# Working On The Farm



## 911 (Jun 30, 2019)

A few months back, another fellow here on this forum and I were posting about when we worked on the farm "back in the day." Last evening as my wife and I were having dinner with another couple, I ran into the farmer's son, who I had worked for during my high school days and of course, we began reminiscing about the good old days down on the farm. We must have spoke for at least 20 minutes before our food came.

My friend's dad, who owned the farm had bought the farm next to his giving him over 4 or 5000 acres and a heck of  a lot of milking cows to boot. I keep forgetting the numbers, but it was a lot. We had a huge milking parlor, which one of my jobs was to clean it after the morning milking. Sometimes, if I worked late enough, I also had to clean the parlor again after the late afternoon milking. That's hard work for a 17 y/o kid. 

So, as we were talking last night, I asked him if he remembered the first time that I drove the tractor. As soon as I asked that, he broke into a big laugh. Well, after all, it was kind of funny, NOW! What happened was, we were going out to bale some of the hay. I was supposed to just pull the wagon as the other guys threw the bales up onto the wagon. Sounds simple enough, right? 

Well, we had just finished picking up God knows how many bales and the wagon was loaded to the max. I did good with driving the tractor my first time out, until I got about 50 yards from the barn. I didn't see the stinking groundhog hole until the last second. I swerved slightly and missed it with the tractor, but the dang wagon wheel found it and tipped it enough to spill at least half of the wagon. Now, you would think the other guys would take pity on the dumb kid, but NOOO. I had to reload the wagon all by my lonesome. By the time I had finished, I was totally exhausted when I was asked if I could stay later and clean the milking parlor after the milking was done. Back in those days, I was a greedy little dude, so, yeah, I stayed and picked a little extra money.

I think that's where the saying comes from, "You gotta' make hay when the sun is shining." Don't you think?


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## norman (Jul 22, 2019)

This really dates me, we loaded our cut hay on hay wagons (this was before mechanically hay balers) with pitch forks, you had to be good at this because if you didn't stack the hay correct or went to fast the entire load of loose hay would slide off the wagon and you would have to reload it.  When we got to the barn we had what was called a hay fork that we would stick in the hay on the wagon.  The fork was attached to heavy rope that was on pulleys that ran to inside top of the barn inside.  Two people would pull the fork with the hay into the barn loft to store inside to feed to the cows in the winter.  I think Amish still do it this way.    This lucky guy worked on a modern farm, but it was still hard work.  We also had work horses before we got a tractor and plow, disc, hay baler, manure spreader, hay mower, hay rake, two row corn planter etc, most of our machinery was purchased used.   And we milked cows by hand before  finally got electric milking machines.  I marvel when I see a 16 row corn planter planting 16 rows today, they cost  up to $250,000, our two row planter probably cost $300.  I really don't know how I survived,


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## 911 (Jul 23, 2019)

We had a lot of the more modern equipment for that time period. When I first started working on the farm, I was kind of nervous, lacked confidence and had no idea of how to do anything on the farm. So, I started out cleaning the milking parlor after the morning milking, then clean and refresh some of the stalls with clean straw, then who knows what? 

We had several different animals, even different breeds of cattle. The hogs were the worse. Cleaning out their pens was enough to make a person ill. There is nothing worse smelling than hog crap. We also had some cash crops that needed tending to like; tomatoes, potatoes and tobacco. 

After my first summer on the farm, I was glad that I did it, During the winter that followed, the owner bought the farm next to his property, which almost doubled everything. So, during the second summer, the owner did hire more hands, so that really helped, but I still got stuck with some of the same stinky jobs, which I never complained about. I did get to drive the tractor for some of the easy stuff we did and that was fun and work at the same. 

We had a few acres of potatoes and when it came time to harvest them, we did it by hand. We used a spading or pitch fork. By pushing the forks into the ground and turning over the soil, there are the taters. Pick them up, put them in baskets and the wagon would come buy and someone would dump them into the wagon. 

I think watching calves being born was educational. Seeing life begin was just very over-whelming. How often does a young person get the opportunity to view that? Working on the farm taught me a lot about life in general. Being around older men also taught me many things that I wouldn't have learned until later in life, so I got a head start about some things. Even though I was just a kid, they treated me like one of the guys for the most part. 

All in all, I was glad that I had the opportunity to work on the farm and glad that I accepted the challenge.


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## Pappy (Jul 23, 2019)

Although I could never do it now, I loved working on the farm when I was a teenager.  I had a similar experience as you 911, but after I disconnected the wagon full of hay, I climbed back on the J. Deere and thought I was in first gear, but I had put it in 4th or 5th and I took off like a shot. Before I could get it under control, I had tore up some fencing and damn near ran over a worker. 

Got a good talking to, but they let me continue to drive. Pitching bales was the hardest 50 cents an hour I ever made.
Also, my buddies hay loft was a great place to work on our cars.


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## 911 (Jul 23, 2019)

So, one day just after we had finished lunch, the owner, who was my friend’s dad, told all of us to just stay put for a few minutes. Then, he told us that his wife’s sister was killed the evening before in a car accident and he had to accompany his wife to New York, but he would come back for a few days and then go backup for the funeral. Farmers seldom get a vacation. 

The next day, the owner had already left for New York with his wife. Just about quitting time, I walked into the barn where we had the one sow in a separate pen because she was close to birthing. It was my job to check on her every hour up until I left for the day. I looked at Sally (good name for a sow, don’t you think?) and she was lying on her side grunting and I saw stuff coming out of her nose and mouth. So, I ran and got the boss. When he looked at Sally, he said “She’s stuck in labor. We need to call the vet.” It took the vet almost 45 minutes to show up and we could tell that Sally was really suffering. I felt really bad for her.

The vet put on a long clear glove and reached up her you know what to check on the piglets. He told us that a piglet was stuck in the birth canal. It took him maybe 3 or 4 minutes to get the piglet into position and pull it out. It was a male (boar). Once he had him out, the others followed pretty quickly. When Sally was done birthing, there were 13 piglets all totaled. Things ended well.


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## ronaldj (Jul 23, 2019)

I am right there with you, grew up on a dairy farm, putting up hay, milking, feeding calves the whole nine yards....four row planter, three bottom plow was the big one, most of the time two row plow. I tell everyone I love cows, I love to see them in a pasture field as I drive by, they are great memories and lots of stories.


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## norman (Jul 24, 2019)

ronaldj said:


> I am right there with you, grew up on a dairy farm, putting up hay, milking, feeding calves the whole nine yards....four row planter, three bottom plow was the big one, most of the time two row plow. I tell everyone I love cows, I love to see them in a pasture field as I drive by, they are great memories and lots of stories.


I understand, I love cows too..lol  Almost all of our cows had names and they had personalities, some were friendly and some would try to kick or butt you.  I can still remember when we stopped milking and sold the herd.  That was a sad day and I was just a kid.


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## 911 (Jul 24, 2019)

I liked cows the most out of all the animals we worked with. I will say that piglets are the cutest little babies and they squeal almost as soon as they see daylight. Pigs, in general, just don’t like bring handled or even touched.

We had mostly Holsteins and Jerseys as our milking cows. I’m just going by what I was told, but they give more milk than most other breeds. Herefords and Angus were our beef cattle. Beef cattle have a different, more aggressive personality. We also had 10-12 Golden Guernseys that were mainly just for taking to fairs and such. Their milk is very rich and has a very distinctive taste of its own.

As for beef, I’m OK with Angus, but prefer Charolais. Just a better taste, less greasy and whenever we have served it to our guests, they have commented very positive about the meat. There’s a farm about 15 miles from where we live that raises them. Usually try to get the meat from a young steer or a cow. Hereford would be my second choice, at least for roasts.


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## 911 (Jul 24, 2019)

I have too much time on my hands since my wife went south to care for a sick family member. She hopes to be home sometime next week. Earlier today, I was driving down a country road when I passed two young girls on horses riding down a lane towards a farm, which brought to mind another story of when I worked on the farm.

