Straw Boss
Well-known Member
After Iowa City, we traveled south on 218 and really enjoyed this part of Iowa. Rolling hills and nice farms. I've been through parts of Iowa a few times before but usually in summer. I was never able to actually see the lay of the land before as all you can see in summer is tall corn. This time I could see the farms and the shape of the land in all directions. I was quite impressed with all the well kept and BIG two and a half story farm houses. I'm guessing most were built in the mid teens to late twenties. I noticed that on many farms, all the out-buildings were painted white including the barns. Also the lack of livestock, fences and corrals yet many original livestock buildings are still standing. Proof this used to be a land of traditional diversified self-sufficient farming. Reminds me a lot of N. Dakotas Red River Valley where today, your hard pressed to spot a farm dog let alone a cow, sheep or hog.
I guess its a sign of the times where the crop is king and the cows have gone the way of the chicken, turkey, hog, dairy cow and feeder steer. The economies of scale have pushed them off the family farm into mega dairies, mega hog producers, 10,000 head feedlots, etc. Its simply cheaper today to buy at the grocery store than raise your own meat and vegetables. The time saved from animal husbandry and gardening is better spent farming more acres. Many farms still have cattle today but not like it used to be when EVERY farm had cattle, hogs, poultry and a family garden. Some today may have a few critters roaming around for their own personal enjoyment or for their own table, but the days of Mother taking her extra cream and eggs to town are long gone. The days of Father putting up the stock racks on his single-axle grain truck to sell his calves are gone. The days of Grandpa transporting his hogs to town in the back of his pickup are gone. The days of farm kids, hoping to earn jingle money, selling sweet corn and watermelons at the intersection of the farm lane and the highway are gone.
When I was a child, (and I'm not that old) our farm was one of the last in the area to still have 3 milk cows hand milked for our own consumption. We raised our own chicken and turkeys for eggs and butcher. We butchered our own hogs and steers. We had two deep freezers and an extra fridge in the basement and they were always full, along with a bin of potatoes from the field and shelves upon shelves of canning from the garden. Ball and Kerr canning jars filled with everything from beef to beans. We were never hungry. We wore hand-me-down clothes when they were available and my sisters made their own dresses and my Dad's machinery and vehicles were 10-20 years behind the neighbors but we were never hungry. The Schwan's truck used to sell ice cream in a 2 1/2 gallon tin. We always bought two. We had our priorities!
I remember sitting in the shade of our back porch with my sisters and 2 wash pans full of peas to be shucked before mother could can them.
My grandmother would make apple jelly and other preserves so long as us grandkids would travel up to the old homestead place and pick the apples from the trees my great grandparents planted. Grandpa liked to help with the sausage stuffer as we made our own sausages and brats. My Dad would take any opportunity for a quick bounty with nine kids to feed. A fish trap in the river would yield buckets and buckets of bullheads to be cleaned. It was the only job worse than cleaning chickens or stacking bales in a 100 degree hayloft. To this day I can't eat the ugly, greasy, mud-flavored creation . Some things you just don't ever learn to appreciate. Dad knew where all the wild rhubarb patches were around the neighborhood. We also had our own horseradish patch to make our own nasal-clearing, eye-watering sauce. (At the table, Dad thought it funny to see us boys compete to see who could eat the most at one sitting). Ours resembled more of a rough cut than a creamy sauce but it was GOOOOD STUFF!
Its easy to romanticize the old way of farm living. There were a lot of great memories, experiences and life lessons that I would do all over again and wouldn't trade for anything. But don't get me wrong, it was also a lot of work, mixed with some pain and suffering. Character building I think they call it. Daily chores in all weather. Potato bugs to pick, gardens to hoe, weeds to pull, water to haul to livestock and trees, manure to pitch, feed and grains to be shoveled, nose-burning ammonia-smelling chicken houses to be cleaned while the sweat drenched your clothing and stung your eyes. Mother and sisters had constant laundry to be washed and hung to dry, then gathered and ironed and folded. The electric Dryer was mostly used when the cloths line was full or the weather didn't cooperate. Dishes and pots and pans and cream separator parts and milk buckets had to be washed multiple times a day. I won't even go into the hours upon hours of field work tilling, planting, haying and harvesting.
