Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden, still not quite graduated from Wendell Wilkie High School.
Hi Mr. C.!
Well, I didn’t get that actuary job I’d been hoping for.
There was never actually an actual actuary job available, but I was hoping someone would find out I was interested by reading your blog and then they’d contact me. I guess your dumb blog isn’t as popular as I thought, or it has the wrong type of readers. Jobless ones, like me.
Either that, or people don’t want good employees very much these days.
The funny thing is, there seem to be more jobs around this summer than there were in the past few years. A bunch of the kids I know from school are working at fast food places and movie theaters and as babysitters and stuff like that. And that’s fine but I was really counting on having something cool to do.
Looking to be Wrangled
Like being a wrangler on a Llama Ranch.
I think wrangling llamas would give me a chance to run across an open field and get a flying headlock on wayward livestock in a way that would be really fun. They have lots of neck footage, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a place to grab on. Then it’s just a matter of pointing their faces in the direction you want them to go.
That’s what I imagine, anyway.
It would be awesome, though I hear they spit. But that’s OK. I can spit too! It would be extremely cool to start next year by telling the kids in my homeroom that I spent the summer llama wrangling and spit dueling.
So, are there any overworked Llama Ranchers with some extra money in your audience? And if not, what sort of work do they do? I’m starting to wonder if me networking with you is ever going to pay off.
Your pal,
Bubby
P.S. – I don’t want to have anything to do with actual baboons. I’d rather babysit human children, if it came to that.
Morning all! Just got back from dropping off Nonny at the airport. When did they stop calling the terminals by their names? The Humphrey Terminal is now just plain ole boring “Terminal 2”.
We’re talking about terminals because I am a complete city girl — now summer livestock experience whatsoever. In fact, until I met and visited Barb in Blackhoof, I’ve never had ANY livestock experience.
The name change went into effect a few months ago. Some genius decided it would be easier to remember “Terminal 1” and “Terminal 2” than “Lindbergh Terminal” and “Humphrey Terminal.” Go figure. If it were mine to do, we would have “The Big-ass Regular Old Terminal” and “That New Terminal That Used to be for Charters.” People could remember that!>/i>
Late last night I posted a pair of Liam quotes. I won’t transgress OTly again by repeating them.
My daughter had a friend (Heather) who had farmer relatives in Nebraska. Each summer Molly would travel with Heather to live on a farm for a week of two. She once helped a calf get born. How cool is that? Then when she was 12 she took the Empire Builder train to Montana to spend six weeks living with my buddy Bill. Bill grew up without dogs but came to love them by hunting with me and my old springer, Brandy. Molly’s job while living with Bill was to wrangle his 130-dog team of racing sled dogs. She fed them, cleaned up their crap, exercised them and helped get them in harness. When Molly came home from that summer she was noticeably more mature and self confident, and she smelled like a sled dog.
I’ve purchased an upgrade from WordPress that lets me change the size of the font, though I think this is as big as it can get. It’s better, but is it good enough? How much money will it take to make Trail Baboon readable again?
I agree, Dale. This font is now very readable. I don’t feel right about your putting money into this, since we all benefit from it so much. Could we pass the hat and make this expense good for you?
No worries, Renee, Steve and Edith. It was only thirty bucks, and the money I used is money that came directly from the advertisements placed on the blog – none of it was really out of my pocket. We all paid for it by putting up with the intrusion of ads!
Daughter just took the Empire Builder from Fargo to La Crosse to visit friends in Dubuque, then rode it back to Minot, where we picked her up. It was her first solo trip, and it went well. She found the Iowans a little provincial. She said “Mom, they are the sort of people who go to Buffalo Wild Wings and order Parmesan Garlic wings instead of hot wings.. They are not spicy people, and they think driving more than 30 miles away from home as a really long trip”.
In the 1950s when I was a pheasant hunter moving around randomly, knocking on the doors of strangers, I met all kinds of rural people. It was fascinating, and one of the choice rewards of that sport. It was common for folks to live their entire lives in a small area, for they never had reason to leave and all their relatives lived almost close enough you could see them from a high hill. One woman I enjoyed, the Cookie Lady, had never been outside a 60-mile circle around her home. For many farm folks, every day was a work day except Sunday. Sundays were “visiting day.” If you drove rural highways or gravel roads on Sundays you’d find yourself behind an old sedan packed with seven family members of all sizes and ages, the driver hanging on to the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip while he tried to be calm although he was whizzing along at the terrifying speed of 45 mph. Invariably, that was one part of a family traveling to visit with another part, and a drive of 30 miles would have been almost too long and scary to contemplate.
my dad taught us how to hunt in dakota. he kept a bottle of whiskey in the trunk and offered it as a peace pipe for the favor of hunting on the land if he found a spot he wanted to be. knocking on doors is part of the deal in dakota hunting tradition. we would only knock for pheasant hunting if there were 10 or 15 of usa nd we wer wanting to flush a field walking in a row with cappers on the end. usually looke for a field next ot the railroad tracks so the attraction of the gravel for thier gullets was the attractant. did lots of asking for geese and usually headed for the sloughs for ducks. geese too at the right time of year. the farmers were all down to earth folks who taught you folks are folks and we all eed to be good to each other. it was easy and one lesson my dad loved teaching us. more often than not the offering of whiskey was appreciated but not accepted. it was jus the recognition that you weren’t assuming you could just assume it was ok. once you acknowledged it was a favor to be acknowledged that took care of that.
