Like the Rings of a Tree

By Rupert Nelson

Like The Rings Of a Tree tells a life story of a boy who grew to manhood during a turbulent time in American history. The story begins in rural South Dakota during the drought and depression years of the 1930''s. World War II involved family members in that conflict and changedAmerican life forever.

The day by daywork on Midwestern farms of that era is described by someone who has worked with horses, harvested grain, picked corn by hand, made hay and survived winter blizzards.

Military service by a draftee caughtup in the Korean War is related. The author takes us to life in tents, death and destruction, and the searing experience of seeing homeless, freezing and starving children. Those events resulted in a life changing experience.

An encounter with institutionalized racism is noted,as the author and his fiance find they cannot be married in South Dakota, which like many states at that time, forbade interracial marriages. They were married in a neighboring state, because the author''s bride was an American citizen of Chinese ancestry.

Several chapters describe theregion and people in Northeast Montana where the author worked for theMontana Agricultural Extension Service on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, and how a Lakota baby girl became their first child.

This Life story ofaccumulated experiences, Like Rings Of A Tree, depict some aspects of American history through the memoir of one ordinary person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 13, 2005
• ISBN: 9781420871777

Rupert Nelson

The author''s first 18 years were spent on farms in South Dakota and Iowa.  He attended a one room country school in Moody County, South Dakota, and graduated from the Fairview Consolidated High School, a small rural school in Buena Vista County, Iowa.   Together with their mother and father, the author and his brothers farmed with horses and lived through the economic depression and drought years of the 1930''s.  Learning how to read in that country school with one teacher for all eight grades opened up the world.    University studies first took him to the University of Sioux Falls, a small liberal arts school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; a degree in Agronomy from South Dakota State University in Brookings and a Masters Degree from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.   During military service in Korea he witnessed the realities of life for some people, who died from hunger and cold.  That experience caused him to think seriously of a vocation aimed at alleviating some of the World''s ills.   Like The Rings Of A Tree is the first book the author has written.  Some of his short stories were published in a literary journal, The South Dakota Review, and church related publications.  The author is 74 years old and lives in retirement with his wife of 49 years in Claremont, California. 

Book preview

Like The Rings Of A Tree

by

Rupert Nelson

Title_Page_Logo.ai

© 2005 Rupert Nelson. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/07/2005

ISBN: 1-4208-7178-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4208-7177-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005906659

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Like the Rings of a Tree

Beginnings

First Memories

The Gene Smith Farm

Going to Town

Butchering

Health Care

Stoves

Early Education

Herding Cattle

Town School

How I Learned to Vote

Bib Overalls

Making Hay

The Farmer’s Union

Fishing, Swimming and Turkey Jumps

Church

Grain Harvest

Picking Corn

South Dakota Winter

Reunions, Sweeet Corn and Ice Cream

Camp

War

We Move to Iowa

Father Breaks His Leg

Bruce

Hired Man

Regaining Community

Sports and Academics

Outdoor Activities

Trapping

A Rural Wage Earner

A Visit from a Brother

Moving Day

Hanging Maybaskets

High School Graduation

Baling Hay

California

Return to South Dakota

South Dakota Heat

Sioux Falls College

I Met a Young Lady

Hitchhiking

Forest Service

South Fork of Callahan Creek

Blister Rust Control

Camp Life

Breaking Camp

Drifting

Uncle Sam Needed Me?

Field Artillery Replacement Training Center

Military Life

Topographic Surveying

Seattle

Pacific Cruise

Preparing for Korea

Yong Dong Po and Beyond

Topographic Surveying for Real

Reminders of the War

Tent Life

Rest and Recuperation

Surveying Experiences

The Summer of ‘53

Friendly Fire

Reviving the 8219th

Summer to Autumn to Winter

Rotation

Sorting Out My Life

Out of the Army and Back to School

Graduation and Engagement

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Marriage

Father Voices His Opinion

University of Wisconsin

California to Montana

Culbertson, Montana

Getting Acquainted

The Fort Peck Indians

Public Affairs Education

Overall Economic Development Plan

Bureaucracy

Christine Alice Manyribs

Indian Celebrations

Cold Weather

Hunting

Work with Young People

Road Trips

Moving On

Like the Rings of a Tree

My father taught me how to count the rings,

when we cut firewood with a two-man saw,

Though I was just a boy.

I thought it wonderful that a tree had birthdays,

and celebrated them with rings.

My father taught me how to read the rings.