Today, my farm is no different than these in Iowa. Almost a shadow of what they used to be. In my mind, I can see eleven farm buildings that are now gone from our once active place. My Dad bought this farm in the 50s when it was already in severe disrepair. The Dirty 30s and Wartime 40s didn't allow folks the luxury of paint and maintenance. His meager earnings from scratching the soil never yielded enough to take care of them all. One by one they were burnt as they were of no use anymore. Old chicken coops, hog houses, granaries and the old tractor/tool sheds are all gone. The big barn caught fire in 1980 and took our newer chicken coop and severly burnt another shed. Eventually the outhouse and the tiny leaky garage were razed. Gone is any evidence of horses once harnessed, gone is any evidence of grain shoveled, gone is any evidence of a cow milked, a chicken fed, a hog watered or a garden plowed. Its all in the past.
There's nothing left of my farm as it was in it's heyday back when it was built in the roaring 1920s. Built at a time when the grandchildren of the homesteader had opportunities their parents never dreamed of. Built at a time when new farming practices were making life easy. The tractor was replacing the horse. The combine was replacing the threshing machine. Gravel was replacing the dirt road. Electricity was replacing the windmill. Life was good.
Just 40-50 years before, a Dakota homesteader lucky enough to afford a stick built home, had to have the cut lumber hauled up to 100 miles overland from the nearest railroad. It likely took a week of overland travel by horse or oxen to deliver every precious load. Every keg of nails and pane of glass had to be delivered in this way along with any other daily needs from tools and dishes to coffee and salt. All supplies and farm implements such as plows, harrows, mowers and sulky rakes all had to be hauled overland before the railroad came to be. The generation of the 20s had a railroad in nearly every town to drop off anything they could desire by way of a simple letter being mailed the week before. And lets not forget to mention the venerable model T car and the freedoms of travel enjoyed by the lucky generation of the 20s. Everything was easy for them.
I guess what I'm rambling about is how each generation has it better than the last. Each generation thinks the next is a bit spoiled and doesn't work as hard. Each generation thinks the next have lost contact with the soil and the blood, sweat and tears shed to get it, hold it, tame it, build upon it, produce from it, and prosper on it. Each generation fears the next will take it for granted and not appreciate what the others before them sacrificed.
Today, most big farm tractors have auto-steer as standard equipment. Cabs so tight you don't know if its cold or hot outside, cabs so quiet you can listen to the radio or visit with a rider in comfort. But you can't smell the soil. You can't smell the fresh cut hay. You can't feel the weather change on the breeze. You can't hear the squeak of a bearing in need of grease. Those days are gone.
It pangs my heart a bit, knowing my kids will never run a cab-less tractor with no radio and no cell phone, only their own thoughts to keep them company, disking or plowing on a partly cloudy day, feeling chilled one minute, and with the sun breaking through the clouds the next, feeling the warmth of the sun on your back and shoulders like a hug from God, the rich pungent smell of the fresh turned earth overwhelming the senses, the purr of a good diesel in the ears and the vibrations coming through the steering wheel. Often your followed by a hundred seagulls snatching up the worms and bugs from the turned soil, sometimes flying so close you feel you could reach out and touch one. You feel alive! You feel at one with nature, at one with the weather and at one with the soil just short of having your toes in the dirt. My kids will miss out. All they will know is set the AC, the radio, the auto-steer, watch the computer screen and be isolated from all the natural senses that most farmers have enjoyed since the beginning of farming.
I can imagine my Grandpa felt the same way about my Dad, never having the opportunity to harvest with a threshing machine. Knowing that even though it was harder work than the combine and it was progress, he missed out on the excitement of the threshing ring, the neighbors helping neighbors and the sense of community support you just don't get harvesting by yourself with a combine. Those days are gone.
Great Grandpa maybe felt the same way knowing his boy, never plowing with a horse as he did, would miss out on the smell of horse sweat and harness oil. The soft sound of the plow slicing the soil, the whinny of the horse, the click of hoofs and the squeak of leather harness. The peaceful near silent quietness of the fields and prairie with only the song of birds and frogs and the wind in the grass to keep him company. The oneness with your horse, working together, tiring together, resting together. What a harsh, foul smelling, ear shattering thing the early tractors must have been to his quiet world. Did he mourn the loss of nature's choir his son will never know as long as he drives that noisy steel wheeled tractor? Will silence and solitude farming be forever a thing of history for the sake of progress?