The owner had seven kids all total, but two of the daughters had horses. One afternoon, I had been walking between barns when I saw the one daughter, Gloria, talking to her horse and rubbing his head and ears. I yelled over to her if she wanted me to bring her the saddle, but she said that she thought the horse was sick. I walked over and asked her what was going on and she said he keeps coughing and won’t eat. I grabbed a hand of oats out of the barn and offered them to the horse, but he turned his head from it. He was also having like snot coming out his nose. I told her that she should call the Vet because this horse never turns down oats.

She got her dad to look at the horse and he told her to give the Vet a call. When the Vet arrived and checked out the horse, he said the horse had “Choke.” He took a hose and put it up his nose and down his esophagus. He said that he felt a blockage, so he pumped a lot of water down the horse’s esophagus and finally was able to push the tube down the rest of the way. 

Gloria had given the horse an apple and we figured he must have not chewed it well enough before swallowing it. The good news was that the horse was taken care of and he acted like nothing ever happened. But, that’s the way animals are. No matter what life deals them, they just go on. They adapt to any change and move on.


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## 911 (Jul 25, 2019)

This is turning into a diary or journal, but my mind has been tethered back to the days of being 15-18 and working "down on the farm," like Bob Evans ads reads.

It was early August and very hot and humid. The humidity around here gets unbearable at times in the summer. I had just finished cleaning the milking parlor and was preparing to go and clean some of the stalls and put fresh beds of straw down when the boss comes to me and said to leave that job for later. He wanted me to go with Jimmy and move one (we had two) of the Black Angus bulls over to the breeding area in the palace, which is what we called the new barn that was built the year before for breeding with two cows that were waiting for him.  

Oh, man. I would have rather cleaned out the stalls, but you do what you're told or good-bye job, especially the young guys. Jimmy says we need to put a rope through his ring (in his nose) and also one around his neck (no halter). This bull probably weighed in at about 1500 pounds, give or take a 100 pounds. Fat, lazy and ornery, that was Big Daddy. Good name for this bull. I never knew him to be mean, so that was a good thing. 

We got the ropes on and opened the pen and started to pull on Big Daddy. This bull wasn't going anywhere. He's in one of his moods where he just wants to be left alone. I asked if we could use the tractor? Jimmy says not yet, but we may have to. We tried to coax him out with some fresh Alfalfa. No, that's not going to work. How about some clover? Nope, no good either. Corn? No, he wasn't interested. He just stood there chewing his cud and laughing at us, or so my imagination told me. 

We were pretty much at the end of our rope when Jimmy said to go bring one of the cows over here. I went to the other barn and put a rope around Marcy's neck, and she followed me with no problem to where Big Daddy was. That perked him up. She was in estrous, so I guess they give off a smell that bulls can detect that they are ready for breeding. 

OK, now we have Big Daddy's attention and he would have followed us to New Jersey, if we wanted him to. I wasn't working on the farm in November, but my high school friend, whose dad owned the farm, told me that they had the Vet come out and check the two cows that were bred in August and both were pregnant. 

Big Daddy was going to be a daddy again for the umpteenth time.


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## MeAgain (Jul 27, 2019)

to all who knows what hard work is really about.
Imagine if we had a food shortage today and this generation had to learn to farm?


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## norman (Jul 27, 2019)

MeAgain said:


> to all who knows what hard work is really about.
> Imagine if we had a food shortage today and this generation had to learn to farm?


It is a fact....food shortage world wide is predicted in near future..People are undernourished (starving) in India today.  Science fiction have us not consuming food, but just eating a tiny green wafer.   My mind can't handle this.   lol


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## 911 (Jul 27, 2019)

Another cow story. It was getting late into spring, like the middle of June. We had a couple of cows soon ready to give birth, so we had moved them into the birthing area of the new barn. When another hand and me went into the barn to start cleaning stalls, he said that the one cow is pushing. How he knew, I don’t know, but he had a lot more experience than I did.

She was starting to “moo” frequently and swish her tail and just appeared nervous. Soon after, her water broke, so the other hand yelled at me to go get Randy, who was our boss. Randy came in and went over to the pen, looked at her, raised her tail and said, maybe an hour yet. An hour came and went, the cow is mooing more and no calf, not even a head showing. Randy says, “Gotta’ call the Vet.”

The Vet gets there after almost another hour. He puts on the glove bag and reaches up her you know what and feels the calf. The Vet then says, “We gotta get it out. It’s not moving much.” Now, here’s where I get confused, excited and a little nervous all at the same time. Randy looks at me and said to go get the calf puller. I’m like “What?” I had no idea what he was talking about. He jumps out of the stall and tells the Vet that he would be right back.

Randy comes back with a long pole, another piece of metal that looked like a big metal “U” and a set of chains. Now, I’m really confused. The Vet reaches back up into the cow, hooks up the chains and puts the other end onto the puller. Randy and the Vet start ratcheting the calf puller and in about 5 minutes out comes more bloody water and a calf followed. The calf fell on the floor. The Vet sticks his fingers down the calf’s throat and says, “It’s alive.” Then, he says, “It’s a heifer.” WOW!. I never saw nothing like that before. Mamma cow goes over to the newborn calf and begins to lick it.

It was a good day on the farm.


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## 911 (Jul 31, 2019)

One thing that did bother me and I never quite got past it. When one of the cows would have a bull, more than likely within a week, the owner would have one of the helpers take it from the mother to sell at auction. I asked why and the answer was to kill it and get the veal. If the cow had a heifer, some were raised with mom, but some were also taken away. That bothered me because there were times when Mom would moo and moo like she was crying. 

The calves are better off with getting at least a few days of mama’s milk to get the colostrum, which gives the calf the antibodies to help ward off diseases. It’s an interesting life sometimes if you weren’t raised on the farm.


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## Butterfly (Aug 1, 2019)

911, I'm enjoying your farm stories!


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## 911 (Aug 1, 2019)

Butterfly said:


> 911, I'm enjoying your farm stories!



Thank you. Did you grow up on a farm?


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## 911 (Aug 1, 2019)

Sally was a breeder hog. Her job was to get pregnant and have a bunch of piglets. She wasn’t mean, so I was able to get into the pen if she was alone. If she was with a boar, forget it. Boars are nasty. They remind me of what a “dirty old man” is always referred to as being. Dirty, lazy and cantankerous. You never know what a boar is going to do, so it’s best just to leave them alone. 

Well, one day, things were slow. One of the few days that ever happened. Half of the other guy’s went with the owner to an auction and the other half were painting the outside of the newest barn. I had my morning jobs completed and Randy (the boss) wasn’t at the farm, he had gone off with the owner to the auction. So, I went to see Jimmy, who was Randy’s assistant, and I asked him what I should be doing. 

It was a really hot and humid day, so Jimmy said to give Sally a bath. I thought he was kidding me. Whoever heard of giving a hog a bath? I even asked him if he was kidding. No, he was serious. He even gave me some special shampoo made especially for hogs. According to Jimmy, hogs can get skin problems and this shampoo is supposed to help with that. 

I go over to the outside spigot, hook up the hose and get everything setup. Jimmy yells at me, “You don’t have to dry her.” Good! I thought he was going to tell me to blow dry her or something else that would be a little embarrassing. Now, normally, Sally is very cooperative for a hog. (Most hogs squeal their butts off whenever someone touches or even bothers them.) On this day, Sally didn’t want bothered. I told her that I was taking her for a bath and the water was nice and cool. (The water came from a well.) I don’t think she really cared. 

I went into the new barn where we had a really big refrigerator and grabbed some carrots. Anything is food to a hog, but Sally always really liked her carrots. I walked back over to where I had left Sally and I showed her the carrots. Yep, that got her attention, she started grunting. I slipped the rope over her neck, gave her 1 carrot and off we went. Every time she would stop, I would give her another carrot. When we got to the spigot, I had 1 carrot left. WHEW!. I mean, this hog probably went at least 500 pounds. (I really have no idea, but she was big.)

