Mountains in Kansas?

Mountains in Kansas, that title makes you wonder don't it?
Makes me wonder how to start this story.... Well, lets just jump in.
On the farm, you do a lot of things that other people have no idea that its ever done. To bad Mike Rowe wasn't around with his dirty jobs TV show back then.
Animals require a lot of care. Some of what you have to do seems really cruel at the time. Branding is what seemed the worst to me. Have you ever smelled burning hair and flesh? Has to be one of the most putrid smells ever.
When we branded, it wasn't done out in the pasture like you see in the old westerns. We had an electric branding iron. Meant you had to be close to a plug in. We did all of our branding in a barn up by the house. It was closed on three sides, so the aroma hung in the air. You didn't just walk up to the animal and slap the branding iron on their hip. We would pin them up, and then run through a squeeze chute. A squeeze chute is like a portable stall that has a gate their head will fit through and the size can be moved in against them and a gate across the back. This protects both you and the animal, because they aren't going to like whats about to happen to them and will try to get away anyway possible.
When branding, we also did all the other things that needed to done to the animal. No need of stressing them out more than once and you probably couldn't get them back to chute again after having their butts burnt anyway. Other things we would do were dehorn if needed, give shots, poke pills down their throats and castration.
Dehorning meant cutting their horns off. This was done with a hand saw. They had to be cut close enough to not grow back. This meant you drew blood cutting them off. We had medication to put on the wound to stop the bleeding and make them heal faster.
Now the worst of the doctoring, castration.
This was done two different ways on our farm. First was a handy tool looked like a pair of tongs that would clamp off every thing going to the testicles. All the animal parts stayed in place but would shrivel up. The animal still didn't like like this. The second method was a bit of surgery. The scrotum would be slit open, the testicles pulled out and cut off. The removed testicles would be put in a bucket and finally the animal released from the chute.
When we worked cattle, it was an all day job. Everyone involved would be tire and hungry by the end of the day. I would be too, even though my work consisted of playing with toy tractors in the dirt by the barn.
Mom would always go in early to start cooking the evening meal to have it ready when dad came in. I usually stayed out and watched whatever dad was doing until he came in.
On our way into the house, dad said mom cooking mountain oysters. Hmmm. Even being just a little kid, I knew there weren't any mountains in Kansas and I had no idea what the heck an oyster was.
Eldon wasn't at Supper, he had football practice and was going to be late. That was always a good thing. You always had to get all the food you wanted before Eldon or else he would take it all. Never such a thing as left overs at our house.
It turned out that mountain oysters was the best tasting thing I had ever eaten, whatever they were. I ate till I couldn't force anymore down. Now I'm thinking, once Eldon gets home, I'll never get a chance to eat these tasty treats again.
After supper, I got into the old round top refrigerator to fill my tea glass up again. OH MY, HOW GROSS! There are two cookie sheets in the fridge packed full the testicles from castrating the calves earlier. A brainstorm sweeps over me. I say to my dad, "lets tell Eldon what we had for supper are those things in fridge, that way he won't eat any and we can have the rest tomorrow".
My dad starts laughing, "Son, those things in the fridge ARE what we had for supper".
Eldon ate the left overs and I've never tasted a mountain oyster ever again.

Where's The Twine When You Need It?

Here comes the story of necessary item number four, the baler twine.

