we bought a farm...continued

I bet we have all heard the question ask "which came first..the chicken or the egg?"
In my opinion..I have been known to be wrong.. but in Genesis ch.2 verse 19 it tells us that the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.....It tells us here that God formed every beast and bird from the ground..I would gather from that He formed the chicken, not the egg. The egg is the way chickens are hatched..providing there is a rooster in the pen..We could have a conversation about reproduction here and now but that isn't exactly what this article is about.
Sooo, back to the farm and my article on chickens this time. As I have said in previous articles, Leland wanted to have ALL the animals that God created come live with us in Grayson county..maybe not all but a lot..
We did get some old hens and a rooster..because we did want to hatch chickens. A small hen house was already here and we got our flock and was on the journey to our own eggs and fried chicken..We both remembered from our limited childhood days on the farm that our mother's marked the eggs that were to be 'set'..When an old hen started 'clucking' that meant she was ready to set on some eggs. We would then mark a number of eggs for her to set on. Other hens would get in the same nest with her and lay an egg and we would retrive those but left the marked ones alone. When  you gathered the eggs it was nice if you could do that chore when the old hen was off the nest for a little while..she did not take kindly you invading her nest.It took 21 days for the eggs to hatch and during that time the hen would turn the eggs over instead of leaving them in the same position all time.People who used incabators had to turn the eggs every so often. After the chicks hatched you would see the hen and her little chicks scratching in the yard and she would be clucking to them all time. I guess they understood her, we didn't. One thing so very interesting in watching the hen and her chicks was if the mother hen suspected some danger. She may have seen  a cat in the area or maybe even thunder she would start clucking in an alarming way and little chicks would come running and gather under her wings and she would lower herself over them. I do believe she would protect them with her life.
As the hens got older they didn't lay much and it was then that chicken and dressing showed up on many tables.
As time went on and we saw that if having a few chickens could be good then just think what 500 would do. For one thing it meant a lot more work and lot more feed to buy. We got them anyway. Ordered 500 baby chickens..just wanted pullets didn't want any roosters..we weren't interested in fertlized eggs..just wanted a lot of eggs to sell. In the 500 we ordered we recieved 25-30 extra to account for the roosters that would be in the bunch. When these got large enough that we coud tell were roosters and big enough to fry ..we had fried chicken..I put a lot in the freezer.
A few months after we got the little chicks they started laying eggs..what a sight and how happy we were.The new wore off when we were getting almost 400 eggs a day.
We had different places that bought the eggs and of course a lot of friends and relatives got free eggs..If you want to hear horror stories of washing eggs, just ask Sharon.

Proverbs 19: 15
Laziness casts one into a deep sleep,
And an idle person will suffer hunger.

Continuing with 'we bought a farm'