After we were ready to start the bath, I turned on the hose to run the water out slowly. When I started to wet Sally down, what does she do? She drops down and starts to roll around in the dirt and came up muddy. Then, I heard laughing and I looked over towards where the guys were painting and there they were. Tommy and the rest of the men were laughing at us. 

Tommy “then” tells me to take her over to one of the older barns where inside we had a cleaning area for the cows and any other animal that we wanted to wash. For whatever reason, it never dawned on me to use that area. I got Sally there with very little trouble. I think she was cooperating because I was nice to her or that’s what I wanted to believe anyway. 

I gave her a really good bath with the special shampoo, which was almost odorless. Well, maybe just a little lemony smelling as I remember it. She really enjoyed the brushing, especially her belly and around her teats. After we played in the water for about 20 minutes and she was all nice and clean and brushed, this time, she gladly walked back to her stall, which I tied her to, so I could clean it and put in new straw. 

Bath over and it tired me out, but we had one clean hog. I asked her if she wanted to brush her teeth, but she just grunted and since I didn’t know hog, I assumed that meant no.


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## Butterfly (Aug 2, 2019)

911 said:


> Thank you. Did you grow up on a farm?



Only up until I was about 7 or 8, but I remember it fondly.  My job was to help feed the chickens and gather eggs from the henhouse.  There was one old settin' hen that didn't appreciate having her eggs taken away and I had to put some wooden eggs under her in the hope that she wouldn't know the difference.   She usually did, and would fly up in my face if I wasn't careful.  She was one mean hen and I wasn't too sad when she finally ended up in the Sunday stew pot.  

Also we used to visit my grandpa's farm in Arkansas every summer and I used to follow grandpa around and "help."


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## RadishRose (Aug 2, 2019)

I just love all these farm stories. I didn't grow up on one, but I did make a few visits over the years.

I never drink milk, but always loved cows.

Once we visited the round stone barn at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts that was established in 1791. (historic site since 1960) It was a scorching hot day, but inside that barn it was nice and cool!


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## 911 (Aug 3, 2019)

That’s a barn? It’s beautiful. I wished I could have gone inside.


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## RadishRose (Aug 3, 2019)

911 said:


> That’s a barn? It’s beautiful. I wished I could have gone inside.



@911 It is a barn. You can visit the place and go inside as well.

https://hancockshakervillage.org/


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## 911 (Aug 3, 2019)

As long as someone is reading these stories, I will try to post them as they come to mind. Back then, I did not keep a journal.

After the owner purchased the other farm next door to his, we took on a lot of work, even though the owner had hired more men. We also had more, lots more cows. Every so often, we would move the cows from one grazing field to another. Cows can eat a lot of food in a day. I think between grass, grain and hay, they may eat like 80 pounds or so pounds per day. This is important for you to know because can you imagine feeding a cow all year and then she doesn’t have a calf? No calf means no milk. So, now you fed a cow for maybe a year and you get nothing in return. That’s a pretty good hit on a farmer’s income.

OK, so, Randy, (the boss) tells me and two other men to go up to the field where the heifers are grazing (a heifer is a female bovine that has not yet had a calf, for anyone that doesn’t know), and move them over to the (what we knew it as) the DeKalb field. I think the owner had a deal (contract) with DeKalb that they would get his corn, beyond what we kept in the silos for feed. We probably had about 25 or so heifers that had been bred, but not yet checked for being pregnant. 

When we got to where the heifers were, the one man yells to Randy, “Come over here.” When someone yells like he did, all 3 of us went over to find out what he was yelling about. There was heifer laying down with yellow stuff coming out of her mouth. I thought right away that it was probably her cud, but what’s wrong with her? After we tried to get her up and wasn’t getting anywhere, Randy said to go back to the barn and get two ropes. I brought the ropes to him and he threw one on the ground and put the other around her neck. Now, we tried to get her up again, but nothing. She wasn’t moving.

After about 15 minutes of trying to get her up, Randy went down to the barn and called the Vet. It was about 2 hours, maybe longer, before he showed up. Meanwhile, we moved the other heifers. The Vet checked over the heifer and said he thought she had an LDA (left displaced abomasum) or a twisted stomach. You have to understand a bovine’s digestive system to know why or how this happens. It’s really caused by gases floating around in the stomach. I don’t think cows can burp. Just think if we (humans) had 4 stomachs (actually 4 chambers) how much gas we could produce. The real story here is that bovines only have 1 stomach, but that stomach has 4 compartments. See what I mean when I wrote that their digestive system is complicated and hard to understand? 

Anyway, the Vet found the twisted stomach by using his stethoscope and flicking his finger against the cow’s stomach. He was listening for a certain sound and once he heard it, he knew the cow had a twisted stomach. He and two of the other men got on one side of her and rolled her onto her other side. (That’s funny to watch.) Then, the Vet took this big needle with a hook on the end and stitched her stomach wall to her hide (I think), or at least, that what it looked like. The Vet was going to cut her instead, but decided this way would be best. I have seen the Vet cut the side of another cow, reach in and turn the stomach to its correct position, but not this time. 

After about five minutes, the heifer got up and slowly walked away, stopped and started grazing. All was back to normal, for now. Definitely educational.


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## 911 (Aug 6, 2019)

Two of the owner’s daughters had horses. I didn’t know much about horses back then and still don’t. Remembering back, one of the daughter’s friends also had horses and one day, she showed up on her mare to ask the daughters if one or both of them wanted to go riding. The older daughter agreed and said she would saddle up the older mare and it would take her maybe 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, I thought that I would be a nice guy and get the horse of the friend a handful of oats. I went into the barn to get the oats when I heard the friend scream and yell, “Oh, No!” She had gotten off of the horse, but never tied it to anything. Then, she walked over to talk to the other daughter and that’s when, for whatever reason, the horse took off.

The two daughters, the friend, Jimmy and I went to look for the horse. This was like 1:30 in the afternoon. We looked everywhere, but couldn’t find the horse. Finally, after about an hour and a half of looking, Tommy said we’re going back to the farm and call the police. When we got back to the farm, the mother of the daughters told their friend that she was supposed to call home right away.

Wouldn’t you know it. The horse ran home.


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## RadishRose (Aug 6, 2019)

I love it! You have several talents, @911, but can you DANCE?


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## 911 (Aug 11, 2019)

Oh, Brother! In high school, I was a decent dancer and could dance the dances of the day. But, looking at these guys, I don’t think that I could hold a candle to them.


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## 911 (Aug 11, 2019)

When I was in high school, we always got a nice long vacation over Christmas. During my senior year, we were to start our Christmas vacation two days before the holiday. My friend, whose dad owned the farm that I worked for during the summers, came up to me and asked if I would be interested working over Christmas. He said that both of the winter helpers wanted off, so they were in need of help.

Boy, I didn’t know what to say. I was really looking forward to the time off, but remember, I was also greedy. So, I asked him what the hours would be and he said whatever I could do would be appreciated. So, I said OK. 

The morning of Christmas Eve was just like any other morning that I worked on the farm. I started with cleaning the milking parlors and then over to the hog pens to clean them. That takes me to about 11:00 and I thought about leaving. As I was getting my stuff together, the owner comes up to me and asked if I would be able to fill the grain bins and bring in 30 bales of hay from the other barn. That meant that I would have to hitch the trailer to one of the tractors, which I really liked to drive. So, I told him sure, I would do it. 

I went over to the JD (John Deere) and nothing. Dead battery. So, now I have to go get the battery charger, hook that up and try another tractor. The Farmall tractor was sitting next to the JD, so I jumped on it and prayed that it would start and it did. Ok, the wagon is hooked up and I’m on my way to the barn to get the hay. No more problems, I hope. 

When I opened the doors to the other barn, I saw the ducks (there were 2 of them) huddled in a corner. The ducks never go into the barns, so I found my friend and asked him if he wanted me to put them back out. He told me that his one sister puts them in the barn when it is supposed to get real cold at night, so put them outside and he would put them back in before he went inside for the night. 