Like I've said in previous stories, my dad loved bowling. He never missed a bowling night come hell or high water. He would be too sick to do much else, but always made it to bowling. I never knew what time he would get home, but it was late. Late being anything after eight at night. That was bed time on the farm. It was dark by then and Bonanza was over. We never missed an episode of that show. We'd gather around the TV before the show would start and bet on which one of the Cartwrights would be the first to be shown riding up through the burning map of the Ponderosa. Thats how you knew who the show was going to be about. You never saw Hop Sing come up, even though some shows were about their Chinese cook. The boy that would save him from what ever dastardly deed would be the one shown. My favorite was Little Joe, even though he got the crap beat out of him every show until Hoss would happen along and whup three other cow pokes. Sometime through the seasons, Adam went away and was replaced with a hired hand named Candy. This name just wouldn't work now days. Not after the whole Brokeback Mountain thing. But come to think of it, none of the boys ever got married. Except Little Joe who later lived in a little house on the prairie. I've got a whole different view of Bonanza now.
This particular bowling night, we had a horse up near the barn that was about to have a foal. Funny thing with horses, if they are going to have problems giving birth, or they think something may go wrong, they'll come up close to the house for help rather than having the colt out in the pasture. You can tell when they are within a few days of the happy event when their teats get a waxy coating on them,, don't know why, but they do. This mare had the signs of being close and the possibility of problems, but its bowling night. So the horse will just need to wait until he gets home.
Like I said, we never knew what time dad would get home, but i think this time he said it was around ten.
Worrying about the horse, instead of coming in the house and changing clothes, he went straight out to check on the horse. Apparently at bowling, you only need item number two, the pocket knife. Guess it really didn't make sense to have pliers, a rope and twine while bowling. But the pocket knife can always be used, peeling an apple, cutting steak, or giving yourself a country manicure.
The horse had given birth, mother and baby were both fine. Colts will start walking within minutes of birth. As soon as they are up on their feet, the mare will clean them and get them to start nursing. Like a human baby, a colt has an umbilical cord. Out in the pasture, after a few days this will dry up and fall off, but there is always the risk that it can get knocked off and the colt bleed to death.
The normal procedure when the birth happens near the house is to tie baler twine up near its belly and cut the cord off. Well dad didn't have item number four with him but did have the pocket knife. He cut the cord and it started bleeding. Best case, you tie a knot in the cord to stop it. Not this time, he cut it too short. The only choice now is to hold the cord until it stops bleeding.
This shows how gentle our horses were. Dad sat on the ground by the colt for over an hour, holding the cord while the mare watched, until the colt was out of danger. (He said two hours, but I'm sure it only seemed that long). After this episode, you would see twine tied every few feet on the fences around the barn, looked like hell, but item number four was always handy.

Country Burgler Alarm

On the farm, we had about every animal you would expect to see on a normal farm. Beef cattle, dairy cows, horses, cats, dogs, and chickens. We never had a sheep, goat or a pig. They just didn’t fit in with the farm/ranch/cowboy mindset. The neighbors down the road had a few pigs, but I just didn’t understand why anyone would want one around. Ever try to saddle a pig? It just doesn’t work. They take off to fast, the saddle slides off the back, stop to quick the saddle goes over the head.
Used to be at the local fairs, there would be a greased pig contest for the kids. I wish they still had them. The way this would work is somebody would donate a small pig, about the size of Arnold on Green Acres. They would put this pig in a small pen on Main Street. They would take a quart of axel grease, or later on Vaseline. Grease this pig up from squeal to tail. Get the thirty screaming kids lined up beside the pin and turn the pig loose. For sport the pig would get a two second head start. Then its thirty kids chasing this one little pig through town. It was completely up to the pig what route the chase was going to take. Peoples backyards, through the rides on the midway, or through the prize winning garden in town. The pig didn’t care. Usually the first kid to the pig didn’t win, he’d just get an arm full of grease and the pig wouldn’t even slow down. The games over when the pig is more or less cleaned of the grease, and one kid brings him back to the pen. The kid that caught the pig would get to keep him. Years later I found out where bacon comes from, only then could I understand having them.
Saturdays on the farm meant the possibility of a trip to the sale barn. This was the farmers Walmart back then. Before the cattle sale, you could buy everything from eggs to bales of hay, some ones old worn out farm implement to chickens.
This weekend was Eldon’s turn to go with dad to the sale barn. He never took both of us at once. I think it was because he couldn’t handle both of us wanting everything there.
Sometimes I wonder what my dad was thinking, or more like, “how did Eldon talk him into this one?”
This time they get home from the sale barn with the back end of the truck packed full of chicken cages. The cages are full of birds, but it isn’t chickens. What the heck? These things are gray and white in color, don’t have any combs like a chicken does. And they don’t crow like a chicken. It is more like a combination of sounds. A cats tail under a rocking chair, a baby screaming, and a thousand crickets in your bedroom on a quiet night all rolled into one.
These strange birds are called Guineas.
They proceeded to unload these birds into half of the old chicken house. The final count was sixty guineas. All put into a room made for twenty chickens.
The first few weeks went fairly well. While staying in the coop, they kept pretty quiet, Eldon kept them fed, and all was good.
I guess the scheme was for Eldon to get a guinea egg business going. Like most of the farm planning, this turned out to not be the case. Instead, after a few weeks, the plan changes. “Let’s turn the guineas loose. They will eat for free during the day, and return to the chicken house at night to roost.” Good idea, but I guess no one told the guineas. These guardians of the night, head for the highest tree they can find to roost, waiting for anything that might be cause to sound the alarm. An ant wanting a midnight snack on the piece of peanut butter sandwich dropped on the sidewalk? Not on their watch! At night if you changed your mind in front of them it was enough set off thirty minutes of squawking.
I always wondered how people next to train tracks could sleep with a train going by. Now I know. After a few sleepless months you get used to it.
Eventually we did either get used to the noise or the guineas got used to us. Most of the time they sounded off it was a car pulling in the driveway or a dog in the yard that didn’t belong there. The flock thinned down. Guinea vs car, the car wins. The neighbor down the road wanted them for some reason. He caught most of the thirty left and moved them down to his house. Guess he wanted a country burglar alarm too.

