Life on the frozen Northern Prairie
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I won't watch'em on tv...much less pay to go see'em...lol
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I pray y'all to winter well and be safe.....
I recall some rough winters. When the wife and I married 50 years ago,
the water line from the well house to the kitchen would freeze before Christmas and it would be Easter before it thaw'd up.
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I recall some rough winters. When the wife and I married 50 years ago,
the water line from the well house to the kitchen would freeze before Christmas and it would be Easter before it thaw'd up.
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Well my opinion after living in New England for 40 years and putting up with what you folks are it was time for a change of scenery. I was not trying to be a democrat but just figured a little levity could not hurt. Be safe and enjoy your global warming.
Say mr.2 feathers, I grew up a state line north of you. I remember the battles keeping water running and sewers flowing, and calves born out in -20. But the part of your story that rattled me most was the Barley beards. DAMN I'm sitting in my easy chair itching just thinking about harvesting, thrashing and nobody ever heard of a combine with a cab on it. If it wouldn't been for the beer drinkers keeping a good market for barley we would not have had a square foot of it.
I hope you make it through the cold all safe and sound.
I hope you make it through the cold all safe and sound.
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Yeah Johnny C , where about
did you grow up. I’m on the eastern edge of the Red River valley where the forest meets the prairie. Pretty much 50 miles straight west of Fargo .
I remember that itch also from barley. As a youngster 6-7 years old combines weren’t being used yet. I got in on the tail end of the thrashing operations. Which meant that I had to help shock the barley. When we thrashed my job was to make sure the water pail was kept full of cold water for the help. When I was about 10 years old I got to help load bundles. Loading bundles back then was a “right of passage”. You were becoming a man then. I was pretty excited about that. I only loaded bundles a couple years and then we got a swather and a C6 case combine, it was pulled by the tractor. Like you I vividly remember the itching. When we were done for the day, after a bath, you would still itch. Mom bought lotion in quart bottles from the Watkins man, and we rubbed that on so we could get relief from the itching and go to sleep at night. Today with the new combines and the cab is like your living room , because you spend a good share of the fall in it. It’s dust free, you don’t get any dust on you and you don’t have breath any of it either.
Do you remember plowing in the fall. We had heat housers on the tractor and and we wore big heavy sheep skin coats with big collars, chromer caps and chopper mittens with wool
liners. We plowed 16 hours a day till it froze up. 4-16 bottom plows. My Granpa was old then, and doing that fall work, it was pretty hard on him. He could do it any more. With today’s equipment he could have.
Today with the new 400 hp tractors and the environmental cabs pulling a 40 ft chisel plow it don’t take me very long to turn a 1/4 section black.
Farming today is a totally different operation from 40 years ago.
did you grow up. I’m on the eastern edge of the Red River valley where the forest meets the prairie. Pretty much 50 miles straight west of Fargo .
I remember that itch also from barley. As a youngster 6-7 years old combines weren’t being used yet. I got in on the tail end of the thrashing operations. Which meant that I had to help shock the barley. When we thrashed my job was to make sure the water pail was kept full of cold water for the help. When I was about 10 years old I got to help load bundles. Loading bundles back then was a “right of passage”. You were becoming a man then. I was pretty excited about that. I only loaded bundles a couple years and then we got a swather and a C6 case combine, it was pulled by the tractor. Like you I vividly remember the itching. When we were done for the day, after a bath, you would still itch. Mom bought lotion in quart bottles from the Watkins man, and we rubbed that on so we could get relief from the itching and go to sleep at night. Today with the new combines and the cab is like your living room , because you spend a good share of the fall in it. It’s dust free, you don’t get any dust on you and you don’t have breath any of it either.
Do you remember plowing in the fall. We had heat housers on the tractor and and we wore big heavy sheep skin coats with big collars, chromer caps and chopper mittens with wool
liners. We plowed 16 hours a day till it froze up. 4-16 bottom plows. My Granpa was old then, and doing that fall work, it was pretty hard on him. He could do it any more. With today’s equipment he could have.
Today with the new 400 hp tractors and the environmental cabs pulling a 40 ft chisel plow it don’t take me very long to turn a 1/4 section black.
Farming today is a totally different operation from 40 years ago.
I have no barley experience but when working on the family farm, Mom's side in the summers as a teen, the oat dust would eat me up. I would GG ave to shovel around the corners of an old, old granary design. I would wear long sleeved shirt buttoned to the neck. When hay baling string ties, I would unbutton the top button. Same for wheat or oat straw. Wool, oat dust and the hay rubbing my arms were the only things that would bother me.
It seems odd, only having sensitivity for those three things. Nothing like your barley though. A good bath was all I needed.
It seems odd, only having sensitivity for those three things. Nothing like your barley though. A good bath was all I needed.
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