When I got back to the barn and was going to move the ducks, they were quacking up a storm. The one duck wouldn’t get up and the other one was trying to intimidate me. I finally figured it out that the duck that wouldn’t get up was probably sitting on eggs. I got my friend to come over to the barn and check it to see if I was right. I was. We made the decision to leave them alone. The owner also was onboard with our decision to just leave the ducks alone. These were domesticated ducks, so we checked and found out that the eggs would need about 28 days to hatch. 

The ducks were in luck. The area in which the ducks selected to lay their eggs wasn’t an area where it was going to be in anyone’s way for a month. I then backed the trailer into the barn (my first time backing up a trailer, so that took awhile), and unloaded the hay. At that point, it was now 2:00 in the afternoon and time to leave. Tomorrow is Christmas Day. 

The only problem is that cows do not get a day off. They still need milked and all the animals need fed. The owner asked me if he would be seeing me in the morning. What am I going to say, NO? I could see that they were short on help and with all that needed done, I wasn’t going to let them hang. I told the owner that I would come over in the morning, but only do what really needed to be done and then leave. He said he understands. I would get there by 7 in the morning and work 4-5 hours and that’s the way it went for the rest of my “vacation.” 

BTW, I did get 2 full days off of work before going back to school and on my last day of working on the farm during my Christmas vacation, which was a Friday, (I believe), the owner handed me a $20.00 bill. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but remember, this was back in 1970, so $20.00 wasn’t all that easy to come by. I also got a paycheck, but that got mailed to me. 

As I look back at those days, I think how much I wanted to be off and hanging with my friends, but I think I did the right thing for both the farm and myself. My dad was really proud of me telling all his friends that his “boy” is working down at the Farm over Christmas. That was a big deal to those guys.


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## Butterfly (Aug 12, 2019)

Did the ducks hatch their eggs?  

My grandpa, who ran a small farm, always said that the worst part of farming was that you never got a day off, because , no matter what,  the cows, etc. had to be taken care of.  No sick days, no vacation, unless you could find someone to take over for you.


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## 911 (Aug 21, 2019)

Butterfly said:


> Did the ducks hatch their eggs?
> 
> My grandpa, who ran a small farm, always said that the worst part of farming was that you never got a day off, because , no matter what,  the cows, etc. had to be taken care of.  No sick days, no vacation, unless you could find someone to take over for you.



Yes. I was told that the Mama duck did hatch the eggs as Papa stood by.

While I was in Florida last week, we drove past a farm, (which is a rarity down there), and I noticed a farmer opening the gate to his small pen with some cows in it in front of the barn and I immediately had a flashback to an incident that happened one morning. I went into the milking parlor to clean the equipment and floors, but there were still 12 cows in there waiting to have the door opened so they could go outside and then be led to the pasture for grazing. The helper that was still in the parlor asked if I would take the cows out to the pasture. I never did that before, but I told him that I would do it.

You have to keep in mind that I never led the cows before, so this was a new experience for me. As soon as I unlatched the doors, it was like someone flipped a switch. The cows immediately began to come towards the doors and they wanted out now. It was like they knew exactly what they were doing. Almost as if it was automatic. I knew right away that I was in trouble. I was standing there trying to get the doors open while the cows were coming towards the doors and they were going to go out one way or another because they kept moving forward.

I yelled at the helper (Tim, I believe) and as he turned around, he could see something not so good was about to happen. Tim quickly ran over to where I was and began yelling (and I mean yelling) at the cows. They quickly stopped and stared at us. I looked at Tim and told him that I thought the cows wanted out. Tim told me, “No $hit, Dick Tracy. Of course, the cows want out.”

Tim soon changed his attitude when we turned around and he found out that the doors were either stuck or jammed. Together, we kept slamming the doors with our shoulders in an effort to get the doors open. Finally, we were able to open the one door far enough for me to squeeze out. When I got outside and looked down, I noticed that a big piece of pipe was blocking the doors. We had a spring running outside by the side of the barn and the owner was having pipes installed to have the water flow into the pond, which was located towards the back of the parlor. We had no idea how the pipe got there.

I was lucky that Tim was in the parlor with me at that time. I was sure that the cows were going to make me part of the doors. Another lesson learned. Never stand in front of a herd of cows when they want to go where you’re standing.


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## Pecos (Aug 21, 2019)

911
Wow, great stories, I worked on a cotton farm in El Paso when I was a kid. I spent my summers on the end of a hoe, and in the fall I drug a cotton sack between my legs. We grew regular cotton and pima.
My time on the farm was a lot simpler than yours. It still made Navy life look good.


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## 911 (Aug 21, 2019)

So, what is Pima? I drove to Florida once and passed through Alabama. This was back in the 70’s. I noticed seeing small shacks out in the cotton fields. What were they for? I also saw a lot of people picking cotton with large sacks around their neck. Were you paid by the hour or pound? How much? Just bring curious.


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## Pecos (Aug 21, 2019)

911 said:


> So, what is Pima? I drove to Florida once and passed through Alabama. This was back in the 70’s. I noticed seeing small shacks out in the cotton fields. What were they for? I also saw a lot of people picking cotton with large sacks around their neck. Were you paid by the hour or pound? How much? Just bring curious.


When I was hoeing weeds I was paid 50 cents an hour just like all the other local farm hands and the Braceros who came up from interior Mexico on a US Gov program to work on farms throughout the United States. That program was killed by our Government in the late 1960's for no good reason. It actually made a lot of sense. These guys came up for about 6 months and then returned to their homes during the winter months. We worked 50 hours a week and the summer temps were normally around 100F. It would kill me if I had to do that now.
When I picked cotton I did use a large cotton sack and was paid 2 cents a pound for regular cotton and 3 cents a pound for pima. Pima is a very high quality silky cotton that grows in a smaller 3 section pod than regular cotton that grows in a 5 section pod. It takes a lot of pima to fill one of those large bags. I was never very good a picking cotton, my younger brother was better than I was. Those pods open up and the tips of the pods are very sharp. My hands took it tough. I preferred to tie my sack around my waist and drag it between my legs rather than tie it around my neck
A regular Bracero would pick somewhere between 450 and 550 pounds per day. I was lucky to hit 200. I was in the field one time when an old Bracero picked over a 1000 pounds, that still impresses me as a serious athletic achievement.
If you ever get your hands on a pima shirt you can tell the difference right away, and they last a long time.


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## 911 (Aug 22, 2019)

I know about Braceros. I would have thought that pay would have been based on the amount of cotton picked. Cotton is very light, so picking a 1000 pounds was a major accomplishment. 

Are you saying that Braceros are no longer allowed into the U.S.?


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## Pecos (Aug 22, 2019)

911 said:


> I know about Braceros. I would have thought that pay would have been based on the amount of cotton picked. Cotton is very light, so picking a 1000 pounds was a major accomplishment.
> 
> Are you saying that Braceros are no longer allowed into the U.S.?



That program was abolished sometime in the late 60's as I recall. These braceros boarded buses in Mexico and were transported to processing centers in the United States where they underwent health exams and then were sent to farmers who participated in the program. Certain standards like housing had to be met. Most of these guys went back to the same farm year after year.

I heard that the program was cancelled because the Mexican police were robbing these guys when they returned home. I don't know if that is true,

The guy who picked 1000 lbs. would have earned $20, which was a lot of money in the 1950's.


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## 911 (Aug 23, 2019)

I would not doubt for a moment that the Mexican police was robbing the Braceros. Back in those days, the Mexican police were very dishonest and corrupt. Things are supposed to be much different in Mexico with their police, but even so, I know of a few instances where a few of the police down there helped themselves to a few bribes.