Mud Puddle Tennis

Saturday mornings on the farm were a wonderful thing. They usually started out with waffles and my moms’ homemade chocolate syrup. She never used a recipe, and to be honest, I don’t know if she really ever learned how to make the syrup right. Every batch was different. One time it would be runny like water, the next it would be so thick you had to pour it on the waffles while it was still boiling or it would set up like concrete. That was the best kind, but be careful, when you’d bit in to it, your teeth would stick together. Hmm,,,, that may have been the plan, to keep us quiet by gluing our mouths shut. The real wonder of this part, she cooked this breakfast for us after being up at five in the morning and spending three hours for the morning milking. Luckily, at this time I wasn’t old enough to be any help with the milking, so I got to sleep late.
After this, if the weather was good, it would be off to the fields or working with the cattle. Or on a really good day, to town.
Bad weather or wintertime would bring another treat, ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Motorcycles racing on ice, Bobsled racing, The end of a stock car race with footage of all the previous wrecks, Demolition Derby, The Harlem Globe Trotters, Evil Knevil, and so many other sports a country boy would never have a chance to see otherwise. Thinking back, we did all these sports on the farm. Might have been a slightly different form, but we did them. An old car hood roped on behind a truck going fifty miles an hour across a pasture. That counts as bobsled racing doesn’t it?
A lot of these new sports would get incorporated into our daily mischief.
The Romanian acrobats, the ones that climb up a rope, stick their foot through a loop and twirl. I wouldn’t try that one myself. How do they do it and not get so dizzy that they fall off the rope? Here is the country version of gymnastics. This one takes two people, one to do it and one to watch.
The first step is by far the hardest. You have to catch an old barn cat. Sounds easy but it isn’t. A barn cat is a testament to survival of the fittest. These animals only slightly tolerate humans, I may be part of the reason. The whole trick to catching one is to find a spot in the hay barn where the sunlight shines in on top of the hay. They like to sleep in these spots and a sleeping cat is the key. You have to be geared up correctly. Once you touch the cat, he’ll be wide awake and fighting mad. My gear consisted of three long-sleeved shirts, a jean jacket, and two pairs of gloves. This can be a little uncomfortable in August in Kansas, but safety first.
Once you do catch the cat, remember, the claws are only the half of it. They have fangs that would scare a cobra and can spin their heads like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.
Now that you have the cat caught, you place it in the bottom of a five gallon bucket which you staged earlier somewhere in Olympic village. Keep one hand holding the cat in the bottom while you grab the bail with the other. Now you spin around as fast as you can holding the cat in the bottom until centrifugal force takes over. You spin until you can’t stay on your feet any longer. Stop, dump the cat out and try to wobble to safety. This is why it takes two people, you’ll end up sitting on your head while your buddy is laughing at the cat walking like it found the hidden jug of corn mash behind the barn.
The final event of the day is mud puddle tennis. This one can be singles or doubles. Out on the farm, the closest thing we had to tennis was badminton. Seemed like everyone had this set and nobody ever played it more than once. Our set was bought for a family reunion at our house and stored away afterwards. I dug it out one day, looking for something to do. The racquet is fairly light weight, whack a baseball and the darn twig between the handle and head snaps off. Hit rocks with it and the strings break.
One problem on the farm, mud daubers. These pesky little critters are always building nests in every building on the farm. They usually don’t sting unless you annoy them. After a rain they spend all there time flying to the puddles to gather more mud for more nests. That’s where mud puddle tennis began. Finally something you could use these weak little racquets for and eradicate the farm of wasps. Doubles is a little more dangerous than singles. If your buddy fouls, he may propel a ticked off wasp in your directions. Yes, I’ve been stung more than once.