This is in answer to tim’s piece about knocking on doors to ask to hunt. I did most of my freelance door knocking in Iowa, where quite a few farmers don’t drink. It would have been risky to offer booze. In earlier times farmers didn’t want money or alcohol. What they lacked most was respect and entertainment. Many of them took an interest in strangers coming to their land. If you were prepared to “visit” with them a while and treat them with respect, they’d let you on their land.
I hunted for a while with a man who had perfected the business of talking himself on to a stranger’s farm. He was especially charming and effective with farm wives. Because farmers had prejudices against “Des Moines hunters,” this fellow bought a home just outside of Des Moines (where he worked) so his license plate wouldn’t betray the fact he was from Des Moines. And when he approached a farm wife, he suddenly developed a southern drawl you could cut with a knife. Another friend wore farmerish clothing when he went knocking on doors. He didn’t want farmers to sense he had more money than they did.
I get a lot people asking about hunting on our place but we are inside the game refuge so don’t get the pressure of waterfowl hunting.
I always tell them I appreciate them asking. (And no one has offered me whiskey.)
The last guy to ask was a retired minister from Iowa. When I asked why he had moved to Rochester he said it is general courtesy for the old minister to move out of town when the new guy comes in — otherwise the parishioners won’t bond with the new guy. I guess I didn’t go to a small enough town / church to realize that.
very insightful. when north dakotans find a place slow and provincial it should be shouted from the rooftops to sound the alarms for really wild people like folks from Minnesota.
Good morning I spent part of a summer helping on my Uncle’s farm and also visited that farm on other occasions. He had a small herd of cows that he milked, a few pigs, and a horse left over from the days they used horses on the farm. Almost all of the farming was done with tractors, although I did see the horse in action pulling a wagon when we hand picked a small patch of corn on a winter day.
Milking machines were used, but the milk house was not very modern. I helped carry the milk up to the milk house where it was keep cool in cans that were set in a large cement water filled tank. Also I watched the birth of a calf and helped a little with calf feeding.
This was the family farm that my grandfather bought after closing his livery stable in town.
i have a vivid memory of being 2 and going with my folks out to visit one or their friend who owned a farm or at least a spot with a barn and critters and a field. we likely lived in fargo at the time and the possibilities are endless as to where we were. i remember it because it ended with my cowboy boots being left in the mud.
my mom was the original chatty patty and spent hours every day on the phone and was june cleaver in real life complete with pearl necklace. my dad was a north dakota boy who hunted after work with a buddy or two many days just for fun. i was a cowboy. a two year old cowboy stuck it he city if you could call fargo a city and the neighborhood wasnt nearly as cool as the lone ranger, pecos bill, wild bill hickock with andy devine and zoro like i saw on television. for chirstmas and birthdays and anytime it came up what i wanted was cowboy stuff. i had the hat, the vest the 6 gun and finally got the boots, black with those little red half moons things cut into the upper part that you tucked your pants into to show off the cool part with all the sewing and neat patterns. the barn barn was ok but not much action after a couple of minutes. a bunch of hay and a few critters just standing there. i wanted some action. i headed for the south forty and along the way, not too far along the way the muck in the mud puddle swallowed my boots. i was walking and then i got my feet stuck. i must have been 7 or 8 steps into this puddle because there was no turning back, the only option was onward and upward but it was not to be. first one foot then the other became entrenched in the muck. pull and yank as i tried they werent coming out and i wasnt leaving without them. i started hollering and when no one came i hollered some more. after an eternity and my feet coming out of the boots and getting goozed with mud i had slid them back into the boots to continue the effort, my dad showed up and said something to the effect of what in the world are you doing thats quicksand and yanked me out leaving my boots in. i told him it wasnt quicksand it was a puddle but he must have thought he knew differently. i kept waiting and reminding hiom that my new boots were in the muck but i received the evil eye instead of comfort and reassurance. we left those boots in the quicksand and went back to the urban life in north fargo where i languished in captivity until we moved to brainard where i had the mississippi in the backyard and all the adventure me or my parents could stand. i have pictures of me with the dog leash around my waist as i hung from the picket fence of my prison caught while trying to escape to freedom and a life in the wild where i belonged.
thanks bubby, i hadnt thought of that little blip for years,.
my dad smiled more than once at my brood and said he always hoped i got paid back for all the hell i put him through and he was satisfied i had gotten the proper level of payback with my little pack of maniacs
the boots didn’t get replaced which I thought was odd, I mean the coolest things in the world get sucked into a black hole and we are supposed to forget about it. how does that work. it was years before I got boots again. just no money for such extravagant accessories in our lives ( i missed those boots for a long time) now i have boots and cant wear them of my back goes to hell. bet I have 10 pairs i used to wear.
dale how the heck do i shut spell checker off? i don’t want upper case i’s messing with my posts!