On the farm that I worked, we had a few acres of tobacco that needed harvested. Tobacco is a pure cash crop. However, because we only had to work a few acres, the owner never bought any automated equipment. We harvested by hand. When the time came to harvest, we would go out into the field and take several thin and narrow long pieces of rectangular rods. At the end of the rod, we put a spearhead on it and then hand-pick the leaf of tobacco. Then, take the stem of the leaf and run the spearhead though the stem and push the leaf onto the rod. Normally, each rod would hold maybe anywhere from 6-10 leafs. When the rod was filled, we would then pull off the spearhead and put it on the next rod and so on and so forth.

When we were finished with the picking for the day, we would take the full rods, which were now on the wagon, to the barn and hang them on the hooks that were dangling from the ceiling. About halfway through the harvest, a tobacco trader or broker would come by and check out the crop. He would cut a deal with the owner and after the tobacco was dried, the owner would call someone, (I didn’t know all of the ins and outs of how the deal went down), but, I did know that when the the crop was dried and ready to go to market or a cigar maker, someone would come and pick it all up. How he was paid and how much the owner was paid, I do not know.

BTW, we also had to keep the rows weeded using a hoe and also check the leafs for tobacco worms. We sprayed the tobacco by hand using a pump sprayer to keep the beetles and grasshoppers from gorging the crop. All of us took turns working the tobacco field. Anytime we had like a half hour or so with nothing else to do, that was our fill-in job. Work the tobacco field.

The tobacco that we grew was used for the wrapper on cigars. At the time, there was maybe 3 or 4 cigar factories here in my area.


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## Pecos (Aug 23, 2019)

A good friend of mine grew up working with tobacco and he wasn't any fonder of it than I was picking cotton.

But one thing the Braceros did that was very nice, was when they started singing those old Mexican ballets. We had several who had wonderful voices and they harmonized extremely well. I still remember the words to some of those old songs. This was way before the days of portable radios.

….. and you don't want to hear me sing. Trust me!


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## 911 (Aug 23, 2019)

Back in probably the late 70’s, I had a Mexican in the back seat of my cruiser that I was transporting to the hospital to have a BAC taken when all of a sudden, he began to sing a song in Spanish, but the tune sounded familiar.

I asked him what song was he singing and he said, ”La Bamba.” He was really good and he was loaded. His BAC was around 1.8, if I remember correctly.


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## AnnieA (Aug 23, 2019)

Loving the farm stories!  Farmer's daughter here and can relate to first tractor driving mishaps.  I popped a wheelie at the turn row the first time I drove one of my dad's bigger John Deeres.

@911 ...you may have heard of Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi--still called Parchman Farms locally.  My granddaddy farmed cotton about 30 miles from there.  Back in the day, lower level offenders could work out part of their sentence working for local farmers.  The farmers provided room and board and the convicts got to serve time away from the pen.  One of the guys working for my granddaddy--a huge, redheaded Scotch-Irishman with a temper--forgot to replace the oil pan plug on a tractor and burned up the engine.  Granddaddy went looking for him around the farm but he was gone.  When he called Parchman to report the missing convict, the official there was laughing so he could hardly talk.  The guy had walked/hitchhiked 30 miles back to prison to avoid telling Granddaddy about the tractor!   Granddaddy had a temper but was not a physically violent man.  Guess the inmate wanted it to stay that way!


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## 911 (Aug 23, 2019)

AnnieA said:


> Loving the farm stories!  Farmer's daughter here and can relate to first tractor driving mishaps.  I popped a wheelie at the turn row the first time I drove one of my dad's bigger John Deeres.
> 
> @911 ...you may have heard of Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi--still called Parchman Farms locally.  My granddaddy farmed cotton about 30 miles from there.  Back in the day, lower level offenders could work out part of their sentence working for local farmers.  The farmers provided room and board and the convicts got to serve time away from the pen.  One of the guys working for my granddaddy--a huge, redheaded Scotch-Irishman with a temper--forgot to replace the oil pan plug on a tractor and burned up the engine.  Granddaddy went looking for him around the farm but he was gone.  When he called Parchman to report the missing convict, the official there was laughing so he could hardly talk.  The guy had walked/hitchhiked 30 miles back to prison rather than telling Granddaddy about the tractor!   Granddaddy had a temper but was not a physically violent man.  Guess the inmate wanted it to stay that way!



I have heard stories of chain gangs and work crews from the older Troopers when I first began my career. Those guys, I never knew when they were just messing with me or keeping it real. The stories about these work details always included the words, “Down south.” Truthfully, I was never able to substantiate any of them until the late 80’s when I drove the family down to Florida. 

As we were driving on one of the state routes, maybe 301 or 17, which I took instead of traveling all freeways, we came upon a chain gang in South Carolina and just like in the movies, 1 guard was on a horse with a shotgun and 1 guard was on the ground and standing maybe 50-60 feet from the closest prisoner. I slowed down to get a better look, but didn’t take a chance on stopping.


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## 911 (Aug 23, 2019)

BTW, AnnieA, did you belong to 4-H?


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## AnnieA (Aug 23, 2019)

911 said:


> BTW, AnnieA, did you belong to 4-H?



Nope.    We lived miles from the county seat.  Dad farmed cotton and soybeans on a small scale (one full-time and a few seasonal farm hands), and my mom (CRNA) had horrible hours due to call.   I'm the oldest so was babysitter, supper-cooker early on.  They worked too hard to haul us around to extracurricular activities outside of school related stuff.  We also didn't have animals; my dad sold his cattle when I was very young.   For some reason, no one in our little town--even the ones with traditional farm animals--were involved much in 4-H.    Not even my cousin who is now the 4-H agent for our county.


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## 911 (Aug 23, 2019)

Actually, 4-H is a really big deal here in PA and the way I hear it, 4-H is a big deal in many northern states. I enjoy going to the Pennsylvania State Farm Show each year in January and seeing the many animals that the 4-H members raise. If you are interested, s]check it out at pafarmshowcomplex.pa.gov. There is a lot of 4-H stuff going on there.

I have seen kids cry when their farm show animal gets auctioned off. Many of these kids raise an animal maybe for 1 or 2 years and then sell it at the auction. The money is supposed to go into their college fund. The 4-H also gives out scholarships.


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## AnnieA (Aug 23, 2019)

I worked for the MS Extension Service years ago and there are some areas that have great programming, some not so great.  It all depends on the county agent.  My cousin has been our county 4-H agent for appx 15 years and she's super dynamic.  She does the traditional farm 4-H activities, but also really reaches out to underprivileged kids with no farm background.  She's passionate about that.  Has gotten kids to college that would have never dreamed of getting to go without her career development programming and her help with scholarship applications.


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## 911 (Aug 23, 2019)

There’s also a program in our area called, “Step Up.” It us for mentally challenged youths and allows them to work with horses. I have no idea how or why horses were chosen, but it works. 

When I worked the farm, it was the best time of my youth. I would rather work the farm then go on a date. No, not just to make money, but I learned so much about life and teamwork and connecting and interacting with people. I looked forward to going to work. I did a lot of dirty, tiring and even monotonous jobs, but I would do it all again. 

The owner, my friend’s Dad, used to ask me how could I be so happy cleaning out the hog sties and shoveling cow dung. I would tell him what’s not to like? I have a job that I like and I’m getting paid to do it. I really seldom heard anyone complaining. Well, maybe bringing in the hay and when we painted the one barn. I learned early out that I would never be a painter. 

I really enjoyed being around the animals. Another early lesson was that cows can’t kick backwards, but the can (and do) kick to the side. We had an old mule. Stubborn as they come. Another man and I was sent to bring “Old Earl” (the mule’s name) into the new barn for his yearly shots. For what, I never asked. Well, that mule wasn’t having any of it. We think he saw the Vet that came to check 2 cows for mastitis. 

I tried luring him with food, no, carrots, apples, nothing worked. We were ready to give up when Old Earl just started walking on his own over to the barn. It was like he knew that he had to go over there. We looked at each other in puzzlement and just shrugged our shoulders. When he got to the barn, he stopped. We thought uh-oh, he’s going to turn around and go back. But, he stood there for probably 2 minutes and then he walked in. We didn’t get it, but whatever it was, we were glad he did what he did. Animals are like that, I learned. They are not predictable and will do some strange things.