Riding Miss Daisy

While growing up, my mom always taught school. She put in over twenty years of screaming kids. Guess that’s why she didn’t mind milking cows that much. It would be quite a relief to work with something that didn’t talk back.
Cows are creatures of habit. We normally milked a herd of ninety to one hundred. Our dairy barn had eight stalls, which meant you milked four at a time. Four would have milkers on while four were turned out and another four let in. They always came in the barn in the same order. We had a sliding gate coming in to the parlor. Once opened, the next four would walk in, no herding required.
After the evening milking, they would stay in small pasture just out side the dairy barn that had pond in it. This was so you didn’t have to go far to get them at five the next morning for the milking then.
After the morning milking, they would be turned loose to go to one of three selected pastures at the end of a quarter mile long lane. A lane is like a hallway in your house only the walls are a fence and the bedrooms are pastures. Cows don’t just automatically start producing milk. They have to have a calf first. Then the calf is separated from the cow. The cow then gets milked and the calf is fed milk replacer. The bovine equivalent of baby formula. Our calves were kept just outside the barn in a big wooden fenced corral. We didn’t have the giant baby bottles to feed them with. We had gallon galvanized buckets with a one way nipple built in to the side. When the calves would eat, it sounded like a nest of three hundred pound crickets. They had a hook to hang them from a board on the corral fence, but this seldom worked. If the calf didn’t think it was being fed fast enough, it would give the bucket a hard nudge, knocking it off the fence. The first bucket to be hung on the fence would bring three hungry calves to it. To get these ornery little tykes to their bucket to eat, you’d put your hand down by their mouth to let them suck on your fingers. You could lead them anywhere this way. Some of these guys would about rip your hand off. They could suck start a Harley. We usually fed five to ten at a time. The calves fate was gender specific. The males would be sold and the females would grow up on the farm and two years later become part of the milk force.
As kids, we would pick out an animal, whether horse, chicken or cow, and say it was ours. It really wasn’t, but we didn’t know that and neither did the animal.
I picked out one of these calves and called it Daisy. I fed it with the bucket every day until weaning time. Daisy ended up staying in the corral several months after the others in her class moved on. Daisy was more like a pet dog than a calf. After a year, Daisy went out to pasture with the rest of the herd and I kind of forgot about my pet cow.
Every afternoon, I’d walk with my mom a quarter mile down the lane to the pasture to bring up the cows for the evening milking. I was probably old enough to go by myself but I think my mom was worried I’d get sidetracked poking frogs or turtles with a stick and forget to bring the cows up. Like I said before, cows are creatures of habit, and they have to be milked on time or milk production drops off.
You always hoped the cows would be gathered around the old lone hedge tree in the first part of the pasture. If not there, it meant another quarter mile walk. You didn’t have to get behind the cows to bring them up, they just needed to see you. Once seen by the cows they would start toward the barn. Always in the same order. All our cows had names. I can’t remember them, but I’m sure my mom still can. One that I do remember was called Rheumatism. This old cow had a leg joint that gave it problems and was always the last in line. We never hurried the cows. I was told that if they ran it would churn the milk in their udders and turn it into butter and you couldn’t get it out. My parents had a sense of humor.
Once the cows started toward the barn, you just waited for old rheumatism cow to go past you, then follow in behind.
One day while we’re waiting for old Rheumatism to go by, there is a different cow bringing up the rear. It’s the cow I’d bottle fed two years before. Now a member of the milk force. I wondered if Daisy would remember me. I went up and petted her big ole cow head. Yip, Daisy was just as gentle as could be. After a few days of walking with Daisy at the end of the line, a country brain storm swept over me. I’d lead Daisy over by the old hedge tree and use a low branch, climb on her back, and save a half mile walk back to the barn. After the first few times of me riding and mom walking, it became my job to bring the cows up by myself.

