Chapter 10: On the Farm - Chores

With advancing age came advancing work responsibilities which we called "chores."  

In those days, before the age of specialization, it was common practice for farmers to raise a variety of animals.  We concentrated mainly on milk cows, hogs and chickens.  The major portion of the chores were related to the production and care of these animals.  We kept about three or four hundred chickens primarily for producing eggs; however, after the second year of producing eggs they were sold for meat.  As a small child one of the delights of the year was the day we would bring home boxes of newly hatched baby chicks, one hundred fuzzy yellow little chirpers in each box.  These were put in a special "brooder house" where they were nurtured until they were able to be treated like older chickens.

            

We would raise about 50 to 100 hogs each year, starting them off from birth from our own sows in about March.  By November or thereabouts, after months of eating like pigs, they would be large enough to send off to market.  A few brood sows would be kept for breeding purposes, mated with a boar; and the following spring the process would start all over again.

           

Our barn allowed for the milking of 16 cows and we usually had from 10 to 15 that would be producing milk at a given time.  In order for cows to continue producing milk it was necessary that they also produce calves about once a year.  We kept a bull among our cows in order to yearly impregnate them, which resulted in a continuous supply of new cows (heifers) which were often kept to replenish the herd, and of male calves which were sold as veal within a few weeks after birth.

            

In my later years on the farm we had our cattle artificially inseminated.  This had two advantages: first, we didn't have to keep a bull around; and second, the genetic quality of the herd could be improved by using the sperm of bulls from a very superior quality stock.

            

We did not sell the milk itself; rather, we separated the cream from the milk with a machine aptly called the separator.  

The cream was sold to the Farmer’s Cooperative Creamery in Kanawha where it was converted to various cream products including butter.  Part of the skimmed milk which was left over was fed to the calves.  The remainder was allowed to curdle by souring, after which the curds were separated from the whey.  The curds went to the chickens and the whey was fed to the hogs.

Paul 1934

Besides the animals we raised for marketing, we also, until about my high school years, kept a couple of horses for farm work (in addition to a tractor).  Other, less useful animals included a few mallard ducks which we kept, sometimes for eating, but mainly to decorate our pond next to the hog barn in back of the main barn.  Two or three cats were also kept in order to curtail the population of mice and rats.  Last, but certainly not least, we always had one dog on the farm, if for nothing else, to harass the rabbits.  The dogs, moreover, also served as congenial companions, as barking heralds of visitors arriving on the property, and, sometimes, as aids in bringing the cows in from the pasture.  Some dogs we had were useful in flushing out the pheasants during pheasant hunting season, a sport that was very popular with my dad and most farmers around Kanawha, but which I never had any desire to engage in.

Chores in my younger years were often done with Ruth.  We would take our bushel fruit basket and fill it with corn cobs for the kitchen stove, and in the winter, get a bucket of coal for the living room stove.  We gathered eggs too.  Most of them from the chicken house, but some of our chickens would build nests in the barn and we would have to locate those too.  The chicken feeders had to be filled with ground grain and oyster shells, and water had to be carried to their drinking places.  As I got older, I would have to feed the hogs twice a day, and in the winter, the cows and horses also.  

One of the biggest challenges was to teach a newborn calf to drink from a pail of milk.  

This involved letting the calf suck your fingers, then thrusting your fingers and his mouth into the milk pail, hoping that the sucking would draw up the milk.  After a while the calf would learn to drink without the aid of your fingers.

            

At about age ten or eleven I was introduced to milking.  The cows had to be milked morning and night every day on a regular schedule.  There is a real skill involved in milking by hand.  The cow's teats had to be grasped and squeezed just right to make the milk squirt out.  Then it was one squirt after another until the udder was utterly empty or "dry".  A productive cow that had recently become "fresh" (that is, that had delivered a calf fairly recently) could give up to 3 gallons of milk in one milking.  To fill a pail rapidly one had to develop a fast rhythm and keep those squirts cascading against the inner side of the pail in an alternating but almost continuous, flow.  Some cows milked easy, while others required more effort.  There were cows who liked to kick the bucket and, sometimes, the milker as well.  Many a gallon of milk whitened the manure in the gutter, and many an angry cuss word blued the air on those same occasions because of it.  Notorious kickers were shackled with chains on their lower back legs.

            

About the time I began high school we acquired a mechanical milker, the type that hung on a belt and drew the milk by a surging vacuum action which milked all four teats at one time.  One person with a pair of mechanical milkers could now do the milking in less than half the time that it took three persons to milk by hand.  Some cows would still kick, however, and even the machines could lose their contents to the gutter.  I never enjoyed milking, especially in early spring or in wet weather when the cows, after walking through the mud back of the barn, would have to be cleaned before they were milked.