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## 911 (Aug 27, 2019)

Our housing development is being expanded by more and more homes being built. The whole development was built where a huge farm once stood, but is now down to a mere maybe 50 acres with just cattle, corn and grass, but no hay, just grass for grazing. (For those of you reading this and don’t know, hay is a grass.) The cattle is an all Angus herd and is only a breeding herd for beef. 

I went out for a walk earlier this afternoon, and stopped for a few moments to watch the men putting vinyl siding on one of the new homes. (Kind of like watching paint dry. Yeah, I lead an exciting life.) Right behind the house is part of the huge cornfield, but what caught my eye was the one farmer walking really fast through the field. The farm is owned and farmed by 2 brothers. I watched to see what he was doing and when I saw him more clearer, I could see that he was also carrying a cattle prod. That kind of peaked my interest as I was also thinking, “Why the heck is he walking through the field carrying a cattle prod?” 

I approached him and asked him what was going on. He told me that one of his bulls pushed through the gate and escaped. I asked him if he didn’t have the fence turned on and he said he did, except the gate isn’t electrified. I told him that I would give him a hand tracking down the bull. That’s when he asked me if I ever handled cattle before. I told him that I did, but it’s been awhile. 

I told him that I was going to go back to the gate and start there. I hadn’t been in the field for more than 5 minutes when I heard a rustling noise. When I went over about 4 or 5 rows, I could see something through the corn stalks that was big and black and that’s when I knew that what I saw was the bull. I gave a loud whistle and the farmer came over to where I was and together, we chased the bull back to his pasture. There was no way we were going to put a rope around a 1200 pound bull and think we were going to pull him over there. 

To me, at least, I had fun and a free trip down memory lane.


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## Pecos (Aug 27, 2019)

Cows can be funny. My grandfather had a ranch in Central Texas that we would visit during the summer. One Sunday morning I noticed that none of the cows were visible from the back porch. I asked my Grandfather where they were and he told me that they had gone to church. Sure enough, every Sunday morning the cows migrated over to the edge of his property and watched the church service being held in an outdoor tabernacle. I walked down there to see for myself and there they were, heads hanging over the wire fence soaking in that old time religion of the 1950's.
I don't know if it modified their behavior for the rest of the week or not. Come to think of it, I am not entirely sure that it affected the behavior of the humans either.


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## JustBonee (Aug 27, 2019)

Cows are very funny..   my daughter and SIL   who  live out in the country,   have afternoon cow visitors everyday (neighboring farm) at dinnertime,   as the herd is making their way back to the barn for the night.   They stop by their  fence to check things out daily ... funny sight..


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## RadishRose (Aug 27, 2019)

I love these last 3 cow stories.

@Bonnie ask your daughter to play music for them next time they stop to say hi. I heard they like it.

Cows at the church service, how cute. Trying to find a bull? No way!
I saw some bull riding at a rodeo once, oh my gosh they're fierce.

We visited the UCONN School of Agriculture branch a few times; toured the milking parlor from a raised deck, saw all kinds of steel vats, equipment and machinery. They have a store and do deliver product to local markets. They have the best ice cream I ever tasted.


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## Gary O' (Aug 27, 2019)

Love yer stories, 9

Sends me back


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## 911 (Aug 28, 2019)

Pecos said:


> Cows can be funny. My grandfather had a ranch in Central Texas that we would visit during the summer. One Sunday morning I noticed that none of the cows were visible from the back porch. I asked my Grandfather where they were and he told me that they had gone to church. Sure enough, every Sunday morning the cows migrated over to the edge of his property and watched the church service being held in an outdoor tabernacle. I walked down there to see for myself and there they were, heads hanging over the wire fence soaking in that old time religion of the 1950's.
> I don't know if it modified their behavior for the rest of the week or not. Come to think of it, I am not entirely sure that it affected the behavior of the humans either.



The were probably Baptists.


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## JustBonee (Aug 28, 2019)

Entertainment in Texas ....


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## RadishRose (Aug 28, 2019)

Bonnie said:


> Entertainment in Texas ....


Thanks @Bonnie!


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## 911 (Sep 22, 2019)

Yesterday, my wife and I decided to take a ride down to the big River that is abut 10 miles from home, just to watch the boats. It was a beautiful day, but very warm. On the way home, we drove by one of the many farms in this area when my wife yelled to STOP!

I asked her what was the matter and she said “Look.” I looked to where she was pointing and I saw a large calf with his head stuck through the fence. Having worked on a farm when I was in high school, I had seen this before. The cow wants the grass on the other side and they are able to stick their head through the fence to get it, but then don’t know how to retract it.

As I got to the calf, another car had stopped and a man got out and told me to be careful. I thought to myself that this won’t be a big deal and I can handle it. The calf had other ideas. He was very uncooperative. The fence was made out of wire, so I tried to bend the wires open wider, but was only able to move them about a half inch, which was just not quite opened enough. The calf would not allow me to twist his head into position.

I asked the other man if he had any tools in his car. He said a few, so I asked if I could look and see if I could use any of them. He was agreeable to that. I found a pair of kind of cheap wire cutters and decided to at least try them. The cutters were dull, so I clamped the cutters on one wire, took the pliers and used those to squeeze the handles of the cutters. It worked well enough that I was able to cut the wire, bend it down and push the calf’s head back though, freeing the calf.

I gave the tools back to the man standing with me and drove up to the farmhouse and told the man there what happened. He thanked me and said that he would repair the fence and I went on my way. It just goes to show you that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.


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## jerry old (Oct 12, 2019)

Never mess around with a bull, even the so called gentle breeds.  Never approach a bull on foot, they are totally unpredictable.

In Spain the bull ranches never allow a bull to see a human on foot.  When the bull is around two years old,  a vaquero   get a long pole-rides up, at a good clip,  jabs the bull with the pole, if the bull reacts in a fierce manner he is put of the list to appear in the arena.  (Don't know what happens to the bull if he does not react fiercely.)  This was a doc. viewed in the 80's, assume it continues.

Mexican Rodeos, in the small villages, towns are/were unbelievable.-drunk vaqueros (not real vaqueros, that would be a breach of dignity which is extremely important  in their culture) ride horses, bulls while far from sober.

 Dead drunk is the only way I would crawl on the back of something as tough as a tank and a lot meaner.

  .   These small towns follow the American Version of rodeos;
Real Mexican rodeos have a very different format, horsemanship is highly honored all events are geared to horsemanship.  They have a few in
California, none I'm aware of in Tx.  I've forgotten the name for Mexican Rodeos, will goggle.


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## 911 (Oct 21, 2019)

Just so you are reminded, when I first started working on the farm I was still in high school and had just turned 16. The reason why I mention this is because I need for you to keep in mind that I was very young and dumb about this next story, which came to mind while discussing different types of wool with my wife who does a lot of knitting and crocheting. (She's working with Alpaca wool now.)

Continuing on.....I had finished all of my morning duties and was going over to the pig sties to take care of our breeder hog and check on her stall for cleaning. What am I saying? Of course, her stall needs cleaned and refreshed. When you hear stories about hogs that like to root, she was a major rooter. Even worse when she was in estrous.

I had just gotten to the door on the old barn when Randy yelled for me to go see him. I had my buckets in hand, so I set them inside the barn and walked up the small incline to where he was standing next to the brand new pickup that the owner had bought just the day before. He was always a Ford man, but for whatever reason, this time he bought a new Chevy pickup with a crew cab. It was a beautiful aqua color and white, which is not quite a farm color, but still, I liked it. I thought Randy was going to let me take it for a drive to go do something. I couldn't have been wronger.

So anyway, after I made it to where Randy was standing, he tells me that he would like for me and one of the other hands to gather up the Teaser Rams, (there were 3 of them) and put them in the white trailer, but before I do that, I had to connect the trailer to the new truck. Well, first things first. Now keep in mind, I was young and dumb, but even dumber than I thought. I had to ask him, "Randy, what are teaser rams?" OK, so now he's laughing and wouldn't you know it, old Earl is walking by and he yells at Earl, "Hey, Earl. Come over here a minute." Earl walks his slow pace, but he does get to where we are standing and he asks Randy, "What's up?"