Narrow rings for drought and hardship.

Wide rings for good years.

Dakota rings in The Dirty Thirties were narrow.

Good times were hard to find.

Life leaves rings on people too.

Old injuries are covered up as life moves on.

A twinge reminds us of their continued presence.

I was but a sapling in Dakota, but rings were added.

Count the places; Iowa, Korea, Montana, Thailand.

The rings of my life speak when I should be sleeping.

I hear the voices of people long gone.

Smell the hay and horses of old barns.

See old comrades from Korea, a war not forgotten.

I feel the first grasp of a baby’s hand.

Growth rings, they make a tree or make a life.

01.tif

This book is dedicated to my parents, Walter and Carrie Nelson, who gave me a good start on my life’s road.

We live our life as a tale that is told.

Psalm 90:9(kjv)

This book is a gaze down the long country roads leading to another time that lives in the hearts of those who have been there.

We live our life as a tale that is told.

Psalm 90:9 (KJV)

Beginnings

I was 70 years old when I found out from an older brother that my mother cried when she found she was pregnant with me. My three brothers and I were sitting around at a family reunion in California reminiscing about our South Dakota childhood. Larry spoke of the farm my parents had once owned.

I was in the old house last year. It’s still in good shape.

Losing that farm was hard on our parents, brother Bob remembered.

We were all silent for a while thinking of the depression and drought years of the 1930’s. It was my brother, Oliver, who came up with something I had never heard before.

Rupert, did you know that mother cried when she found she was pregnant with you?

No, I did not know. I had never heard that before. The conversation moved on to other topics, but I kept thinking about that statement. I understood the situation, and I certainly grew up feeling loved, but still felt some consternation in the discovery that my arrival was not met with unmitigated joy.

My parents were farmers, and as a young couple full of hope and confidence in the future, had borrowed money and bought 160 acres of good land in eastern South Dakota, about two miles east of the tiny town of Trent. That was in 1918. It was not difficult for farmers to borrow money after World War I. Banks encouraged them to borrow. Grain and animal prices were good and the banks were confident they would get their money back plus interest.

The land my parents bought was called bare land, meaning no buildings were on it. They proceeded to build a house and all the outbuildings needed by South Dakota farmers, which included a barn, hog house, grainery, corn crib and chicken house. Oh yes, and an outhouse. No South Dakota farm I ever heard of had running water and indoor toilets in those days. They planted a grove of trees around the buildings. Rather than dig a hole for each sapling my mother used a small charge of dynamite to blast the holes in the ground. I can’t imagine her doing that, but she did. It was a nice farm, built to last for at least three generations.

They built the chicken house first and lived in it for part of a year while the other buildings were being built. In 1920 the house was finished and they moved into it. My father farmed with horses, as did all their neighbors. Crop yields were good and prices generally were good, although there were some ups and downs. Three sons were born to them. The future looked good. Most Americans know of the economic panic of 1929 and the depression of the 1930’s, but may not be aware of the price fluctuations prior to that time that sent shock waves through farm communities. In 1920 there was a farm recession. In the spring of that year corn was selling for $2.50 a bushel. In the fall when the new harvest came in, and most farmers had to sell, the price was $0.17. Prices came up for a while, but in 1927 there was another drop. Farmers were hurt by those price fluctuations, but most managed to survive.

No one envisioned the massive market crash of 1929 and the economic depression that followed. Grain and animal prices plummeted and stayed down. They were so low that it was impossible for my parents to repay their bank loan. My father said he sold pigs for 2 cents a pound. Could have been worse. They actually got down to a low of 1 1/2 cents a pound. The main cash crops of corn, oats, barley and flax were correspondingly low. Some farmers burned corn in their stoves, partly because they couldn’t afford to buy coal and partly to remove corn from the market in a futile attempt to raise prices. My parents burned corn. It was not worth the cost of hauling it to market.

Many farm families were in similar situations and there was some violence as farmers banded together to forcibly prevent sheriffs’ sales of farms. Other groups of armed farmers halted milk trucks on their way to milk distribution centers in Sioux City, Iowa, and dumped the milk out on the road. Again, in a futile attempt to remove commodities from the market and raise prices. My parents were not involved in any violence. They realized they could not make the payments on the mortgage and allowed the bank in Trent to foreclose.