April of 1981, when Joel was three months old, we moved from S. Mpls. down to a farm between Winona and Lewiston, where our friends Janis and Chuck and Toddler did a little farming on 20 acres. We were going to see what we could put together that could support the six of us. We lasted five months; they shared their house with us, and we all split up the chores. I learned to milk the goats, did the evening milking. I don’t remember that much about it now, just that my hands got really strong, and I liked being close to the animals, having them trust me and let me milk them. And wow, warm goat milk (which is better tasting, less “grassy”, if they feed on something besides grass). I also fed chickens and collected the eggs, which I also loved.
We ended up moving into Winona in September, end of an era. But we loved going out to visit them, and once we lived back here in the city, it was great to get away – glad we had that one connection with a farm.
I used to spend a couple of weeks every summer with various relatives who farmed. My uncle had a dairy farm and chickens. I only got to watch the milking operation. The chickens were leghorns, and I have never had a better tasting chicken. My grandfather kept pigs and bantam hens. I remember the metallic clank early in the morning of the pigs lifting up the lids on the feeders, eating, and then “clank” as the lid dropped when the pig was finished.
I didn’t live in the country with some of the people I knew who were interested in going back to the land, although I did visit a few of them. I helped one of these people with his rabbits including slaughtering and selling some at the farmer’s market. We drank some of the goat milk from the same place where the rabbits were raised.
Like VS, I am a city kid. Farm animals were encountered yearly at the state fair and occasionally at petting zoo sorts of places. There was one critter, though, that was a regular part of a couple of summers: Goldie. Goldie was a donkey who lived at an old mining camp in South Dakota that had been turned into cabin rentals (of sorts). The cabin we rented was little more than a shack, but it had a front porch, and I could sit on the railing of the porch with sugar cubes waiting for Goldie to come by – she’d eat the cubes right out of my hand. The first summer there was only the owner’s son who was close to my age for kids to play with, and he and I had very different interests, so Goldie was the friend I made. We went there a few summers – but the last one, there was no Goldie, only her daughter. Apparently Goldie had taken her daughter across the train tracks (the 1880 Train ran through the back part of the property), but Daughter (either coming or going), didn’t want to get off the tracks. Goldie could hear the train coming and sacrificed herself to save her offspring and got hit by the train. I was despondent. Goldie’s child (whose name I don’t remember), would occasionally come by for sugar cubes, but wasn’t as gentle or companionable as Goldie.
If we count the State Fair and all the different animal farms that Child/Teenager and I have visited over the years, then it’s another story. Fawn-Doe-Rosa is our favorite (deer, llamas, burros, goats) but if a place has an animal park of any kind, then we give it a shot if we’re there.
In the first year of being married, my erstwife and I made a pilgrimage to NW Iowa to visit her father’s many rural relatives. We took along my sister’s kids, Dave and Mary, who had had no experience with farms. Kathe and I slept with our heads almost hanging out of an open second-story window that first night with a strong west wind buffeting us all night. I never slept better. Because there weren’t enough beds, Dave and Mary slept in a little tent in the backyard. When I went to get them up I found them already awake and sitting outside their tent, observing the cattle moving in a fenced yard. The kids were amazed that cattle were active and mooing at daybreak. They had made up a little song I still remember: “Poor, poor cows! Gots to get up in the moooooorning!” (repeated endlessly)
My paternal grandparents lived on a dairy farm, but we were kept strictly away from all livestock. My mother also insisted on bringing milk from the store for us to drink. sigh. I’ve been trying to make up for lost time ever since.
I do remember visiting the farm of an old Danish couple many times, and I must have gotten to spend a day there on my own a couple of times, and one of the great activities was getting to collect the eggs.
I hear all the time about the perils of egg gathering, but these Danish chickens must have been very laid back, as I have nothing but a feeling of general coziness surrounding my memory of them.
Perhaps Maren fed them some of her good pastry (or maybe they all knew that obnoxious chickens landed in the most delicious pots of chicken with homemade, thick egg noodles). sigh again.
On a cruise once we had a one-day stop in Norway and I took a tour out to a country farmhouse. The hostess served some nice things, but I remember the Skolebrod the best. Ate it sitting out on the big desk looking out onto the farm. I’m sure it tasted better than if I ate it sitting in my dining room!
somehow, I was picturing this large porch with a HUGE antique executive kind of desk on it, and thinking, gee, wouldn’t I love to check the morning email and blog like that!
Morning–
Fun stories everyone; it’s fun to read about those memories.
The first cow I remember was Jennifer. A Guernsey.
We never had a Holstein Bull when I was young because Dad used artificial breeding. With the advent of artificial breeding you could pick a bull to improve whatever genetics that particular cow was lacking.
For several years Dad used a bull by the name of CarVal. What people didn’t figure out for a few years was that CarVal had a temperament of ” Negative 5″. His other traits were pluses, but he passed that negative temperament to all his daughters. You could tell a vet or breeder or the milkman “She’s a CarVal Daughter” and they’d all back off a step.
Took me a long time to cull out all the CarVal daughters. Kelly liked to put the bull book in front of the cows and let them pick their own bull. Whomever they sniffed at first was their ‘date’ for the next morning.
AI (artificial insemination) is an interesting industry that’s changed over time. In the ‘old days’, you tied a red flag on your mailbox if you wanted the breeder to stop in. What I remember was calling the local number asking the breeder to stop in. ‘Call before 10:00 PM for morning Service. Call before 11:00 AM for afternoon service’. The sticker from the breeding company always had a permanent place just under the handset on the barn phone right next to the shelf that held all the books and folders and information.
