straps on to the next cow , also a thing of the past. Much of what I did as a kid , I still do today , cows to be milked , pipe line now, gutters to clean , still have 11 cows that have to be cleaned out by hand , and still some silage that has to be forked. Guess I am still living my childhood , in my late 50's. When I grow up , I am gone to do things different !! Bruce
Geo-TH,In
Well-known Member
Charlie,
I too grew up on a dairy farm, 50-60s. We squeezed, pasteurized, bottled and delivered milk.
Didn't take long to learn you need to point the tractor into the wind before turning the manure spreader on.
Couldn't spread froze poo, so we piled it in winter, spread it in the spring.
By the time I graduated High School, I had a PhD degree. I could Pile it Higher and Deeper. And knew the right way to spread it. Valuable life lesson, don't you think?
I too grew up on a dairy farm, 50-60s. We squeezed, pasteurized, bottled and delivered milk.
Didn't take long to learn you need to point the tractor into the wind before turning the manure spreader on.
Couldn't spread froze poo, so we piled it in winter, spread it in the spring.
By the time I graduated High School, I had a PhD degree. I could Pile it Higher and Deeper. And knew the right way to spread it. Valuable life lesson, don't you think?
Goose
Well-known Member
When I was a kid, we had the fortune of farming a mile and a half from a grain elevator. I was hauling grain to the elevator with an old farm truck when I was 12. If there were ever any law officers around, they must have looked the other way.
My dad had a cousin who farmed a few miles from us. He was also an alcoholic and had bottles stashed in every building on the farm. The cousin had a son, "Bob". One spring when Bob was 17 and I was 13, he and I were planting corn with a horse drawn, 2 row lister that had the tongue cut off to pull behind a tractor. Between Bob and I, one of us had to drive the tractor and the other ride the lister to raise and lower it on the ends. One afternoon, we got into a bottle of booze Bob's dad had hidden in the machine shed, and then went out and planted corn for the rest of the afternoon.
Next morning, we were scared to go out into the field and see what kind of rows we'd made the previous afternoon. Turned out they were as straight as if we'd strung every one with a string.
Kids did grow up fast in those days. Most kids left the nest right after graduating from high school. The girls got married and the boys struck out on their own. In fact, if a boy was still living at home after age 19 or 20, the neighbors wondered what was wrong.
My dad had a cousin who farmed a few miles from us. He was also an alcoholic and had bottles stashed in every building on the farm. The cousin had a son, "Bob". One spring when Bob was 17 and I was 13, he and I were planting corn with a horse drawn, 2 row lister that had the tongue cut off to pull behind a tractor. Between Bob and I, one of us had to drive the tractor and the other ride the lister to raise and lower it on the ends. One afternoon, we got into a bottle of booze Bob's dad had hidden in the machine shed, and then went out and planted corn for the rest of the afternoon.
Next morning, we were scared to go out into the field and see what kind of rows we'd made the previous afternoon. Turned out they were as straight as if we'd strung every one with a string.
Kids did grow up fast in those days. Most kids left the nest right after graduating from high school. The girls got married and the boys struck out on their own. In fact, if a boy was still living at home after age 19 or 20, the neighbors wondered what was wrong.
MARK ROBKE
Well-known Member
I too,was raised on a dairy farm;we only milked about 20 head ,but Dad made a living at it.We also had a dairy store on the end of the house,and sold milk eggs,bread,pop,and ice cream.Since we were the only farm around,and had tractors,we did a lot of outside work.We plowed gardens,baled hay,bush hogged,and finished yards(we were surrounded by older,slow growing suburbia) and sowed them.We even plowed snow sometimes! When I was 13 we had to tear down the barns and move them,due to highway construction.So Dad switched to beef-I did not miss milking,but Dad did.We were always busy working,doing something.And I do miss it now,but unfortunately it is all gone-the farm was sold to developers. I have my own small farm now,but it's not the same.Mark
Bruce from Can.
Well-known Member
- Location
- Woodville, Ontario, Canada
Barn threshing to us meant , you pushed the threshing machine on to the barn floor, and brought the sheaves in from the field , were they were stooked . The grain from the thresher would go directly into the grain bin in the barn . And the straw was blown on top of the hay mow. Some folks would thresh their grain outside , and make a big straw stack, and the grain had to be hauled away. The way my Dad did it, you never handled the straw or the grain, just the sheaves. Bruce
We had those units too,still have one as a keep sake. 4 of them and a step saver. The straps were hung off 2 spikes and when you started milking you'd start out with all 8 draping off your head and put them on. If they were fastened that meant you already washed the cow so you wouldn't forget if you did or not. I'm not quite old enough to say I milked with the pail units but I do remember them being used her. We went to the Surge breaker cup type after that with VSO's when we put the pipe line in still using the straps. Up till 10 yrs ago we had 8 tied up we cleaned with the wheel barrow too,5 wheel barrows/day to be exact lol. Fed all the silage with a wheel barrow till the early 90's and you forked and hauled the leftovers away first. All the cows grain went out with a wheel barrow too after you shovelled it and we had a weigh scoop,that thing was hard on the wrist.
I echo what everyone else said about small dairy farming. One thing that sticks out in my mind is working in hay mow stacking heavy first cutting hay high up in bank barn under hot tin roof. Then when we finished and before we went back for another load we stopped in milk house, lifted a 10 gallon can of milk out of the cooler,popped the lid, pored out about quart of pure cream into the lid and drank it down. Better than ice cream!
I can echo what LAA, another Louisianian, said. We didn't often have to contend with ice, snow and frozen manure, but....mud! The thing I hated most was when the cows came into the parlor after walking in knee-deep mud; their udders were caked with it and it took forever to get them clean.
I didn't enjoy working in our dairy at the time, but I didn't hate it either. Now I'm glad I was raised to work.
I didn't enjoy working in our dairy at the time, but I didn't hate it either. Now I'm glad I was raised to work.
Crazy Horse
Well-known Member
When I was a youngster, no such things as snack food at home. So what was a treat then for me from my mother? About a half dozen soda crackers with mustard spread on the top. Go out back behind the house on the sunny side, sit down in the dirt and eat those special treats. Man, things were great back in the day!! Can you imagine giving that to a young one these days? They'd think you had lost your marbles.
I milked cows for 15 years after I got done with aggie college. I was milking one time and my 4-year-old daughter was in front of the cows in the feed alley. She got too close to a cow that hooked a horn thru her sleeve. The scared cow tried to throw her off shaking her head and sent her into the air. I was between the cows in time to catch her as she came flying back past me. No harm done, luckily. Just a scared kid.
We had a jalopy we picked up the loose hay on and also pulled the old horse rake with it. I didn"t learn to drive it til I was 14. A neighbor older kid taught me. I used to hand load and spread manure just so I could drive it. At 20 cents a gallon gas couldn"t be wasted. My father couldn"t be bothered, quicker to do stuff himself. We got a "real" tractor, a MH Pony when I was 16.
We had a jalopy we picked up the loose hay on and also pulled the old horse rake with it. I didn"t learn to drive it til I was 14. A neighbor older kid taught me. I used to hand load and spread manure just so I could drive it. At 20 cents a gallon gas couldn"t be wasted. My father couldn"t be bothered, quicker to do stuff himself. We got a "real" tractor, a MH Pony when I was 16.
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