In 1930 they had to leave their farm and moved to a rented farm just across the road. That move was on March 1st, the traditional date for Midwest farmers to move. One crop year finished, another soon to begin. It must have been difficult for them to look across that road every day and see their old place. Years later we would sometimes pass by that farm when driving somewhere, but mother didn’t like to look at it. For farmers their land is not just an economic investment. It’s their life. That land is a piece of the world that is theirs to love, to care for and to wrest a living from and raise a family. It’s a way of life to bequeath to their children and, God willing, to their children’s children. A farmer’s emotional attachment to their land is very deep.

02.jpg

Farm in foreground built by my parents between 1918-20. Moved to the farm across the road in 1930. I was born there in 1931.

My older brothers were aged eight, five and four when they moved to the rented farm across the road. I’m sure my father and mother thought they had their family. At least, there would be no more children. The depression dug in and only got worse. Even the heavens did not cooperate. The great drought that afflicted the Great Plains commenced at about the time the bank foreclosed. Those were grim times. That was when my mother found she was pregnant.

My five year old brother, too young to go to school, overheard my mother and father talking. Mother was crying and said, We can’t afford the children we have, how can we feed another? At the time my brother did not understand. Only when he was grown did he understand, but didn’t tell me until I was 70 years old. Perhaps it’s best to receive such news when you are 70 and can look back on a time of growing up in a warm and loving family.

I was born on September 29, 1931. Not a good time to be born into a South Dakota farm family that had just lost their land. I was born at home. My brothers were sent to neighbors for the day. They were not told of my imminent arrival. Procreation was not a topic of discussion in those days. A doctor was in attendance and a neighbor lady came to help. She had lost an infant son named Rupert, so asked if this new baby could also be named Rupert. So, it was done; I was named Rupert Rae.

In the month of my birth the Great Depression settled deeply into American life and 305 banks closed across the nation. In October an additional 522 banks closed. Unemployment exceeded five million. Men broke loose from families they could no longer support and rode the rails looking for work. Many ended up in hobo camps. It was not America’s finest hour.

A year later Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. He carried all but seven states. My parents wanted to vote for Roosevelt but felt obligated to vote for Hoover. My mother’s father was a Baptist minister. As far as he was concerned there was only one issue in that election. The Democrats were wet. They intended to repeal Prohibition and make it legal to sell alcoholic drinks. The Republicans were dry, so my grandfather urged his parishioners to vote against Demon Rum. I once heard my father say that he voted to please his father-in-law, but went home and prayed for Roosevelt to win! Later, they voted for Roosevelt for his second, third and fourth terms. Roosevelt and Hoover were not the only ones running for presidential office that year. Socialist and Communist candidates received 2.5% of the popular vote. Those were desperate days for many people.

In 1932 we moved to another farm. I don’t remember that move, but do remember that place and certainly do remember the next move in 1937 to another farm. We identified those farms by the name of their owners; the George Hoyer Farm, the Guild Farm, the Gene Smith Farm and others. By the time I was 18 years old I had lived on seven rented farms

First Memories

The Guild Farm, where we moved in 1932, was about five miles east of Dell Rapids. Dell Rapids was an attractive little town. The Big Sioux River flowed by the south side of town. A nearby tributary creek flowed through a canyon, which was like a giant crack in a thick layer of exposed red quartzite; a miniature Grand Canyon. That place was know as the Dells, and thus, Dell Rapids. It was larger than Trent and had two stone quarries where the red quartzite was quarried. Most of the buildings on the town’s main street had been constructed of this stone in the late 19th century. The high school athletic teams were even called the Quarriers.

03.jpg

My brothers and me in 1932.

My first memories are from the Guild Farm. I remember a glorious spring day playing in green grass sprinkled with big yellow dandelions. My father picked a dandelion and put it under my chin. Well, look, there’s honey on your chin, he said. A large grove of trees loomed to the west and north of the buildings, which served as a windbreak against the prevailing prairie winds. Entering that dense grove was like entering another world. It was cool, dark and mysterious. Birds sang from the trees. Strange rustlings could be heard in the underbrush. My older brothers had a playhouse, or perhaps I should say clubhouse, in that grove. There was a pit dug in the ground in which my father and brothers placed large pieces of ice from our stock tank during the winter and insulated them with flax straw. The idea was to provide us with ice during the hot summer months, but I don’t recall the ice lasting much beyond spring.