Hood Surfing Cowboy Style

There are four things you need to have with you at all times to be a farmer/rancher/cowboy.
First thing is a pair of CeeTee pliers. You could probably build the space shuttle with this handy tool.
Second thing is a pocket knife. You usually got your first one a couple years before kindergarten, and never really understood why you had to leave it home the first day of school.
Third is a lariat. Unlike the first two, you couldn't keep this one in your pocket. But still it needed to be somewhere nearby. I can remember the cats running when they'd see me coming with the rope. I don't remember actually catching one, but I sure tried.
Fourth is a length of baler twine. This one was optional on being in the pocket or nearby.
Sooner or later, there will be a story to show the value of each of these necessary items.
This story begins with bowling. My dad loved bowling. As far back as I can remember he was always on a bowling team. Yes, he always had the goofy bowling shirt. The ones with the team members name on the front and the big billboard advertisement on the back of the teams sponsor. Unlike Nascar, the sponsor just provided the shirt, not money to pay the weekly league dues. Over the years he had started several different bowling teams. So there is a closet somewhere at my moms house with shirts that say "Richmond Meat Locker", "Peoples State Bank" and the like.
Growing up, dad would take us to youth bowling. This particular Saturday was Eldons Bowling in Garnett. They were on their way home to the farm, which was three miles east and a mile and a half north of Richmond, when dad decided to go check on our cattle out west of town.
Even though gas was less than thirty cents a gallon at the time, you didn't waste anything, so it made perfect sense to drive the mile west to the pasture before going home.
Cattle are a lot smarter than they're given credit for. Driving into the pasture in the old SixtyEight Chevy Impala, the cattle just ignore the car. They know there isn't any bales of hay or feed in a car.
To bring the cows up, my dad used a call signal that they all knew. Whether whistled or blowing on the car horn, One long and two Shorts. Most people my age or younger probably don't have a clue as to what that means. It comes from back in the days of party line telephones. When you would get a call, every ones phone on the line would ring. You knew who it was for by the pattern of rings. Ours was one long ring and two short rings.
This day, like everyday, the signal on the horn brought the cows up near the old barn on the property.
I can't recall what the reason was, but one calf needed to be separated from the herd. Probably some type of doctoring needed to be done.
There was a corral by the barn, not the OK corral, but maybe should have been because the stand off was about to begin. No matter what they tried, they couldn't separate this calf from the herd and get it into the corral. Working cattle on foot usually required more than two people. They would get the calf up close to the gate on the corral, then it would dash off before entering the pen. After several tries of this, and being stubborn, "not going to let a stupid calf whoop us", now comes in item number three, the rope.
Every vehicle we had, had at least one rope in it. Either behind the seat of a truck or in the trunk of a car.
You can't rope a calf on foot when you can't get closer than two thirds the length of the rope. This case its fifteen foot.
Bright idea,,, lets put Eldon on the hood of the car with the rope and drive up by the calf and just drop the noose over its head! What could go wrong?
Now picture this, a gangly fourteen year old sitting on the hood of a car, his feet in high top converse tennis shoes anchored on the front bumper, left hand down holding onto the front lip of the hood, right hand twirling a rope overhead and dad driving a car out across a pasture after a calf. What could be more old west than this sight?
Here comes the flaw in the master plan. If you've ever been to a calf roping competition, they don't goose the calf to make it run out of the shoot like lightning. Its scared of the horse and the rope whistling over the cowboys head. What do you suppose is going through this little calf's mind when there is a three hundred horse power v-8 coming after it. You guessed it, the calf took off like a rocket. Not to be out done by a calf, the old impala starts gaining speed across the pasture.
Pastures aren't as smooth as they look. By now the old car is getting its shocks tested. You can't actually see air under the tires but its getting close. There's a cloud of dust and by now Eldons not twirling the rope but holding on with both hands. The car gets up close enough to rope the calf, Eldon begins to lift the rope one more time and just at that second, the calf veers left. I guess dads caught up in the chase and is thinking he's on a horse and takes a sharp left after the calf. The front tires of the car are throwing dirt and prairie grass ten foot in the air... Well as the calf and car veer left, Eldon veers right, rolling across the prairie, rope still in hand. This now has my dad more scared than the calf. Eldon gets up, dusts himself off, not hurt to bad. He's limping a little but still breathing. That's the end of the car rodeo for the day. Dad takes Eldon home to tell the story and loads the horse up in the trailer and heads back out west to rope the calf like should have been done two hours earlier.
So maybe this isn't the best example of why the rope should be in the trunk of the car.