The last few years it became automated; call in, enter your customer number and get a recorded message saying your call was received. It was 10 years ago I sold my cows so I’m sure it’s all online — or there’s an app for it. Stick your phone in—– forget I said that.
And the related paperwork; a special calendar with dates ‘If bred today will calve _____’. Enter the cows sire; enter the bull used today; if she doesn’t “stick” she will return in ___ days. The little yellow cards that I hung on the beam behind the cow to let the breeder know who needed service made great note cards to fold up and carry in my pocket.
Semen used to cost anywhere from $7 – $20 per straw. $25 was my top end. Price depended on how much was available and how proven he was. I’m sure it’s more these days.
Much time was spent watching the cows to see who was in heat and who to breed. Look for rubbing on the tail head. Someone always had a new gimick for detecting when a cow was in heat. (Paint for the tail, stick on ink markers) and now they’re measuring body temperature, daily activity and feed intake. Plus there are ways to force estrus and synchronize it with any number of cows. I did a little of that before selling them.
Some of my favorite cows were Sally, Chula, Trova (after the band), Mary and her daughter Antoinette. Cheryl was mean but gave a lot of milk. I had a red and white holstein named Queenie (from the book ‘Daddy played Music for the cows’) and of course I had LynneCow named for Lynne Warfel-Holt. Lynne loved having a cow named after her.
I had a cow named Antigone. When she sold at the sales barn the auctioneer called her “Aunty Gone’. I called out, ” ‘an-tig-uh-nee’ from Greek mythology; Oedipus Daughter”. Silence in the sales ring… A guy behind me leans up and says ‘I don’t think they got that…’
Named several Kelly but they always had some issue and never lasted long. Don’t name a cow after your wife.
Clyde would have stories. Anyone heard from him lately? Clyde, we miss you.
Good stories, Ben. The main thing I remember about my uncles cows is the problems he had when one of them would go into the wrong stall. My uncle would get very frustrated trying get the cows back in order because when one them was in the wrong place several other would be out of place and it would take a lot of work to get them back where they belonged.
Oh yeah; the cows all had their specific stalls. It was training them to go into that stall in the first place that was hard. Bribery with feed worked sometimes… It was best when I started a month before they had to be in the barn to get them used to things. The worst was having to get a cow in the barn RIGHT NOW. There were gates involved and lots of running back and forth in the barn and some yelling too. Man… it was nuts.
What a great story, Ben. It reminded me of a joke so dirty I couldn’t put it here, so I sent it to what I HOPE is your email. If I got the wrong address, someone’s in for a strange surprise.
It’s only borderline dirty… wait until after 10:00 PM then I think you could post it here. 🙂 Dale, will you read all our dirty jokes and let us know which ones you approve of??
ben i cant believe it took you an example or three of why not to name a cow after your wife.
come to think of it there is a cow named tara after my daughter in kosovo from when she visited and was taken with the claf at birth, watch out what you wish for, the similarities between tara and tara the cow are not ones she appreciates.
Great stories, Ben. One of my very good friends, Maryann Weidt, wrote “Daddy Played Music for the Cow.” Her illustrator for the book is Danish. I was in the audience the night that she received the Minnesota Book Award for it. Yeah, Maryann!
“Aunty Gone” very funny. Antigone will never be the same.
This is the problem w/ literary or geeky names for your animals – you always have to explain it. I speak from experience on this one…. current animals are Thorin, Rhiannon, Zorro, Nimue and Sheldon. Anyone? Anyone?
And not that I’m stalking him, but he has now also changed the last blog title on his Birchwood page to “hiatus vel terminus”, which I can’t find a decent translation for, but looks final. Trying to keep good thoughts for you, wherever you are, Clyde.
I spent a good many summers around livestock – being bred and born on an Iowa farm. Witnessed many animal breedings & births there as well. Deja vu!
I’ll try to think up some animal memories today as I’m reading my first book of the summer – Wild – by Cheryl Strayed. The true story of a lone young woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, searching for centeredness after suffering the loss of her mother, her marriage, and most recently – her roll of condoms.
Hi Steve and all! My daughter was here last week and left her copy of Wild, assuring me I’d like it. Got sidetracked today planting flowers and stuff, but tonight I’ll be up late reading. Hope to find out if the rub …er … prophylactics are recovered. Evidence suggests they were stolen. Sherrilee – thank you so much for not giving that part away! tim – you are welcome to read it when I’m done. For a small fee I’ll go through it and highlight all the dirty words.
My mother’s parents had a small farm in South Dakota while I was growing up. We’d visit in the summer. I don’t remember much about the cows, except getting a large glass of warmish milk each morning with the cream not quite completely skimmed off. My grandfather kept one placid horse and a slightly ornery dog.
Trail Baboon 
Morning all! Just got back from dropping off Nonny at the airport. When did they stop calling the terminals by their names? The Humphrey Terminal is now just plain ole boring “Terminal 2”.
We’re talking about terminals because I am a complete city girl — now summer livestock experience whatsoever. In fact, until I met and visited Barb in Blackhoof, I’ve never had ANY livestock experience.