It was on this farm that my father bought his first tractor. I remember how excited we all were when my oldest brother, Larry, arrived, driving it all the way from Dell Rapids. It was a model F-12 Farmall with iron wheels. Father bolted the big heavy traction lugs on the wheels after arriving home. It would have been too bouncy driving on hard country roads with the lugs attached, and certainly illegal in town where they would have damaged the street surfaces. It was a row-crop tractor, which was a rather new invention. It had only one wheel in front, so it was really a three-wheeler. The big rear wheels could be set on their axles to correspond to the width of corn rows. That made it possible to use the tractor as a row-crop cultivator. The front wheel went down the middle of a row, and the two rear wheels down the middle of two adjoining rows. A two row cultivator came with the tractor and could be attached during corn cultivation time. Two big levers, reachable from the driver’s seat, raised and lowered the cultivator blades. This would seem ponderous, unwieldy and slow to modern farmers, but it was a great boon in the 1930’s. Before that tractor, father used horses to plow and disk all the crop land and cultivate the corn with a two row cultivator. He sold some of the horses to help pay for the tractor. However, some farm work was more conveniently done using horses, so some work horses were still needed. They were used to plant and pick corn, mow hay, and pull grain wagons, hayracks and manure spreaders.

It was on this farm that we were visited, at least twice, by Gypsies riding in horse drawn wagons. I don’t remember the first time, but my brothers still speak of it. That group had a riding horse they were proud of. We also had a palomino buckskin mare riding horse that was very fast. Her name was Buttercup. The Gypsies wanted to buy or barter for food, but the conversation soon turned to horses, specifically, the two riding horses. The Gypsy young men boasted of their horse and how fast it was. In a race it could surely beat any horse owned by farmers.

My brothers did not accept that kind of talk. They knew Buttercup was fast and could beat any Gypsy horse in a fair race and said so. Well then, said the Gypsies, Let’s see about that. Why don’t we have a race right now and find out which horse is the fastest.

Good idea, replied my brothers, with a glance at father who had remained noncommittal.

We’ll let you pick the place, coolly replied the Gypsies, And let’s have a little wager just to make it more fun.

That’s when Father spoke up. You can have a race, he said, But there will be no betting.

The Gypsies had a lot of confidence in their horse and were disappointed in the no betting rule. They were ready to race, however, and it was agreed they would race on a dirt road from just east of our house to the corner of our grove. That was about a half mile. Our hired man, Ken Thompson, rode Buttercup. The two horses ran neck and neck for the whole distance, but the Gypsy horse won by a nose. My brothers considered it a moral victory. The Gypsies were impressed. They expected an easy win.

How much do you want for your horse? they asked, flashing a roll of bills.

Sorry, that horse is not for sale, was Father’s firm reply.

The Gypsies had a good eye for horses. They probably did well racing their horse against all comers as they traversed rural America. Buttercup became quite famous as the horse that almost beat the best gypsy horse.

I do remember the second Gypsy visit, although I was only about four years old. Again, they came in a horse-drawn wagon. Our dog didn’t like them. He barked and barked and would not be quieted. The women wore long skirts to their ankles with a bandana over their heads. The men had black moustaches and brown, weathered faces. Mother and I were home alone, and I could tell mother was nervous. I wanted to run out and see them, but Mother wouldn’t let me.

Rupert, you stay in the house.

Mom, I begged, I want to see the Gypsies.

No, you stay right here. Oh, I do wish your father was here.

Some of them came up on our front porch, so Mother went out to see what they wanted. I slipped out with her. The Gypsies wanted to buy vegetables and mother sold them some. The women haggled over the price, but mother was not a haggler. She wanted them to go. The men offered to sharpen our kitchen knives in return for food, but mother refused. Eventually, they got back in their wagon and left. Mother kept me in the house until she was sure they were gone.

Gypsies did not have a good reputation. It was said they stole things and could not be trusted. I never heard of a Gypsy actually caught stealing something. It was a prejudice. They were exotic. No one knew where they came from or where they went. Could you trust anybody with no roots or no obvious means of livelihood? Mother was only reflecting the attitudes of the time and of our neighbors.

At an early age I learned who we were. We were Danes, Baptists and dirt farmers. We were Danes because all four of my grandparents had immigrated to the United States from that country. They settled in Danish communities in Iowa where they continued to use their native language. My paternal grandparents were farmers living north of the town of Alta in Buena Vista County. They belonged to the nearby Elk Baptist Church, which was a Danish speaking congregation. My maternal grandfather had been a painter and wall paper hanger as a young man in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He had been raised a Lutheran, but became convinced that the Baptists had a more correct doctrine. To the anger and dismay of his father he became one. He even became a Baptist minister, and the first church he pastored was the Elk Baptist Church. My mother and father met there as small children. The language used in their homes was Danish. My father learned English before starting school, probably from his older brothers. When my mother (an oldest child) started school she could not speak English. English soon became their first language, but as adults they could still speak the language of the Old Country and would use a few words with old friends.