Randy looks at me and says to Earl, "The young buck here wants to know what are teaser rams." Now, old Earl starts to laugh. I know whatever this is, it's going to be bad for me and I'm going to be hearing about this for a few weeks to come. After the frivolous laughing had stopped, Randy tells me that they are rams that have had a vasectomy and then put with the ewes that are going to be bred. The idea is to put these teaser rams with the breeding ewes to stimulate them into estrous and then put them with the breeding rams. So, that brought me to the question, "Why not just let the breeding rams do all the work? After all, we don't have teaser males to get our women turned on." (OK, more laughing.)

So, the answer to my question is that, "You have to keep in mind. The rams got a vasectomy and not castration. So, the teaser rams can still have sex, but not produce any good sperm. They are just shooting blanks now. That's up to the breeding rams that the farmer bought and paid big bucks for. Champion stock, of sorts. These rams are just getting the ewes in the mood to continue breeding when the teaser rams are removed and the champion stock is then put in with the ewes. Understand?" I tell him, "Yeah, I guess so, but it sure seems like a waste having to feed these teaser rams and keep them healthy just so they can get the ewes in the mood." Again, more laughing. At any rate, I did get the trailer connected to the new truck and we did get the teaser rams into the trailer. After that, Randy jumps in the truck and off they go. I asked old Earl where was Randy heading with the teaser rams? He told me that he had to take the rams to the vet to get their shots up to date. I always respected the owner of these 2 farms that he owned. He really made sure that his animals were well taken care of, both medically and fed well. By that I mean, not that we over fed them, but we fed them good quality food. Some farmers that I also met through the business would tell me that to save money on feed for their hogs, they would buy food that was soon out of date from the grocery stores around and bread from the bakery a few towns from where we were. 

Like I said in another post. I learned a lot down on that farm and when we got the other farm that my friend's dad bought over the winter, we were really busy that next summer. I made a lot of money and in fact, I would venture to say that I may have made more money than anyone else in my class that summer, but I was also somewhat of a cheapskate and tried to save every penny that I could, but again there are expenses. Back then, it wasn't like today where a lot of times, each person pays their own way. Back in my time, the guy paid most of the freight for whatever we were going to do, like; going out for burgers, going to the movies, going bowling, etc. Guys paid the bill where I came from and it wasn't cheap. I enjoyed dating the girls that I did and I also really didn't mind paying the bill as long as I thought they enjoyed my company and had a good time. I will say that I don't remember ever hearing any complaints.

Then, there was also car insurance and upkeep. I did have other jobs, but that money was used to buy the car. Hey, so what? It was what is was and I wouldn't change a thing, even if I could. As a friend of mine once said, "Thems the good old days."


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## 911 (Oct 21, 2019)

jerry r. garner said:


> Never mess around with a bull, even the so called gentle breeds.  Never approach a bull on foot, they are totally unpredictable.
> 
> In Spain the bull ranches never allow a bull to see a human on foot.  When the bull is around two years old,  a vaquero   get a long pole-rides up, at a good clip,  jabs the bull with the pole, if the bull reacts in a fierce manner he is put of the list to appear in the arena.  (Don't know what happens to the bull if he does not react fiercely.)  This was a doc. viewed in the 80's, assume it continues.
> 
> ...


I understand all about tradition and culture, so I am not passing judgment on these people, but this is something that if I would ever get to Spain, I would not want to witness. I detest anyone that kills an animal for entertainment value, but that's just me, so if they feel good about watching the bull get killed for entertainment purposes, so be it.


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## jerry old (Oct 21, 2019)

Bonnie:
Post # 50
Early in the clip you see so cows break into a trot to get to the music.
I've never seen a cow trot unless it was to get to food, or to get away from something.
Truly amazing! Thanks for posting something so unusual.


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## 911 (Oct 21, 2019)

jerry r. garner said:


> Bonnie:
> Post # 50
> Early in the clip you see so cows break into a trot to get to the music.
> I've never seen a cow trot unless it was to get to food, or to get away from something.
> Truly amazing! Thanks for posting something so unusual.


I think they are Temple fans and wanted to get to know this guy.


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## 911 (Nov 7, 2019)

I continued to work on the farm, even into the fall. However, once really cold weather arrived, I was done. It was time to pack it in for the winter and let the few workers that worked on the farm all year to do what they do, which is mostly tend to the equipment and the cattle and other livestock. There were only 3 other guys that worked year round and they were kept busy with tending to the animals, fixing and painting equipment and a lot of cleaning. All of them were just great to be around. 

It was getting late into October when we started to harvest the cornfields and take the corn to the grain elevators, which would be used to feed the cattle over the winter. We alternated between corn and hay. Corn is better. It produces more calories and contains more nutrients, so the owner liked to alternate between the grain and the grass. Once we had one of the fields harvested, we would take the cows up to that field and they would graze on any leftover corn that the combine didn't pick up. Once all the corn in that area was gone, they likely would go after the husks, then the leaves and finally the stalk. All provide good nutrients for the cow at little to no cost to the farmer. 

We had just finished bringing in the corn one evening and Randy told us that he was really worn out and that he would load the corn into the elevator the next day. So, the rest of us washed up and went home. This was all on a Friday, Columbus Day (I believe) and we had off school for some reason. The next day, Saturday, when I went back to the farm, I noticed that the Vet's SUV was parked in front of the new barn. Inside, the Vet was talking with the owner and he asked who was the last one to leave the night before. I told them that I didn't know and that when I left that Randy and 2 other guys were joking and smoking in front of the horse stable.

That's when he told me that one of the cows wasn't secured and put into the field for the night. She was pretty much left to wander. I guess you know now where this story is heading. Yeah, she found her way over to the grain wagon and loaded up on corn. The thing about a cow eating too much corn all at once is that their stomachs can't digest it fast enough and they fill up with gas. They also get an illness called acidosis. Much like we get an upset stomach, but it can turn very serious if not treated in a cow. 

The Vet went back to his SUV and brought back a large glass cider jug. He took a box of baking soda and dumped the box into the bottle and then slowly added water. After that, her put a tube into the cow's mouth. I don't know how far it went in or if it went down her throat. I know that I suffered along with her because it looked so uncomfortable. Next, he pours this mixture into the tube and down her throat, I guess. I never knew cows could burp, but she did that day. She burped and burped and it smelled to high heaven. She was a sick cow for the afternoon, but was eating, which was what we were hoping for, by the time I left that evening.

I never knew if Randy caught the devil or not for not securing all the cows before leaving Friday evening. I really didn't want to know. He never said a word and life just went on. I think that because the cow came out of it so well that the owner was pleased and just decided to overlook it. That's just the way he was. He never got too excited about much. 

They were all good people to be around.


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## Butterfly (Nov 15, 2019)

911, I really enjoy your farm stories!


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## 911 (Jul 24, 2020)

As usual, I was driving with a friend out in the country when I saw an old farmer tending to some cattle, so since I had nothing better to do, I thought that I would stop and maybe strike up a conversation with him. My friend thought that I was nuts, but he stopped anyway.

As I walked up to the old farmer, he stared at me like a gun slinger waiting for me to make my move. When I reached him, I didn’t quite know what to say, so I just made the comment that he had a nice herd, That started it off and he asked me if I had a farm. I told him no, but I had done some farming in my earlier years. 

I asked him if he had an all Angus herd. He said he did, so I asked how many head. He said that he had 73 head. I asked if he had any calves. He said he had 15. I then just guessed and said, “It sounds like you have a breeding herd.” He said, “That’s right.” Just out of curiosity, I asked him how much does a calf bring these days. He said that it all depends if it’s a bull or a heifer and weight. So, I asked him, “Well, on average, how much would you say.” He answered by telling me somewhere between $800-1200.