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The name change went into effect a few months ago. Some genius decided it would be easier to remember “Terminal 1” and “Terminal 2” than “Lindbergh Terminal” and “Humphrey Terminal.” Go figure. If it were mine to do, we would have “The Big-ass Regular Old Terminal” and “That New Terminal That Used to be for Charters.” People could remember that!>/i>
Late last night I posted a pair of Liam quotes. I won’t transgress OTly again by repeating them.
My daughter had a friend (Heather) who had farmer relatives in Nebraska. Each summer Molly would travel with Heather to live on a farm for a week of two. She once helped a calf get born. How cool is that? Then when she was 12 she took the Empire Builder train to Montana to spend six weeks living with my buddy Bill. Bill grew up without dogs but came to love them by hunting with me and my old springer, Brandy. Molly’s job while living with Bill was to wrangle his 130-dog team of racing sled dogs. She fed them, cleaned up their crap, exercised them and helped get them in harness. When Molly came home from that summer she was noticeably more mature and self confident, and she smelled like a sled dog.
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Shoot! I might have turned on italics and failed to turn them off.
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its ok the letters are so small you can hardly notice
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I’ve purchased an upgrade from WordPress that lets me change the size of the font, though I think this is as big as it can get. It’s better, but is it good enough? How much money will it take to make Trail Baboon readable again?
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Dale, it’s WAY readable now, at least here…
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VERY readable here, too. Thanks, Dale!
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I agree, Dale. This font is now very readable. I don’t feel right about your putting money into this, since we all benefit from it so much. Could we pass the hat and make this expense good for you?
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Dale, i hope it didn’t cost much.
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No worries, Renee, Steve and Edith. It was only thirty bucks, and the money I used is money that came directly from the advertisements placed on the blog – none of it was really out of my pocket. We all paid for it by putting up with the intrusion of ads!
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Daughter just took the Empire Builder from Fargo to La Crosse to visit friends in Dubuque, then rode it back to Minot, where we picked her up. It was her first solo trip, and it went well. She found the Iowans a little provincial. She said “Mom, they are the sort of people who go to Buffalo Wild Wings and order Parmesan Garlic wings instead of hot wings.. They are not spicy people, and they think driving more than 30 miles away from home as a really long trip”.
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In the 1950s when I was a pheasant hunter moving around randomly, knocking on the doors of strangers, I met all kinds of rural people. It was fascinating, and one of the choice rewards of that sport. It was common for folks to live their entire lives in a small area, for they never had reason to leave and all their relatives lived almost close enough you could see them from a high hill. One woman I enjoyed, the Cookie Lady, had never been outside a 60-mile circle around her home. For many farm folks, every day was a work day except Sunday. Sundays were “visiting day.” If you drove rural highways or gravel roads on Sundays you’d find yourself behind an old sedan packed with seven family members of all sizes and ages, the driver hanging on to the steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip while he tried to be calm although he was whizzing along at the terrifying speed of 45 mph. Invariably, that was one part of a family traveling to visit with another part, and a drive of 30 miles would have been almost too long and scary to contemplate.
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my dad taught us how to hunt in dakota. he kept a bottle of whiskey in the trunk and offered it as a peace pipe for the favor of hunting on the land if he found a spot he wanted to be. knocking on doors is part of the deal in dakota hunting tradition. we would only knock for pheasant hunting if there were 10 or 15 of usa nd we wer wanting to flush a field walking in a row with cappers on the end. usually looke for a field next ot the railroad tracks so the attraction of the gravel for thier gullets was the attractant. did lots of asking for geese and usually headed for the sloughs for ducks. geese too at the right time of year. the farmers were all down to earth folks who taught you folks are folks and we all eed to be good to each other. it was easy and one lesson my dad loved teaching us. more often than not the offering of whiskey was appreciated but not accepted. it was jus the recognition that you weren’t assuming you could just assume it was ok. once you acknowledged it was a favor to be acknowledged that took care of that.
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This is in answer to tim’s piece about knocking on doors to ask to hunt. I did most of my freelance door knocking in Iowa, where quite a few farmers don’t drink. It would have been risky to offer booze. In earlier times farmers didn’t want money or alcohol. What they lacked most was respect and entertainment. Many of them took an interest in strangers coming to their land. If you were prepared to “visit” with them a while and treat them with respect, they’d let you on their land.
I hunted for a while with a man who had perfected the business of talking himself on to a stranger’s farm. He was especially charming and effective with farm wives. Because farmers had prejudices against “Des Moines hunters,” this fellow bought a home just outside of Des Moines (where he worked) so his license plate wouldn’t betray the fact he was from Des Moines. And when he approached a farm wife, he suddenly developed a southern drawl you could cut with a knife. Another friend wore farmerish clothing when he went knocking on doors. He didn’t want farmers to sense he had more money than they did.
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I get a lot people asking about hunting on our place but we are inside the game refuge so don’t get the pressure of waterfowl hunting.
I always tell them I appreciate them asking. (And no one has offered me whiskey.)
The last guy to ask was a retired minister from Iowa. When I asked why he had moved to Rochester he said it is general courtesy for the old minister to move out of town when the new guy comes in — otherwise the parishioners won’t bond with the new guy. I guess I didn’t go to a small enough town / church to realize that.