Sometimes I would hear my mother say, We’re just dirt farmers. She did not mean that in a self deprecatory way. It was a statement of fact and of pride. That’s what they did. It was a good and honest way of life. They were close to God and the earth.

My parents were not well educated in a formal sense. They had an elementary school education. As a young man my father had briefly attended Des Moines College, which was really at secondary school level. He attended some winter courses when there was less work to do on his father’s farm. He found it helpful and I heard him say that he was sorry he did not have the opportunity to stay in school longer. Both Mother and Father liked to read and they read a lot, especially in the winter when there was no field work. In my earliest memories there were newspapers, magazines and books in our house. It must have been a financial sacrifice, but they subscribed to the Argus Leader, a daily paper printed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and also the weekly Dell Rapids Tribune. They also subscribed to the Saturday Evening Post, which was a weekly magazine, and the American Magazine, as well as some church papers. Their education extended beyond their school experience.

There were always books to read in our house. Father purchased some of those at closing out sales of nearby farmers who had lost their land and their desire to farm. They were moving on, some to California. Good literature could be found in some of those South Dakota farm homes. Later, when I learned to read, I read those books. Still later, when I was a university student, I discovered I had read some of the classics of American and English literature. I know my father did not purchase those books just for his own enjoyment. He was thinking of his sons and wanted them to be readers. He was also continuing a family tradition. His father, who had died of typhoid fever long before I was born, was a great reader. Sometimes his children would see him reading by lamplight when they went to bed, and when they got up in the morning he was still reading. He had read through the entire night. Of course, he also had five sons to help with the farm work. He even subscribed to an Eastern newspaper and was a Democrat. Strange behavior for an Iowa farmer in the 19th Century.

Mother’s father, the Baptist minister, was also a voracious reader. His parishoners were often amused to see him riding his buggy with his nose in a book, completely oblivious to what was going on around him. His horse would follow the road, but did not know his owner’s destination. Often, he went on past the church member’s farmstead he had intended to visit and had to turn around and go back. Sometimes Grandfather made his rounds on foot, reading as he walked. I never knew anyone else who could read a book as they walked.

The town of Dell Rapids had a public library. Like the libraries in many towns all across the United States, it had been established by a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Fund. Carnegie may have acquired his fortune by some questionable business practices, but the libraries bearing his name stand as edifices to a man who knew how to spend his money. As soon as my brothers and I learned how to read our father took us to the library, introduced us to the librarian and signed us up as members. It was a great gift from a father who knew he was not going to bequeath a fortune to his sons, not even a farm. As an old man writing these words I know how great an inheritance I received.

04.jpg

The four Nelson boys in 1936. Left to right; Robert Lawrence, Oliver and me in front.

The Gene Smith Farm

In 1937 we moved just a few miles to the Gene Smith Farm. The owner, a man named Eugene Smith, lived in Sioux Falls. We lived on that farm for six years. When I think of a childhood farm, that is usually the one that comes to my mind. I was five years old when we moved there and twelve when we left.

Like most Midwest farms of that time this farm consisted of 160 acres. That was called a quarter section. Midwestern farm land was divided up into sections, one square mile in size. A full section was 640 acres. Usually, there were four farms to a section, each of 160 acres. Roads went around the perimeter of each section, resulting in a grid effect. There was a historical reason for that system. The United States Congress had passed the Homestead Act in 1862 which enabled a person to settle on 160 acres of empty land and file an ownership claim. Some improvements had to be made, such as building a house, which showed that the claimer intended to stay. Usually, that first house was nothing more than a shack, or sod house if no wood was available, on the grass land prairies. The father of one of our neighbors, Mr. Norgaard, had been the first white settler in our neighborhood.

This Dakota land was empty because the original inhabitants, the Lakota Sioux, had been defeated militarily after the Civil War and removed to reservations in drier regions further west. The American theme in the 19th century was Manifest Destiny. The westward movement across the continent was seen as a logical right of a civilized people. Some would say, the sins of our forefathers emptied the land and made it available for settlement. Anyway, it was emptied, and the Homestead Act imposed the pattern of 160 acres per farm.

