Some miscellaneous memories of the farm:
There were several kids around all the time. I mentioned Alvin (Floyd’s brother) who had kids. Floyd also had a sister named Beatrice. Her husband was Kenneth and he was a Chemical Engineer. I was so impressed by Uncle Ken. Ken would go off and work in Saudi Arabia for a year or more at a time. For some reason, he liked me and we always got along really good. His daughter Sharon (who was my cousin) was about my age and we did a lot together. She was probably my first crush. Well, maybe not the first. So, it was not unusual for several of us kids to be on a wagon going somewhere to pick up a load of something. I can picture us travelling through the back roads of the countryside with several of us kids on the wagon. What I did during these trips was to tell stories to the other kids. I don’t really remember any of the stories, but I think they were variations on the Freddy the Pig stories I read when I was sick. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and I think that was the beginning of that desire. Too bad, I never did anything with it.
Another thing I remember from the farm is being stung by a wasp. Not an earth shaking event, but just something I remember and that’s the purpose of this blog. One of my jobs was to clean out the barn after the cows were milked. You had to hook up a manure spreader onto the back of the tractor and then back the whole thing into the barn where the cows had stood when they were milked. The cows were gone now, all that was left was the manure. So I would back the spreader into the barn and then get a shovel and spend the next half-hour picking up the manure and throwing it into the spreader. Once it was all picked up or the spreader was full, you drove out to a field and “spread” it. The spreader had these spike like things in the back that rotated round and round and it would throw the manure out onto the ground. There was a conveaor belt in the spreader which moved the manure towards the back until it was all thrown out.
The spreader had a tongue on the end of it that connects to the tractor. To actually connect the two, you have to back up the tractor until it was touching the spreader tongue and then get off the tractor and lift up the tongue and hook it to the little ball on the tractor. Sort of like hooking up a trailer to a car or truck. Anyway, when I went to grap the tongue, there was a wasp under it and he didn’t like being grabbed. He stung me in the hand and then flew away. I’ve heard that wasps die when they sting someone, I don’t know, but I hope so. My hand swelled up and I couldn’t use it for several days. After that I always looked before I took hold of the spreader or a wagon tongue.
Yes, memories are great.
Dad