My story and my sentiments are similar to Leonard’s. During the war Dad was a welder in a trailer manufacturing plant. In 1947 we moved to the old family home place (both Mom’s and Dad’s ---they were across the road from each other, and each had inherited a part. Mom got the old house because Grandma was still alive it was agreed we would live together.
They began to plan how they could live off the land and decided on dairying. They bought land parcels from brothers and sisters who had moved away, winding up with 220 acres. Dad built a milking barn and pens; he bought equipment and a herd. He hand-dug a new well (the dairy barn had running water for years before the house did). They financed it all through the Farm Home Administration, and that $90 monthly note was huge.
We relied on a truck patch that Dad at first plowed with a mule, before the 8N. We grew lots of peas and butterbeans, plus the standard garden fare. Before the freezer, Mom canned (actual cans). Fortunately we all liked liked greens, because in the south they grow just about year round. We raised lots of peanuts. We had hogs, chickens and turkeys, and there was always a bull calf to fatten for beef. The pond and the creeks provided fish and bullfrogs, and Dad, an excellent hunter, brought home lots of squirrels and quail. Any duck or goose that landed in sight of the house went into the pot. There were no deer then. We ate rabbits and doves. We picked berries and plums in the spring, and watermelons and cantaloupe. We had peach, pear and pecan trees. Dad had a hive of bees. One year we even made syrup in my granddad’s old mill.
We only went to town once a week (Saturday) and staples (flour, meal, salt, etc.,) were about the only foodstuffs we got at the store. We had our own eggs, rendered our own lard, and of course produced our own milk and churned our own butter . One thing we did buy in quantity was tins of sardines—we loved ‘em, they only cost about a dime, so a can or two was supper many a night. Sometimes Vienna sausage. We had fried hot water cornbread at almost every meal.
To supplement our income Mom did the usual butter and egg thing, as well as to go back to school and get re-certified as a teacher, and Dad, my brother and I cut stick pulpwood on our place. Dad also hired out his welding and carpentry skills. My aunt sewed my shirts from feedsacks, and I wore my brother’s hand-me-down jeans and overhauls.
Funny thing, for the longest time I didn’t even know we were poor. Thankfully, parents lived long enough to enjoy some wealth, thanks to what was under their land.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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