The house on this farm was larger than the one we had left on the Guild Farm. It was a two story wood frame building with a large cellar. The first floor consisted of a kitchen, dining room, parlor and bedroom. There was even a bathroom with indoor plumbing, but the plumbing system did not work, so it was never used. There were four bedrooms upstairs and a stairwell going up to an attic. There was even an upstairs porch off a west facing bedroom which was unusual for a farm house.

The house was fumigated before we moved in. Mother must have been fearful that the previous occupants had left bedbugs or lice behind. There was a covered porch on the entire west and south sides of the house. In the summer that porch was much used and appreciated. Off the back door, through the kitchen, was a small porch. Near that porch was an underground cistern. Downpipes from the eaves on the roof of the house allowed rain water to flow into the cistern. That water was known as soft water and was used to wash clothes. Well water often contained minerals which made it hard. The cistern had no pump, so whenever rain water was needed the cover had to be removed and a bucket on a rope lowered into the cistern to raise it up, a bucket at a time. The water was used somewhat sparingly as the drought years of the l930’s did not provide much rain.

Out back a little further was the outhouse, a two holer. It was not necessary to purchase toilet paper. An old Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalogue hung from the wall and pages were torn out of it as needed.

Close to the house on the north side was a garden. A lot of our food was grown in that garden. We planted string beans, lettuce, cucumbers, peas, carrots, beets, kohlrabi and other common vegetables. Sweet corn and potatoes were grown in a larger plot. We ate the vegetables all summer and mother also canned great quantities of them. The jars of preserved vegetables were kept in the cellar and used throughout the year. Sweet corn was on the table most days after it had ripened, and was also preserved in canning jars.

We ate a lot of potatoes, both at the noon meal, called dinner, and the evening meal, called supper. There was a pest, called potato beetles, that appeared every summer and ate the leaves of the potato plants. Insecticides were not available, so one of my tasks was to pick off the beetles and put them in a can with some kerosene in it. It was an irksome task, which I did not enjoy, but it was something that had to be done, preferably by a kid brother. It was always a treat when the new potatoes were ready to eat. The previous years crop, stored in a pile in the cellar, had started to sprout and were soft. The new potatoes tasted much better. In late summer, when the vines were dead, father would hook the potato digger up to a team of horses to dig up the potatoes. This was an implement that dug up the potatoes and left them on top of the ground. We would all help pick up the tubers and take them to the cellar where they would be our staple diet for another year.

On the other side of the garden was the chicken house. We usually raised Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds or Buff Orphingtons. In March we would buy about 300 day old chicks and raise them in a smaller eight sided building called a brooder house. In the center of this building father would set up a brooder stove, which burned kerosene. This stove had wings, or flanges, extending out in a circle around the stove. The chicks kept warm under there near the stove. As those chickens grew throughout the summer they would eventually fill this building. About half the chickens would be roosters. We would eat some of them in the summer. Fried spring chicken was always delicious. Later we would catch all the remaining roosters and take them to Dell Rapids to be sold to a produce buyer. The hens were moved to the main chicken house and they provided eggs for our own consumption and to be sold weekly when we went to town, usually on Saturday. The old hens would also be sold, but for a lower price than spring chickens. I was often the one who gathered the eggs. I hated the hens still sitting on their nests, because they often pecked my arm when I felt under them for an egg.

Moving in a semi-circle to the west came the barn, the real center of the outbuildings on any farm. On one end were the horse stalls. We had a team of two large grey horses, named Dexter and Diamond. Sometimes we had another team, and, of course, there was Buttercup, the riding horse. That made five horses. Horses were called hay burners for a reason. They ate a lot of hay. More about that later. In front of each horse stall was a manger in which hay was placed morning and evening if horses were in the stalls. When not being used they were released to a pasture. Along one side of each manger was a built-in wooden box in which grain could be placed to supplement the hay. Work horses used a lot of energy and required some grain to keep them strong. Oats was the preferred grain to feed horses. The stalls were cleaned every day and fresh straw bedding was put on the floor of the stalls. Good farmers cared for their horses.

Beyond the horse stalls, on one side was the area where the cows were milked and on the other side were pens where calves could be kept. We usually milked about ten cows twice a day, morning and evening. They received some hay or grain during milking time, so willingly came into the barn when the barn door was opened. Each cow had a place and knew where to go. It would put its head into a stanchion, which were upright wooden bars that could be closed loosely around the cow’s neck,