When we bought the farm, here in Grayson county, Leland was 31 and I was 29 and we had more energy then than now..55 years later. That may explain why we thought we could do anything and everything.Wayne was 10...Sharon was almost 9 and Mike was 2 1/2 . They were so excited because we were going to have a farm but they didn't know what we were getting into.
The first day the kiddos saw where we were going to live they were a bit overwhelmed. Our house had detached garage and one of them 'ask who lived there' they thought it was a neighbor. When we showed them the land it just looked so big..well, that 102 acres looked a lot bigger to us then than it does now..We had moved out of a new house in Andrews to one that had a living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms..Notice what is missing??? We had a little building north of the house. Had to explain that to them and I guess it did take a little shine off things...Remember once Mike said " I want to go home and use the bathroom'..well, we did too.
First thing Leland did was start digging a hole for a septic tank and was that an experience!!! That is when we discovered that our black land farm was rock about 2 inches down. He hit solid rock and he was able to buy some dynamite.Bet we couldn't buy that now.He would blast some and dig some. Once it was really scary..he lite the dynamite and it didn't go off..whew..We were all scared for him to go back in the hole in case it was just delayed but finally after a period of time he did go back in and  struck a match to it again and got the heck out of there and it blew..that may have been the one that rocks did a number on our roof. Finally the hole was big enough . He had bought a book before we moved here on building septic tanks and went by that exactly. We had moved here in August of 1959 and by November of that year he had built the room for the bathroom and we put in the comode, sink and bathtub. The walls didn't have up sheetrock and we hung a heavy quilt for a door until we could eventually get it finished..Winter was coming on and we were gratful to say goodbye to that little house.
We did have running water and was told that the well had NEVER gone dry and that people from all over use to come and get water from that well. We took them at their word and wasn't  worried until one day no water came out when we turned on the faucet. Lots of people must have had trouble with their wells going dry because a man in Tom Bean had a truck that he hauled water to people for their wells..so we bought water for 'that well that had never gone dry' until 1966 when we got water from a well that was drilled..called Kentucky Water Supply..we still gladly pay a water bill to that company every month.      
At first there wasn't near as much work to do because after using all our money for a down payment we didn't have the funds to buy anything..We had hoped that Leland could find a job that paid well enough while building up things here that he wouldn't need to go back to the oil field..That didn't happen, jobs weren't all that plentiful but he did go to work for the highway department. He had no experience in that so the job that was open for him only paid $200.00 a month...before anything came out..We knew from the start that there was no way we could possibly live on that so he only worked there about a month and did find a job on a drilling rig. After he went to work for Humble oil (now Exxon) he had two days a week off and two weeks paid vacation a year. Before that he worked on contract rigs and when they were running it was seven days a week and you worked whatever shift was available. If they had another location that was great but if they didn't you and everyone else on that rig was out looking for a job..When he went back on rigs now..we were back to that. Some of the time it was steady like the time he worked 19 months and one day without a day off!!!.He was making enough money that we started buying animals..That probably was about the time that the new wore off for the kids because they helped with chores. It was awhile before Mike was old enough but when Leland was at work and the other two in school I would take Mike to the barn with me and sit him down somewhere while I did chores..checking on him every once in awhile to make sure some snake hadn't eaten him up.....These were the first very few years out here.
I will try not to wait so long before I write another article.

Ephesians 2 13:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,not
of works, least anyone should boast.

Esther

Can you believe we bought a farm?

Leland and I had both moved from farms at an early age.
From these previous articles you know that I do remember some of the
hardships that came with farm living. Well, we had been in the oil
field for years and moved many many times and decided we wanted
to buy a farm and stay settled in one place where our kiddos would
have some roots. We had no reason to believe but that they would
adjust to whatever we did, but it was our decision to try to stay
more settled..On pencil and paper we saw different ways that we
could really make money on the farm..notice I said "on pencil and
paper." Leland figgured we could go with raising hens and they would
lay all these eggs that we could sell ..OR we could buy a bunch of cows and
have a dairy OR we could buy some hogs, raise the pigs and make a
fortune (nearly) OR whatever we may decide to do.. after all we
would be growing our own food so a grocery bill would not be
much. That in itself would be a big plus.
We found our land..quit the oil field..we did have enough sense to
know he would  have to work awhile to buy the animals we decided
on. Somewhere along the line we decided what the heck why just
put "all our eggs in one basket" as the saying goes and get hens, cows,
and hogs.We didn't stop there we had turkeys too. Well, surely we
could get rich with all this..WRONG.
Thank goodness we didn't have the money to buy all these animals
at once or we would have been in serious trouble. We started out with one
milk cow..I didn't know how to milk a cow but Leland told me he
did, I don't know when he learned but he he did know how. When he
wasn't there the cow still needed to be milked and mother came down
and taught me. If I had only known then what I learned much later was
'ignorance is bliss.' At time though I wanted to learn how to do everything.
I plan to write a series of articles on the ups and down that went with
our adventures here for anyone interesting in reading about them.
I just ask that you don't judge us to harshly on the  things we
did..Some of the things, as I look back now were just downright
stupid ,but we did learn a little from some of the mistakes.
Esther

Proverbs 16 :9
A man's heart plans his way
But the Lord directs his steps.