I was thinking of some of these things as we rolled into Mount Pleasant Iowa. We decided on taking our dinner at Pizza Ranch. I like their mashed potatoes and salad bar (and pizza). I find they have a big mural on the wall depicting the early pioneers heading west to futures unknown. I couldn't stop looking at it and putting myself in their shoes (boots). It seemed only fitting for me to share it with you all as part of this story since it was the beginning of our history on the plains as farmers and ranchers. I wonder what THEIR fathers thought they were missing out on for the sake of progress and a better life?
I guess its a sign of the times where the crop is king and the cows have gone the way of the chicken, turkey, hog, dairy cow and feeder steer. The economies of scale have pushed them off the family farm into mega dairies, mega hog producers, 10,000 head feedlots, etc. Its simply cheaper today to buy at the grocery store than raise your own meat and vegetables. The time saved from animal husbandry and gardening is better spent farming more acres. Many farms still have cattle today but not like it used to be when EVERY farm had cattle, hogs, poultry and a family garden. Some today may have a few critters roaming around for their own personal enjoyment or for their own table, but the days of Mother taking her extra cream and eggs to town are long gone. The days of Father putting up the stock racks on his single-axle grain truck to sell his calves are gone. The days of Grandpa transporting his hogs to town in the back of his pickup are gone. The days of farm kids, hoping to earn jingle money, selling sweet corn and watermelons at the intersection of the farm lane and the highway are gone.
When I was a child, (and I'm not that old) our farm was one of the last in the area to still have 3 milk cows hand milked for our own consumption. We raised our own chicken and turkeys for eggs and butcher. We butchered our own hogs and steers. We had two deep freezers and an extra fridge in the basement and they were always full, along with a bin of potatoes from the field and shelves upon shelves of canning from the garden. Ball and Kerr canning jars filled with everything from beef to beans. We were never hungry. We wore hand-me-down clothes when they were available and my sisters made their own dresses and my Dad's machinery and vehicles were 10-20 years behind the neighbors but we were never hungry. The Schwan's truck used to sell ice cream in a 2 1/2 gallon tin. We always bought two. We had our priorities!
I remember sitting in the shade of our back porch with my sisters and 2 wash pans full of peas to be shucked before mother could can them.
My grandmother would make apple jelly and other preserves so long as us grandkids would travel up to the old homestead place and pick the apples from the trees my great grandparents planted. Grandpa liked to help with the sausage stuffer as we made our own sausages and brats. My Dad would take any opportunity for a quick bounty with nine kids to feed. A fish trap in the river would yield buckets and buckets of bullheads to be cleaned. It was the only job worse than cleaning chickens or stacking bales in a 100 degree hayloft. To this day I can't eat the ugly, greasy, mud-flavored creation . Some things you just don't ever learn to appreciate. Dad knew where all the wild rhubarb patches were around the neighborhood. We also had our own horseradish patch to make our own nasal-clearing, eye-watering sauce. (At the table, Dad thought it funny to see us boys compete to see who could eat the most at one sitting). Ours resembled more of a rough cut than a creamy sauce but it was GOOOOD STUFF!
Its easy to romanticize the old way of farm living. There were a lot of great memories, experiences and life lessons that I would do all over again and wouldn't trade for anything. But don't get me wrong, it was also a lot of work, mixed with some pain and suffering. Character building I think they call it. Daily chores in all weather. Potato bugs to pick, gardens to hoe, weeds to pull, water to haul to livestock and trees, manure to pitch, feed and grains to be shoveled, nose-burning ammonia-smelling chicken houses to be cleaned while the sweat drenched your clothing and stung your eyes. Mother and sisters had constant laundry to be washed and hung to dry, then gathered and ironed and folded. The electric Dryer was mostly used when the cloths line was full or the weather didn't cooperate. Dishes and pots and pans and cream separator parts and milk buckets had to be washed multiple times a day. I won't even go into the hours upon hours of field work tilling, planting, haying and harvesting.
Today, my farm is no different than these in Iowa. Almost a shadow of what they used to be. In my mind, I can see eleven farm buildings that are now gone from our once active place. My Dad bought this farm in the 50s when it was already in severe disrepair. The Dirty 30s and Wartime 40s didn't allow folks the luxury of paint and maintenance. His meager earnings from scratching the soil never yielded enough to take care of them all. One by one they were burnt as they were of no use anymore. Old chicken coops, hog houses, granaries and the old tractor/tool sheds are all gone. The big barn caught fire in 1980 and took our newer chicken coop and severly burnt another shed. Eventually the outhouse and the tiny leaky garage were razed. Gone is any evidence of horses once harnessed, gone is any evidence of grain shoveled, gone is any evidence of a cow milked, a chicken fed, a hog watered or a garden plowed. Its all in the past.