I had to tell him that the farmer I had worked for was lucky if he got $400 back in the early ‘70’s. He said, “Oh yeah, I remember those days. When I first saw this guy while we were driving, I thought this man was at least 80 y/o. I had to ask him his age, I almost choked on my coffee that I was drinking when he told me “66.” Jokingly, I told him he sure didn’t look it. He said, “Yeah, I got great genes.” I thought to myself, “Holy crap. This guy thinks I’m giving him a compliment.”


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## 911 (Jan 16, 2021)

One night while laying in my hospital bed, I was reading a story in Reader’s Digest that reminded me of the time while I was working on the farm and we were getting the calves loaded into the truck to take to auction . Randy, the boss, told John, another seasonal worker and myself to load up the 3 heifers in the barn onto the truck.

All 3 of the heifers were in the same stall, so I was of the thought that we were just going to put halters on them and walk them to the truck. John was older than I was (I was 16 at that time), so I yielded to him because I thought he had more experience than I did. John asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was getting ropes so we could put a halter on the calves. He told me not to do that, we would just open the gate and chase them onto the truck. Yeah, well, you can imagine how that worked out.

I was told to open the gate while he guided the heifers onto the truck. I opened the gate and all 3 heifers ran out the gate, past John and into the field we use to grow hay, which we had cut just a few days earlier. Once in the field, they stopped and began to graze. John yells to me, “Hey, Barry, bring out some ropes.”

It just goes to show you, “Your never too old to learn, John.”


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## 911 (Mar 1, 2021)

The farm owner wanted to plant 20 acres of a different hybrid of corn that he had never tried before. He told a few of the hands that this new hybrid was supposed to be a higher content of protein and hopefully would cause the steers to grow faster and put on more weight. That way, he could take them to market sooner, get more money per pound and get paid quicker.

Over the winter, the owner took 7 steers from the beef herd and had them fed a steady diet of the new corn, along with grass and hay. By April, the steers had gained a lot of weight. He estimated that they weighed between 750-900 pounds each. These steers were now about 2 years old, so they were going to market.

Just a few weeks before they were supposed to go to market, they developed tiny polyps inside their mouth. First one, then another and another until all 7 had polyps. The only thing that had changed was the corn. The owner spoke with a couple of Vets, but none had an answer as to why the steers had polyps.

After weeks of trying one thing and another, he took one of the steers to Penn State’s agriculture department. They ran a number of tests and after about a month, they told the owner that the problem was the corn. The corn was determined to have a very high count of protein. It was actually meant to be mixed with other nutrients and given to bulls, but for only a few months before taking them to market.

So ended the experimenting with new grains. The steers condition did clear up after taking them off of the new corn and giving them some medicine. The owner finally told some of us that he didn’t lose any money on the steers, but didn’t get anywhere near what he had expected. What was most interesting about this was that the corn didn’t look as yellow as most other kernels. It was very light colored.

Boring story, I know, but it’s all that I had for the moment. I’ll think of something better later. Maybe something about fertilizers. That should peak everyone’s interest.


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## Geezerette (Mar 1, 2021)

Not at all boring! In the 1990s I lived much closer to farm country than I do now and a lot of the many-generation farmers were very suspicious of what was coming out of the Ag schools, both in terms of feed and fertilizers. They were much more into simpler things like rotating crops and pastures if they could. One rural memory I enjoyed in VA was a certain field I often passed that was full of free range white turkeys in mild weather. And another with shiny fat black angus.


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## Butterfly (Mar 1, 2021)

911, I agree with Geezerette.  Your stories are never boring, and I actually find them very entertaining.  My farm (very small farm) memories from childhood run more toward chickens and turkeys and trying to get them to go where you wanted them to go. I do remember once, for some reason I can't recall, or maybe I never even knew, all the chickens were found roosting up in the trees instead of in their coops.  I remember my mother's goofy efforts to get them all to come down and back where they belonged.  I thought it was great fun, but my mother clearly didn't see it that way.


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## JonDouglas (Mar 2, 2021)

The farm work I remember that was the toughest IMHO - walking the fields and detasseling corn from morning to evening.


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## 911 (Mar 2, 2021)

Even after working on the farm during summer, I would still help out on weekends and holidays year round. During the winter, a lone duck landed into the pond behind the old barn. Every now and then I would throw some corn on the ground hoping the duck would come ashore and eat it. It wasn’t but a few days later another duck flew into the pond. Both were male Mallards. I continued to throw the corn along the pond’s edge. I could tell something had been eating because it was disappearing.

The next weekend that I went to work on the farm, there were now 4 ducks in the pond and 2 on the shore. We now had 6 ducks, 2 of them were females, all were Mallards. I kept throwing the corn down on the ground, a little more each time as the flock grew. By Christmas, we had 11 ducks on or near the pond. The owner started complaining about the ducks because he had a dog, a mixed Lab, and the ducks were starting to annoy the dog. The dog wanted to chase after the ducks, but couldn’t because the pond had a fence around it to keep the owner’s grandchildren from straying into the pond.

My friend, whose dad owned the farm, asked me if I knew who was throwing the corn down by the pond because his dad wanted it stopped so the ducks would leave. I lied to my friend and told him, no, I didn’t know anything about it. A few weeks later, I was preparing to leave work and I had filled 2 of my coat pockets with loose corn. Just as I was about to throw the corn to the ducks, the owner came out of the back door of the old barn and caught me. He kind of scolded me, but he wasn’t mean spirited about it. He just wanted it stopped so the ducks would leave and give his dog some peace.

I asked the owner if it would be possible to move the dog’s box to the other side of the barn, so the dog couldn’t see the ducks. He told me to try it and that worked out OK. Everyone liked watching the ducks, so they were allowed to stay and were eating better than ever. We started throwing ground corn, so the ducks could digest it easier. Next thing I knew, we all started calling the pond, the “Duck Pond.”

When spring arrived, 5 of the ducks flew off. A few days later, we heard the ducks quacking like crazy. The one worker said they were getting ready to fly off because that’s what they do when they are preparing to fly. The quacking went on for a good half hour. Randy, our boss, walked over to where 2 of the Mallards were quacking and quickly returned. He told us that we have 3 new-born ducklings. That’s what the quacking was all about. We never knew that there was a nest over there because at the end of the pond where the ducks were, it gets very thick with tall grass.


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## Jondalar7 (Mar 2, 2021)

I grew up on a dairy farm, I relate to the tractor accidents. It was hard work but those were the good ole days.


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## Pecos (Mar 3, 2021)

911 said:


> I understand all about tradition and culture, so I am not passing judgment on these people, but this is something that if I would ever get to Spain, I would not want to witness. I detest anyone that kills an animal for entertainment value, but that's just me, so if they feel good about watching the bull get killed for entertainment purposes, so be it.


I spent four years in Spain and was persuaded that I needed to see at least one. I can tell you that one was more than enough for me. 

We had quite a few sailors and marines get hooked on bullfights and some attended one of them every week.

I lived close to Jerez de la Frontera and not too far from Rhonda de la Frontera (where bullfighting originated) and preoccupation with it was visible everywhere.

One side effect is that we had quite a few wives who seemed fascinated with all the bling that the bullfighters wore and chose to find out where they hung out and have affairs with them. Our station had way too many divorces over this.

The whole scene was disgusting to me.


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## 911 (Mar 4, 2021)

Jondalar7 said:


> I grew up on a dairy farm, I relate to the tractor accidents. It was hard work but those were the good ole days.


The 3-wheel tractors were probably more dangerous than others. During my time on the farm, I wasn’t aware of any accidents that we had experienced. We had both dairy and beef cattle and even our own breeding herds. Animal husbandry was just starting to come into realization in the early to mid 60’s for us, but the owner was already bringing in experts to discuss the procedures involved. It wasn’t too early to begin to prepare for what lied ahead. Artificially impregnating the heifers and cows was a lot cheaper than feeding, boarding and paying Vet bills for bulls.


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