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very insightful. when north dakotans find a place slow and provincial it should be shouted from the rooftops to sound the alarms for really wild people like folks from Minnesota.
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North Dakotans love salsa, and i believe they consume more salsa than most people in many other states int he union. Don’t ask me why.
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what kind of salsa is best renee? i love salsa but then again i guess i would . i am from north dakota.
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Good morning I spent part of a summer helping on my Uncle’s farm and also visited that farm on other occasions. He had a small herd of cows that he milked, a few pigs, and a horse left over from the days they used horses on the farm. Almost all of the farming was done with tractors, although I did see the horse in action pulling a wagon when we hand picked a small patch of corn on a winter day.
Milking machines were used, but the milk house was not very modern. I helped carry the milk up to the milk house where it was keep cool in cans that were set in a large cement water filled tank. Also I watched the birth of a calf and helped a little with calf feeding.
This was the family farm that my grandfather bought after closing his livery stable in town.
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i have a vivid memory of being 2 and going with my folks out to visit one or their friend who owned a farm or at least a spot with a barn and critters and a field. we likely lived in fargo at the time and the possibilities are endless as to where we were. i remember it because it ended with my cowboy boots being left in the mud.
my mom was the original chatty patty and spent hours every day on the phone and was june cleaver in real life complete with pearl necklace. my dad was a north dakota boy who hunted after work with a buddy or two many days just for fun. i was a cowboy. a two year old cowboy stuck it he city if you could call fargo a city and the neighborhood wasnt nearly as cool as the lone ranger, pecos bill, wild bill hickock with andy devine and zoro like i saw on television. for chirstmas and birthdays and anytime it came up what i wanted was cowboy stuff. i had the hat, the vest the 6 gun and finally got the boots, black with those little red half moons things cut into the upper part that you tucked your pants into to show off the cool part with all the sewing and neat patterns. the barn barn was ok but not much action after a couple of minutes. a bunch of hay and a few critters just standing there. i wanted some action. i headed for the south forty and along the way, not too far along the way the muck in the mud puddle swallowed my boots. i was walking and then i got my feet stuck. i must have been 7 or 8 steps into this puddle because there was no turning back, the only option was onward and upward but it was not to be. first one foot then the other became entrenched in the muck. pull and yank as i tried they werent coming out and i wasnt leaving without them. i started hollering and when no one came i hollered some more. after an eternity and my feet coming out of the boots and getting goozed with mud i had slid them back into the boots to continue the effort, my dad showed up and said something to the effect of what in the world are you doing thats quicksand and yanked me out leaving my boots in. i told him it wasnt quicksand it was a puddle but he must have thought he knew differently. i kept waiting and reminding hiom that my new boots were in the muck but i received the evil eye instead of comfort and reassurance. we left those boots in the quicksand and went back to the urban life in north fargo where i languished in captivity until we moved to brainard where i had the mississippi in the backyard and all the adventure me or my parents could stand. i have pictures of me with the dog leash around my waist as i hung from the picket fence of my prison caught while trying to escape to freedom and a life in the wild where i belonged.
thanks bubby, i hadnt thought of that little blip for years,.
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I want to see those pictures!
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Did you ever get a pair of replacement cowboy boots?
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I love the specificity of your memories.
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tim, you have pretty cool memories and stories. I don’t know how your parents put up with you! Haha! 🙂
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my dad smiled more than once at my brood and said he always hoped i got paid back for all the hell i put him through and he was satisfied i had gotten the proper level of payback with my little pack of maniacs
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the boots didn’t get replaced which I thought was odd, I mean the coolest things in the world get sucked into a black hole and we are supposed to forget about it. how does that work. it was years before I got boots again. just no money for such extravagant accessories in our lives ( i missed those boots for a long time) now i have boots and cant wear them of my back goes to hell. bet I have 10 pairs i used to wear.
dale how the heck do i shut spell checker off? i don’t want upper case i’s messing with my posts!
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April of 1981, when Joel was three months old, we moved from S. Mpls. down to a farm between Winona and Lewiston, where our friends Janis and Chuck and Toddler did a little farming on 20 acres. We were going to see what we could put together that could support the six of us. We lasted five months; they shared their house with us, and we all split up the chores. I learned to milk the goats, did the evening milking. I don’t remember that much about it now, just that my hands got really strong, and I liked being close to the animals, having them trust me and let me milk them. And wow, warm goat milk (which is better tasting, less “grassy”, if they feed on something besides grass). I also fed chickens and collected the eggs, which I also loved.
We ended up moving into Winona in September, end of an era. But we loved going out to visit them, and once we lived back here in the city, it was great to get away – glad we had that one connection with a farm.
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I used to spend a couple of weeks every summer with various relatives who farmed. My uncle had a dairy farm and chickens. I only got to watch the milking operation. The chickens were leghorns, and I have never had a better tasting chicken. My grandfather kept pigs and bantam hens. I remember the metallic clank early in the morning of the pigs lifting up the lids on the feeders, eating, and then “clank” as the lid dropped when the pig was finished.
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I didn’t live in the country with some of the people I knew who were interested in going back to the land, although I did visit a few of them. I helped one of these people with his rabbits including slaughtering and selling some at the farmer’s market. We drank some of the goat milk from the same place where the rabbits were raised.