Those cotton pickin' days

The fields were white with cotton ready to be picked. Before this date arrived mother was
busy making the sacks for it. They would buy yards and yards of the heavy ducking material used
for them. She would measure the length needed for each member. The sacks had extra
layers of fabric on the bottom in order to withstand the dragging it up and down the
long rows.

This is was going on long before I was born but afterwards I can remember
running up and down the rows playing. That abuptly ended one year when she made me
a short sack, I doubt she had to add any extra layers on the bottom for me though.
We would get up very early in the morning in order to get as much cotton picked as we could before
the scorching sun came up bearing down on us.

Daddy had put a wagon at the end of the rows and when you had picked your sack full
you would take it to the wagon where it was weighed and the amount recorded. Two reasons
for that, one you needed to know how much cotton was in the wagon because you took it
to the gin where the process there took out the seeds. It was weighed upon arrival and it
was good to know how close your figures were to theirs. The other reason was there
was a certain amount of competition going on, maybe not with family members but with
friends who were working their own fields. I can remember hearing some 'brag' about
how much cotton they could pick in a day.( I can think of a few other things I'd rather
brag about).

When the cotton was taken to the gin, you would wait your turn in line. Can you imagine
waiting in line sometime for hours,with wagons and a team of mules pulling them in
front of you? Makes me feel a little bad about complaining about standing in line at
Walmart. It was not unusual for two farmers going to the gin at the same time to
start racing to get there first. I hope this was all done in a good natured manner. Meanwhile
back at the farm another wagon had been set up so as not to hold up production. The cotton
needed to be gotten out as early as possible because a hard rain could beat it down and
a lot could be lost.

Somehow, my eyes doesn't get all teary thinking about those days being in the past.

Proverbs 20:4
The lazy man will not plow
because of winter;
He will beg during harvest
and have nothing.

How we made butter and buttermilk.

I was ask by my oldest son one day "how do you make buttermilk"..well, it was a little bit of trouble but was sure good. You would usually milk the cow twice a day and that sure gave a family a lot of milk for drinking, whipped cream, butter and buttermilk. Always when you brought the milk in from the barn you would strain it and put it in the icebox.

churn

People in the early days did not have electricity and used an ice box. After the milk cooled the cream would rise to the top. If you wanted whipped cream then you could skim off some for that. If you weren't going to make buttermilk or whip cream you simply stirred up the milk and  had a very rich milk to drink.

In order to make the butter and buttermilk you would set it out of the ice box and let it 'sour and clabber up.'. Next step you put it in a churn, then put newspaper under the churn so it wouldn't splash all over the floor while churning.  You would stand there and churn that thing for hours..it must have been hours..Finally, after peeking in several times to see if butter was forming on top you would eventually be rewarded for all your work. Butter was on top and you would then dip that out into a bowl and keep stirring it until all the milk was worked out and you could then put it in a mold and make a pound of butter or simply in a dish. The milk left in the churn was buttermilk. It had little specks of butter in it and you had delicious buttermilk. A lot of people loved drinking it or it was  so good to cook with. In my opinion the buttermilk sold in stores today is not to be compared to what we had then. Of course, now you just buy it and don't go to all the other trouble.

Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
WHAT A PROMISE!!

Games children played.

