My parents

This is my father and the working end of an Ayrshire Cow.My mother harvesting tomatoes with the milk-house behind her.

I begged for a horse.

My father had other ideas.
He loved all things motorized.
So when I was in 7th grade He bought me a dirt bike.

My parents and brother each had a bike but they were too tall for me to learn on. These were the reasons he gave me for having a motorcycle over a horse.

• You only have to feed it when you ride it.
• You don't have to clean out its stall.
• You don't have to brush it or exercise it.
  
• It doesn't have a mind of its own.
• It's not afraid of loud noises and will go anywhere you ask it to within reason.

Well, you get the idea. I thanked him over and over for that wonderful first bike. Actually, I still have it and my daughter rides it everyday in the summer.

She was a Jersey Heifer and her name was Rue.

I really wanted a horse of my own....all the neighbor girls had them...we had cows. My Grandfather was the horseman and when my father and uncle took over the farm the horse era was a memory. So I started by training Rue with a halter and leading her everywhere. Then when she got big enough she let me ride. I rode her most anywhere.
Those clothes!! The hat was my Dad's wool hunting cap that shrunk in the wash (yeah for me), flannel shirt and denim jacket were hand-me-downs from my brother; the jeans and SK's (shit-kickers) the shoes were from the neighbor boy who was a year older than I was. Oh and it looks like mud season, my favorite time of year.

Riding at a young age.

That's me on Cracker.
(Firecracker maybe, I'm told she was red.)
The young gal is a summer neighbor. (up from NJ)

Christmas Morning Milking

It was very dark when I woke up at 4 am to join my father in the barn that Christmas morning. I was in high school and it was our Sunday to milk the cows. The girls can't wait or take a day off. I put on my long johns and jeans, turtle neck and wool sweater made a quick stop at the fridge to grab some grub to carry me over til breakfast...3 hours til then. I put on my sorel boots, my heavy coat, the red wool hat with ear flaps and my wool mittens doubled up that Mom had knit. Off across the dooryard to the milking barn. The first thing to take care of was feeding the cows. First they all got a portion of grain and minerals measured out individually depending on their need. Then we would give them hay. The cows were all in stanchions, thirty on each side of the barn facing out looking toward the windows. To do this you made your way down each manger between cows and windows busting open the bales and fluffing it out so they could get at it easily. As I got to the further end of the barn I noticed that there were lights on down in the house. Not a usual site as Mom would normally sleep until six when she would start breakfast. So I stopped and scraped the frost away so I could get a clearer view and I could just make out the silhouette of a person moving back and forth across the living room to the lighted Christmas tree.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN SANTA?!?!

Pine needle playhouse

I was reminded this weekend as I was raking my white pine tree needles of the hours we spent as kids making pine needle playhouses. It was simply raking the needles into a very crude outline of a building very much like what you see on a blueprint. We would make rooms with doors and windows and see how extravagant we could make them. I don't know that we spent any time in the finished "house" we just spent lots of time raking and thinking about our future dream house. We would also rake all the pine needles into one huge pile and make a nest. Good clean fun. No batteries required.

Farm Clothing

Seeing this post on Farm Natters reminded my of what you wore to the barn.
The Evolution of Farm Clothing

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I was by all means a tom-boy growing up. I was the youngest and scrawniest of the kids in the neighborhood and received lots of hand-me-downs. I preferred the boys Levi jeans best. As a farm kid you have two sets of clothes: Barn clothes + School clothes. And if you forgot to change and got something nasty on your best clothes...no fear they were instantly transformed to barn clothes. Barn clothes were OH so much more comfy. If you were lucky nobody would notice that you had been wearing the same pants all week (I know the cows didn't). Mom would sooner or later WASH them, ugh they'd be stiff and tight from hanging on the line to dry.

You always wore jeans during haying otherwise your legs would get scratched to hell and you'd look like you had a tussle with a cat.

I was the only one on the farm that wore shorts in the barn milking in the summer. My father thought I was out of my mind. My legs would get completely covered with every disgusting thing that you could possibly find in the barn. But it was cooler and we had a great pond that we swam in after chores.

In winter it was a different story. The barn was always warm from the cows body heat. But getting to and from the barns and having the coat hang in the barn picking up all those wonderful smells that only farm families relish....you had to have a barn coat too. The hat I wore was an old red wool cap with ear flaps that I inherited from my father after my mom washed it in hot water.