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Like VS, I am a city kid. Farm animals were encountered yearly at the state fair and occasionally at petting zoo sorts of places. There was one critter, though, that was a regular part of a couple of summers: Goldie. Goldie was a donkey who lived at an old mining camp in South Dakota that had been turned into cabin rentals (of sorts). The cabin we rented was little more than a shack, but it had a front porch, and I could sit on the railing of the porch with sugar cubes waiting for Goldie to come by – she’d eat the cubes right out of my hand. The first summer there was only the owner’s son who was close to my age for kids to play with, and he and I had very different interests, so Goldie was the friend I made. We went there a few summers – but the last one, there was no Goldie, only her daughter. Apparently Goldie had taken her daughter across the train tracks (the 1880 Train ran through the back part of the property), but Daughter (either coming or going), didn’t want to get off the tracks. Goldie could hear the train coming and sacrificed herself to save her offspring and got hit by the train. I was despondent. Goldie’s child (whose name I don’t remember), would occasionally come by for sugar cubes, but wasn’t as gentle or companionable as Goldie.
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If we count the State Fair and all the different animal farms that Child/Teenager and I have visited over the years, then it’s another story. Fawn-Doe-Rosa is our favorite (deer, llamas, burros, goats) but if a place has an animal park of any kind, then we give it a shot if we’re there.
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What a touching story.
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In the first year of being married, my erstwife and I made a pilgrimage to NW Iowa to visit her father’s many rural relatives. We took along my sister’s kids, Dave and Mary, who had had no experience with farms. Kathe and I slept with our heads almost hanging out of an open second-story window that first night with a strong west wind buffeting us all night. I never slept better. Because there weren’t enough beds, Dave and Mary slept in a little tent in the backyard. When I went to get them up I found them already awake and sitting outside their tent, observing the cattle moving in a fenced yard. The kids were amazed that cattle were active and mooing at daybreak. They had made up a little song I still remember: “Poor, poor cows! Gots to get up in the moooooorning!” (repeated endlessly)
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My paternal grandparents lived on a dairy farm, but we were kept strictly away from all livestock. My mother also insisted on bringing milk from the store for us to drink. sigh. I’ve been trying to make up for lost time ever since.
I do remember visiting the farm of an old Danish couple many times, and I must have gotten to spend a day there on my own a couple of times, and one of the great activities was getting to collect the eggs.
I hear all the time about the perils of egg gathering, but these Danish chickens must have been very laid back, as I have nothing but a feeling of general coziness surrounding my memory of them.
Perhaps Maren fed them some of her good pastry (or maybe they all knew that obnoxious chickens landed in the most delicious pots of chicken with homemade, thick egg noodles). sigh again.
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When I visited by uncle on the farm I was treated to delicious dough nuts made by my aunt who came from a Norwegian background.
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I have a long list of things I think taste better on a farm…..
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On a cruise once we had a one-day stop in Norway and I took a tour out to a country farmhouse. The hostess served some nice things, but I remember the Skolebrod the best. Ate it sitting out on the big desk looking out onto the farm. I’m sure it tasted better than if I ate it sitting in my dining room!
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big deck. sheesh.
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somehow, I was picturing this large porch with a HUGE antique executive kind of desk on it, and thinking, gee, wouldn’t I love to check the morning email and blog like that!
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i must speed read more than i know. i went back to see what it was a correction for and i was disappointed
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Yes, it could have been a big dock overlooking the farm, nice visual there.
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Morning–
Fun stories everyone; it’s fun to read about those memories.
The first cow I remember was Jennifer. A Guernsey.
We never had a Holstein Bull when I was young because Dad used artificial breeding. With the advent of artificial breeding you could pick a bull to improve whatever genetics that particular cow was lacking.
For several years Dad used a bull by the name of CarVal. What people didn’t figure out for a few years was that CarVal had a temperament of ” Negative 5″. His other traits were pluses, but he passed that negative temperament to all his daughters. You could tell a vet or breeder or the milkman “She’s a CarVal Daughter” and they’d all back off a step.
Took me a long time to cull out all the CarVal daughters. Kelly liked to put the bull book in front of the cows and let them pick their own bull. Whomever they sniffed at first was their ‘date’ for the next morning.
AI (artificial insemination) is an interesting industry that’s changed over time. In the ‘old days’, you tied a red flag on your mailbox if you wanted the breeder to stop in. What I remember was calling the local number asking the breeder to stop in. ‘Call before 10:00 PM for morning Service. Call before 11:00 AM for afternoon service’. The sticker from the breeding company always had a permanent place just under the handset on the barn phone right next to the shelf that held all the books and folders and information.
The last few years it became automated; call in, enter your customer number and get a recorded message saying your call was received. It was 10 years ago I sold my cows so I’m sure it’s all online — or there’s an app for it. Stick your phone in—– forget I said that.
And the related paperwork; a special calendar with dates ‘If bred today will calve _____’. Enter the cows sire; enter the bull used today; if she doesn’t “stick” she will return in ___ days. The little yellow cards that I hung on the beam behind the cow to let the breeder know who needed service made great note cards to fold up and carry in my pocket.