There is a lot of difference in the games children played back in those earlier years and now.
Those day's there was no TV 's or computers to keep children in the house. That is not to say
that there is anything wrong with that, but for us when, if you stayed in the house, mama found
something for you to do..(like work) sooo out the door we would go when we got the chance.
Kids made up games to play..when Leland was about 7 years old he was living in Whitesboro
and at one time lived on Halleluiah street, named because of the number ot children. One of the
games he remembers they played was 'truth or consequences'..guess you all know how that game goes. Someone ask you a question and if you couldn't answer it then you pay the consequences. He
was ask a question that he couldn't answer and his consequence was to run around this house on
the block that was narrorw and rather long. Needless to say he was one scared 7 year old but
did start running and when he had gotten about half way around the back of the house, and it was pitch black, some of the bigger boys had slipped around there and grabbed him by the leg as he flew by. He still remembers that as one of his scarest moments!
Another thing is he had this special friend, Kenneth Hawkins. He and Kenneth and some other boys
and girls(??) would ride their bicycles north of town and stay away all day playing. There was a
creek there and they would swing from the trees and fall in the creek. The Lord was watching over a bunch of kids because no one drowned.
I remember Charles and I would play with little cars. I do not remember if we really did have little
cars or if we just used little blocks of wood and pretend they were cars and trucks. We didn't have
grass in the yard and mother would actually sweep the yard at times..don't ask me why..anyway,
we could make little roads and hills in the black dirt and play for hours. Jump rope was a real
favorite too. I remember that two people would throw the rope and one person jump it and then
they would see how fast they could throw it and see how long you could keep jumping without
tripping. We also had just a rope that we jumped by ourselves. I am sure kiddos still do that some.
Marbles was another game that was real popular..kids would carry their marbles to school and
play at recess.Of course, Cowboy and Indians was a favorite of all boys and I remember many
of the guns were handmade carved out of wood. In the game of pretend they were as deadly as
any gun on the market.
I know there were a lot of other games but these come to mind.

Until next time remember:
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, Oh Lord,
my strength, my redeemer. Psa.19:14

History ..segment on school

The first segment I did was on the first church I attended. I want to do
this one on the school.
First of all just a brief  bit about the Pilot Grove community. I don't
think that place has ever nor does it now have street signs. Everyone
just always seemed to know where everyone lived.
Pilot Grove is the second name it had, the first was Lick Skillet.
Long ago the stage line came through there and had a way station.
People on the stage could get out, rest a bit and have a meal. It
seems the lady there cooked so well that folks said they would like to
lick the skillet..hence the name. Someone later changed it to the
present name. I am glad.
I started to school there in 1935. I was 5 years old and started in
what was called the Premer..same as Kindergarten now. I believe
the Premer and first grade were almost considered the same.  
The school, at that time only taught through the 8th grade. The
building was made up of 2 school rooms and an auditorium. Each room
had four grades in it. I am not sure just how this was handled. I think
she would teach maybe one or two subjects in one grade then go to
another grade and do the same. This was done throughout the day
until all subjects in all four grades were covered.
The school had no A/C in the summer, just open windows. In the
winter it was heated with a wood stove. No electricity. No running
water. There was a wash basin provided to wash our hands. Our
restroom was 2 outdoor toilets..one for the boys and one for the
girls. Teachers expected you to take care of that business during
recess or lunch period. We carried our lunches and I am sure that
sandwiches were sometime traded among the students.
The playground equipment would not be allowed today. The merry-go
round really was dangerous because the bigger boys would get
it going real fast and it would go around and up on one side and
down on the other. We could have gotten broken legs but I don't
remember that ever happening. The see-saws were ok unless
when you were at the top the person on the other end jumped off
and let you fall at break neck speed..You learned to have your
legs out of the way in case this happened. Of course we had a slide
and I don't think that was a hazard.
I don't remember what we did for recess on rainy days before a
nice big gym was built. I do think daddy helped build it. After we
had that we could go to the gym during recess.
They also used it for other activities..Probably more than once
they had donkey ballgames. It was fun watching a basket ball
game and the men having to ride the donkey to make a basket
or get the ball from the other team. I do believe though when
they had the donkey baseball game they did that in the summer
when it could be done outside. One year at Christmas there was
a hugh Christmas tree set up in the auditorium and parents brought
a present for their children and we were told to look for Santa
Claus that night and he would bring us a gift. I do remember
that night and seeing Santa come in all of us getting a gift. I
knew for a fact that there was a Santa Claus.
Another popular activity was the box suppers. Girls would decorate
a box really pretty and put sandwiches and goodies that
she would eat with whoever bought the box. Her boyfriend really
wasn't suppose to know which box was hers but I am sure they
had a way of letting him know. It would get interesting when
two boys were bidding against each other for the same girls
box.
As you can see, we didn't have the luxuries that students and
teachers enjoy today but people did get together and have
fun. One thing that the teachers had then that so many
don't have today is..the parents stood behind them. If we got
into trouble at school we got in trouble at home. No use in
hiding it from your parents because they seemed to have a
way of finding out.

