Hunting adventures from Dee's Life on the Farm, Sewing and Railroad Adventures

 Hunting Adventures

My husband Dale liked to hunt and fish and I will tell you about some of his adventures.  We married on Sept 5 1948 and soon after that duck season started.  Dale and his friend would go duck hunting and then bring the ducks home to me.  They would skin the ducks and I would cook them.  Bear in mind I was a new bride and had never cooked a duck before.  We had cooked domestic ducks on the farm so I fixed them.  I stuffed them with apple dressing and baked them and they turned out fine.

Then he would go out squirrel hunting but I refused to cook and eat them.  The first time we went down to see his folks they had fried squirrel for the evening meal and there was no way I would eat them.

Then Dale liked to fish and we would go trout line fishing on the Salt Fork River.  We had friends that would go with us and the men would put out the trout lines and then we would all enjoy a picnic meal on the banks of the river.  Hugh was small and he and his friend Mike would get out in the river and splash around.  Had great fun doing that.  The men would run the trout lines and usually caught some catfish which are good eating.  You have to nail them up on a board and skin them and then filet them.  One time they ran the trout lines at night and Dale came in at two in the morning.  He didn’t wake me up and the next morning I got up to go to work and take a shower.  Well, there were 2 big catfish in the bathtub.  No shower that morning.  Gail would go trout lining with her Dad when she was between 8 and 12 years old during the summer months.

Gail and I used to go out to our cabin and catch little perch to be used on the trout lines.  We also went down to Red Rock creek to dig those great big worms to be used as bait.  I never was good at fishing except for the perch.  I had a fly rod and tackle box and I remember using a no 12 hook and I would take out lunch meat and let it dry and use it for bait.  The little perch really liked that.  

Dale also liked to go quail hunting and we always had good bird dogs.  He and his buddies rented some ground out in western Oklahoma and they would go hunting almost every Saturday in season.   He would bring the birds home and skin them and remove as many pellets as he could find.  One time he and his friend had a drink or two and they went to his friends' house and were fixing the birds.   They had a new food disposer and they put the feathers in it and they just flew up to the ceiling.  He would go hunting around here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  At that time he worked nights on the railroad and so could do that.  He hunted in the Osage County with a friend and there was a ranch over there that had cowboys with guns patrolling the ranch so no one tried to hunt there,

One time Dale was up at my folks when they lived on a farm near Willow River Minn.  He went out and brought home about 4 partridges.  My Mother fixed them and they were really good eating.

We always had bird dogs and one time during wheat harvest the two male dogs got into a fight.  The younger dog wanted to be top dog and Dale was sleeping and Gail came into the house and said the dogs were fighting.  Dale separated them with a water hose but they would not stop fighting so we gave one of them away.  We had a dog one time that learned how to climb out of the pen.  We had to put an electric wire on the top of the fence to keep him in.  But when we turned it off he would get out again.  The dog's name was Boomer and we gave him to a friend.  Boomer got out one day and he caught a neighbors little kitten and killed it.  The child came to our friends' house and said boomer got my kitty cat.  Our friend denied it as he had already put the kitty in the trash.  Boomer was death on cats if they found one out hunting.

We had 2 bird dogs one time and Gail had a cat.  The dogs thought they were going to have fun with the cat.  She was at the back door and the dogs came rushing up and she reached up and put her claws in his nose.  They backed off and never messed with her again.

This is about all the stories I can remember about hunting.

No Electricity and No Running Water - back in the thirties.

 

No Electricity and no running water

     Back in the thirties when I was a child we lived on various farms and they did not have electricity or running water.  The farm that my folks lost in the middle of the depression did have electricity but they could not pay the bill and it got cut off.  It did have running cold water in the kitchen.  The windmill pumped the water into a storage tank and then the water ran from the storage tank into the house.  It also ran into the barn where the cattle had cups to drink out of.  The cups were cast iron and had a thing they pressed down and the water would come out.

     Since the electricity had been cut off, we had to use kerosene lamps for light and then we used the cast irons that you heated on the stove to do the ironing.  To wash clothing, they heated a boiler on the stove and in the summer time we had a washing machine.  It was wooden and the agitator was powered by hand.  You pulled this stick and that ran the agitator and the kids did that kind of work.  We also had a summer kitchen on that farm and in the hot summer you did the cooking out there.

     The bathroom was a pot and had to be emptied.  You used that at night and in the day time you had an outside two-holer.  You used Montgomery Ward catalogs to wipe with.  All modern conveniences right.

     The next farm we lived on we did not have running water in the house.  We had a small pump about 20 feet from the house and we pumped the water and brought it into the house.  We did have a sink and the water was piped out kind of like they do now if you don’t have a sewer line.  So, we didn’t have to empty a bucket with our waste water. 

 

I think we had a cistern on that farm and a pump in the utility room.  We used the cistern water for washing our hair and clothing.  We took baths in one of the laundry tubs and that was on Saturday night.  In winter we changed our long underwear on Saturday night.  I had 2 pairs of long underwear.  I probably had 2 changes of clothing to wear to school.

     The next farm we lived on had no running water either.  The water was at the bottom of a hill and we had to carry it to the house.  In winter we had to let the stock outside and we had a cast iron stove in the stock tank to keep the water from freezing. 

 

Things were a little better at this farm.  My Mother was able to get a washing machine powered by a Briggs and Stratton engine.  It moved the agitator and the wringer.  We were also able to get a gas-powered iron and did not have to heat the irons on the stove any more.  We did not have telephones on any of these places. 

 

The last rent farm was about 1940 and things were getting better then.  My Mother sewed all of my clothing on a treadle sewing machine and that is what I learned to sew on

 

We had a nice yard at this house and I was 12 years old and mowed the yard by hand pushing the mower.  We had a croquet set and my little brother and I played croquet every day in the summer so I kept the yard up.

     I started milking cows when I was about 10 years old and when I was 12, I was milking 4 cows every morning and evening.  I also washed the separator and helped my Mother around the house with dishes and canning and getting the eggs ready for market.  This is just a little bit about what life was about on a dairy farm in Minnesota in the late thirties and early forties.