Semen used to cost anywhere from $7 – $20 per straw. $25 was my top end. Price depended on how much was available and how proven he was. I’m sure it’s more these days.
Much time was spent watching the cows to see who was in heat and who to breed. Look for rubbing on the tail head. Someone always had a new gimick for detecting when a cow was in heat. (Paint for the tail, stick on ink markers) and now they’re measuring body temperature, daily activity and feed intake. Plus there are ways to force estrus and synchronize it with any number of cows. I did a little of that before selling them.
Some of my favorite cows were Sally, Chula, Trova (after the band), Mary and her daughter Antoinette. Cheryl was mean but gave a lot of milk. I had a red and white holstein named Queenie (from the book ‘Daddy played Music for the cows’) and of course I had LynneCow named for Lynne Warfel-Holt. Lynne loved having a cow named after her.
I had a cow named Antigone. When she sold at the sales barn the auctioneer called her “Aunty Gone’. I called out, ” ‘an-tig-uh-nee’ from Greek mythology; Oedipus Daughter”. Silence in the sales ring… A guy behind me leans up and says ‘I don’t think they got that…’
Named several Kelly but they always had some issue and never lasted long. Don’t name a cow after your wife.
Clyde would have stories. Anyone heard from him lately? Clyde, we miss you.
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Good stories, Ben. The main thing I remember about my uncles cows is the problems he had when one of them would go into the wrong stall. My uncle would get very frustrated trying get the cows back in order because when one them was in the wrong place several other would be out of place and it would take a lot of work to get them back where they belonged.
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Oh yeah; the cows all had their specific stalls. It was training them to go into that stall in the first place that was hard. Bribery with feed worked sometimes… It was best when I started a month before they had to be in the barn to get them used to things. The worst was having to get a cow in the barn RIGHT NOW. There were gates involved and lots of running back and forth in the barn and some yelling too. Man… it was nuts.
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What a great story, Ben. It reminded me of a joke so dirty I couldn’t put it here, so I sent it to what I HOPE is your email. If I got the wrong address, someone’s in for a strange surprise.
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It’s only borderline dirty… wait until after 10:00 PM then I think you could post it here. 🙂 Dale, will you read all our dirty jokes and let us know which ones you approve of??
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there was a bald blogger from nantucket
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Who caught lots of clams in a bucket
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ben i cant believe it took you an example or three of why not to name a cow after your wife.
come to think of it there is a cow named tara after my daughter in kosovo from when she visited and was taken with the claf at birth, watch out what you wish for, the similarities between tara and tara the cow are not ones she appreciates.
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Great stories, Ben. One of my very good friends, Maryann Weidt, wrote “Daddy Played Music for the Cow.” Her illustrator for the book is Danish. I was in the audience the night that she received the Minnesota Book Award for it. Yeah, Maryann!
“Aunty Gone” very funny. Antigone will never be the same.
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Yay Maryann! Tell her we love the book!
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This is the problem w/ literary or geeky names for your animals – you always have to explain it. I speak from experience on this one…. current animals are Thorin, Rhiannon, Zorro, Nimue and Sheldon. Anyone? Anyone?
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cmon sherrilee
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I love the way Kelly would let the cows choose their bulls. Hilarious.
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Completely OT. My heart is broken… just hearing the news on MPR that Tim Takach is leaving Cantus after this season!
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Ben, I was thinking of Clyde this AM. Like you, I miss him, and I’m really worried.
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I see he has disappeared from my facebook account…..
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And not that I’m stalking him, but he has now also changed the last blog title on his Birchwood page to “hiatus vel terminus”, which I can’t find a decent translation for, but looks final. Trying to keep good thoughts for you, wherever you are, Clyde.
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sending out good wishes is about all we can do right now. he’ll be back if he can.
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I spent a good many summers around livestock – being bred and born on an Iowa farm. Witnessed many animal breedings & births there as well. Deja vu!
I’ll try to think up some animal memories today as I’m reading my first book of the summer – Wild – by Cheryl Strayed. The true story of a lone young woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, searching for centeredness after suffering the loss of her mother, her marriage, and most recently – her roll of condoms.
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donna ‘s back, donna back, donnas back,
we can talk dirty again.
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Donna – I just finished “Wild” yesterday!
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go ahead , tell her how it ends
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She lives and writes a book.
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Welcome back, Donna! Been thinking of you. I loved Wild.
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Hi Steve and all! My daughter was here last week and left her copy of Wild, assuring me I’d like it. Got sidetracked today planting flowers and stuff, but tonight I’ll be up late reading. Hope to find out if the rub …er … prophylactics are recovered. Evidence suggests they were stolen. Sherrilee – thank you so much for not giving that part away! tim – you are welcome to read it when I’m done. For a small fee I’ll go through it and highlight all the dirty words.
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Yes.
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Yes WHAT? Please elaborate. (I forgot the question…)
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Yes, I have spent the summer around livestock. (feeling cryptic today…) 🙂
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Well?
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Get a Job, Bubby.
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My mother’s parents had a small farm in South Dakota while I was growing up. We’d visit in the summer. I don’t remember much about the cows, except getting a large glass of warmish milk each morning with the cream not quite completely skimmed off. My grandfather kept one placid horse and a slightly ornery dog.
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