The good old days ?

Baptist Church in Pilot Grove, Texas

After many years gone by of Mother and Daddy attending services at this church with their children, our mother and Ione is shown here approaching the steps of the old church.

This photo was taken around 1987.

It is still there today and Esther is giving a little history here about the church.

There are many things I want to write about of how it was a few generations ago. Believe me things have changed. As JoAnn said in the introduction, there is so much we don't know about our extended families.
This website has reached a lot of people outside our families. JoAnn has invited anyone to view it and we have been pleasantly surprised to see that people all over the world read it and several are repeat visitors. Other folks beside our families may be interested to know how things were in Texas.
First I want to say that I was born about one mile near the small community of Pilot Grove,Tx. We lived on the farm there and one of the things I want to write about later is what farm life was like.
This first article I wanted to do is about the church I first attended. Pilot Grove had three chruches a Methodist, I believe a Church of Christ and the First Baptist. We are Baptist. I don't know how long mother and daddy had gone there before I was born along with my older sister and brother Ione and Charles. JoAnn came along later after we left the farm.
In 1935 I was about five years old when I have my first memories of church, school  etc.
The church is actually still there and has been well maintained and still has church services on Sunday mornings. It is a large one room with the same pews in the same place they were 79 years ago. A few changes have been made, there is now electricity in the sanctuary, a family room added on the back of the church where reunions and wedding receptions can be held. One really nice change is there is a restroom now.
We had Sunday School before church services and each little room was separated by a curtian according to age. I remember sitting along with other children my age and learning about Jesus. The men and women had separate classes much like is done today in many churches. One thing that I   remember is seeing the men sit in a designated part of the church and not with the women. Why in the world this was done is beyond me. That may have just been a custom in that church and not practiced other places but I never remember daddy sitting with us.
I don't know how often we did it but I remember having dinner on the ground at church.Ladies would bring dishes, set up long tables and put all the food together and enjoy. Children would play games together often we didn't see each other until the next Sunday. If we weren't having dinner on the ground many times we would either have someone come home with us or we were invited to someones home for dinner. I believe you usually invited the preacher too. Since we rarely saw anyone except on Sundays or the Wednesday evening service..no telephones to call ahead of time, then the invitation was extended at the Sunday morning service.I well remember when we had company after church that mother would make a dash to the storm celler and get jars of canned food that she had put up earlier and probably kill a chicken to fry. She and the lady or ladies, depending on how many people came,would all pitch in and a meal was on the table in no time. I remember always being happy when people came because there would be other children and we would play in the yard.
What were the men doing while the ladies cooked and children played?? They of course, sat on the front porch and talked ..then they enjoyed the food and back to the porch while the women cleaned up the dishes. I don't believe the women were bothered by that because they had an opportunity to visit.
I hope anyone reading these articles and all the other post on the website will enjoy them as much as we do posting them. Please feel free to leave any comment..we would love hearing from you.
I plan for the next article to be on  School Days. School is very different today than it was then.

We must remember to "let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers" Eph 4:29

The Good Ole' Days??

How many times have we heard the expression "in the good old days'?  Esther always kind of chuckles when she hears that because she doesn't necessarily think they were that good in so much as the work chores go.  You will hear more about it in the sections she will be writing.

The purpose of the newsletter is not another "facebook" however, everybody would enjoy people's banter back and forth if they wanted.  The main purpose though is to create a record for our families as we are scattered and this is a place to come to and know more about our extended families. If it wasn't for this site there are a lot of things we wouldn't know about each other. 

What Esther is going to write about is how things were done "back then." I don't know everything she is going to write about I'm sure she will make it interesting and besides we will have the record.

This site will never be finished. It is an ongoing thing and everybody is welcome to come over and read. Each family member is encouraged to come and post "your story."