The Spurs

Back in the late 60's, one of the things we always looked forward to was our yearly trip to the American Royal in Kansas City. Being where a trip to any town only happened at most once every two weeks, seeing the big city was awesome. We'd get to see a rodeo, horse show, some type of celebrity entertainment during the rodeo, all at the Royal. One year the entertainment was the Budweiser Clydesdale Forty Horse Hitch, one year Arther Godfry, you never knew what you were going to get. (the horses were better) Seemed like every year our seats would end up behind a support column in the arena, but it was still such a big event for us.
Before and after the rodeo, you'd walk around the outside of the arena, the halls would be lined with different vendors hocking everything from pool cues to cowboy hats, shoe shines to spurs.
Spurs,,, that's where this story begins.
Raising registered quarter horses, we all thought we were cowboys. Problem, we didn't have spurs. You can't be a cowboy with out spurs. So my dad, being somewhat practical, was more apt to buy us spurs than a beer branded pool cue. We got three sets of shiny new spurs, with the big (ugly now but back then) leather bootstraps, hand tooled. Truly something to be handed down.
The Royal happens in October, November, so no real reason to have spurs yet. They had their place sitting on top of the dresser, just waiting for spring to be worn.
Spring finally comes, the spurs go on, oh the awesome sound of jingling of the spurs while you walk. I was around six or seven at the time. I learned a quick lesson on spurs. If your heels get to close while walking, they catch together and your soon eating dirt.
Older brother Eldon took a little longer to learn his spur lesson.
He had one of the gentlest horses in the world, Flicka. Named after the book. Back then if you had a dog, you named it Ole Yeller or Lassie. Didn't matter if it was Heinz 57. I suppose if we had had a dolphin, it would have been called Flipper.
Eldon is six years older than I am, so at the time he is around twelve. In the spring, we would start getting our horses ready for shows, mainly just getting the winter coat combed out of them.
North of our house, we had a little fenced in pasture, about the size of a rodeo arena. We used it to practice barrel racing, pole bending and just to have a smaller area to ride the horses. Well, this day, Eldon had Flicka all combed, threw the saddle and bridle on. He figured on a little ride around the arena, maybe a little flag race practice. He's got the whole family out leaning on the fence to watch. He gets Flicka out in the arena, hops up in the saddle. Then the shiny new spurs touch Flickas ribs. Flickas hind end jumps up a foot. It surprises Eldon, so he tenses up and dig the spurs in a little more. The ride is on. Flicka is taking four foot hops halfway across the arena. Eldon hits the dirt face first. After we all saw the only thing hurt was his cowboy pride, you could have heard the laughter five miles away in town.
He hung his spurs up after that, never to be worn again. In fact, forty years later, they are still hung on an old gun rack at my mothers today. The spurs are rusty, but the hand tooled leather boot straps are still in tack.