There's nothing left of my farm as it was in it's heyday back when it was built in the roaring 1920s. Built at a time when the grandchildren of the homesteader had opportunities their parents never dreamed of. Built at a time when new farming practices were making life easy. The tractor was replacing the horse. The combine was replacing the threshing machine. Gravel was replacing the dirt road. Electricity was replacing the windmill. Life was good.
Just 40-50 years before, a Dakota homesteader lucky enough to afford a stick built home, had to have the cut lumber hauled up to 100 miles overland from the nearest railroad. It likely took a week of overland travel by horse or oxen to deliver every precious load. Every keg of nails and pane of glass had to be delivered in this way along with any other daily needs from tools and dishes to coffee and salt. All supplies and farm implements such as plows, harrows, mowers and sulky rakes all had to be hauled overland before the railroad came to be. The generation of the 20s had a railroad in nearly every town to drop off anything they could desire by way of a simple letter being mailed the week before. And lets not forget to mention the venerable model T car and the freedoms of travel enjoyed by the lucky generation of the 20s. Everything was easy for them.
I guess what I'm rambling about is how each generation has it better than the last. Each generation thinks the next is a bit spoiled and doesn't work as hard. Each generation thinks the next have lost contact with the soil and the blood, sweat and tears shed to get it, hold it, tame it, build upon it, produce from it, and prosper on it. Each generation fears the next will take it for granted and not appreciate what the others before them sacrificed.
Today, most big farm tractors have auto-steer as standard equipment. Cabs so tight you don't know if its cold or hot outside, cabs so quiet you can listen to the radio or visit with a rider in comfort. But you can't smell the soil. You can't smell the fresh cut hay. You can't feel the weather change on the breeze. You can't hear the squeak of a bearing in need of grease. Those days are gone.
It pangs my heart a bit, knowing my kids will never run a cab-less tractor with no radio and no cell phone, only their own thoughts to keep them company, disking or plowing on a partly cloudy day, feeling chilled one minute, and with the sun breaking through the clouds the next, feeling the warmth of the sun on your back and shoulders like a hug from God, the rich pungent smell of the fresh turned earth overwhelming the senses, the purr of a good diesel in the ears and the vibrations coming through the steering wheel. Often your followed by a hundred seagulls snatching up the worms and bugs from the turned soil, sometimes flying so close you feel you could reach out and touch one. You feel alive! You feel at one with nature, at one with the weather and at one with the soil just short of having your toes in the dirt. My kids will miss out. All they will know is set the AC, the radio, the auto-steer, watch the computer screen and be isolated from all the natural senses that most farmers have enjoyed since the beginning of farming.
I can imagine my Grandpa felt the same way about my Dad, never having the opportunity to harvest with a threshing machine. Knowing that even though it was harder work than the combine and it was progress, he missed out on the excitement of the threshing ring, the neighbors helping neighbors and the sense of community support you just don't get harvesting by yourself with a combine. Those days are gone.
Great Grandpa maybe felt the same way knowing his boy, never plowing with a horse as he did, would miss out on the smell of horse sweat and harness oil. The soft sound of the plow slicing the soil, the whinny of the horse, the click of hoofs and the squeak of leather harness. The peaceful near silent quietness of the fields and prairie with only the song of birds and frogs and the wind in the grass to keep him company. The oneness with your horse, working together, tiring together, resting together. What a harsh, foul smelling, ear shattering thing the early tractors must have been to his quiet world. Did he mourn the loss of nature's choir his son will never know as long as he drives that noisy steel wheeled tractor? Will silence and solitude farming be forever a thing of history for the sake of progress?
I was thinking of some of these things as we rolled into Mount Pleasant Iowa. We decided on taking our dinner at Pizza Ranch. I like their mashed potatoes and salad bar (and pizza). I find they have a big mural on the wall depicting the early pioneers heading west to futures unknown. I couldn't stop looking at it and putting myself in their shoes (boots). It seemed only fitting for me to share it with you all as part of this story since it was the beginning of our history on the plains as farmers and ranchers. I wonder what THEIR fathers thought they were missing out on for the sake of progress and a better life?