The chore I detested the most, however, was one which was done only once a year, but it seemed to come along much oftener.  

As I mentioned, we raised pigs with the idea of growing them to near maturity, fattening them, and selling them on the market. Now male pigs, after they reached a certain age, were not only difficult to control, but their pork would become unsuitable for eating; that is, unsuitable, if they retained their full masculinity.  The solution was to deprive them of their full masculinity by surgically removing their testicles.  This was best accomplished with a sharp one-edged razor blade sometime before the little porkers became a foot tall.  My dad had many years of experience as the surgeon and I soon learned how to prepare the patients for the operation.  We first enclosed all the pigs, both males and females, in a small area.  My job was to grab the right rear leg of a male, then its front leg, and flip him over in such a way that I could keep my left knee pressed against his head and pull the legs back to expose the location where my dad could make the necessary incisions.  No anesthesia was applied and the three or four minute routine precipitated some ear-piercing squeals which, however, subsided quickly when the procedure was completed.  Because there were usually 50 or so male pigs to require castration, it would take three or more hours before the last male meekly trotted off to join his emasculated brothers.  

If there was any pleasure at all in this "detesticle" work, it was derived solely from the relief gained by the completion of the yearly task.

Getting back to our dogs, on one occasion our dog may have saved the life of brother Henry.  

As I said, we kept a bull around, usually a young bull because as these specimens of masculinity became fully mature they often became quite fierce and a threat to people who might find themselves in the same vicinity and unprotected.  Older bulls were usually kept in the barn instead of being allowed to roam among the cows in the barnyard or pasture.  To lessen the danger in keeping a bull, the animal would be dehorned at a young age and later have a ring placed in his nose by which he could be led around with a pole hooked into that ring.  On this occasion Henry was leading the bull from the stall in the barn to the water tank outside, using only a rope hooked to the ring.  The bull had not as yet displayed much bullish behavior and no exceptional precautions were considered necessary.  But there is always a first time, and this was it.  Our bull suddenly chose to demonstrate his virility as Henry unsuspectingly walked ahead of him while leading him to the water tank.  The bull gave one quick snort, charged head down, knocking Henry flat to the ground, and then began pawing and snorting, preparing for another charge.  But our dog Sport was nearby, saw the incident and immediately tore into the bull, barking and biting at his nose and effectively diverting him from his malicious intentions.  Just what happened after that, I don't recall, but somehow the bull was controlled and put back into the barn, and Henry, with a few aches, survived with something to tell his grandchildren about.

           

While on the subject of bulls, I must relate an incident with a bull in my own life which occurred when I was in about the 8th grade.  One of my jobs at this stage in my life, in addition to milking the cows, was to get the cows from the pasture in the summer months so that they could be milked.  On this particular late afternoon I was bringing the cows home.  Among the cows was a young bull that was just beginning to become a bit frisky.  I walked along side the herd until we got to the corner gate leading from the field into the barnyard.  I stopped at this point to let all the cows pass through the gate.  But the bull refused to pass. He remained behind and, with a challenging glint in his eye, he seemed to say: "You first. I'll follow."

           

I invited him to go on ahead, waiting several anxious moments for him to pass; but he was of another mind and insistent on staying right where he was.  Finally, with a bit of apprehension, I went on ahead.  The bull now immediately followed me.  I walked a little faster; the bull walked faster too, almost to a trot, and was closing the gap between us.  Prudence, to say nothing of panic, prompted me to run.  My pursuer began running also, right behind me.  By this time I was in the barnyard and made a frantic dash toward an area about a hundred feet to the right where there were a bunch of small boulders, the bull in close pursuit.  I hurdled over a number of the boulders ( note the rocks in the upper left hand corner of the first photo on this page) and on into the midst of them.  My pursuer, not knowing quite how to negotiate those boulders with his four hoofed feet, bellowed and bounded to a reluctant halt.  Henry, meanwhile, had seen from the barn what was happening and immediately came running out with a pitchfork and persuaded my would-be assailant to cease and desist from his evil machinations.  Panting, and probably sobbing, I gained an instantaneous appreciation for how precarious our earthly existence can be. 

Grab the paperback copy of "Looking Back" HERE!


Read more stories by clicking on the links below:

• Birthplace: Kanawha
• Amsterdam Township #4
• 1934
• One Room Schoolhouse - Norway Township No. 3
• On the Farm - Playtimes
• On the Farm - Chores
• On the Farm - Field Work
• Kittenball
• The Special Times
• The Party Line
• Radio
• Town
• Sundays
• The War Years
• The Big Surprise