Growing up on the farm
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Forum Name: Shops, Barns, Varmints, and Trucks
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URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=168760
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Topic: Growing up on the farm
Posted By: HD6GTOM
Subject: Growing up on the farm
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 11:02am
| Did you all have jobs you actually hated? Mine was cleaning out the stinking old chicken house. It always happened in July when the humidity was close to 90% and milking those dam cows by hand. Dad cleaned out the fat cattle lot once a year. The milking barn got cleaned out at the same time. The crap would get so deep. The milk stool I used was a 2x4 nailed to a 4x4 leg. In the spring the leg would sink so deep I would be almost sitting in the crap. One year I nailed a couple of 2x4 extensions on the bottom. Looked silly but worked. When I left home I vowed that I would never milk anything again. Old gal can't understand why. She likes milking. |
Replies:
Posted By: DMiller
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 12:32pm
| Soon as the milk got drawn on Great Aunt and Uncle's place the milking stall got shoveled out, barn lot got a level control about every other week and they too milked by hand where I was too small. We as the kids would climb to the loft and drop bale bats with a sprinkling of grain into the mangers as they were milking. |
Posted By: TimNearFortWorth
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 12:52pm
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Large pole barn put up around 74/75, one side built out to run 25-30 heifers and by March they were on their knees to eat hay as the manure was so deep. Had to pitch out near the sliding doors so they could be opened to let em' out after fences fixed, plus one end opened to start filling the spreader after crops in and before haying, all by hand and you got 2.00/load from the ol' man, 50-60 loads every year and the 5-tine manure fork was the only type that worked to fill the 140 and later 180 Knight spreader. About five years ago I asked my Dad why he would not use the CA with loader to clean that barn instead of paying us boys to pitch it out over 2-3 weeks? Looked me square in the eyes before telling me that he and my mother agreed that us boys needed something to do before haying, something to keep us busy at home and off the roads because that was the "season" when so many teens were lost in car accidents. Best shape you could be in with cleaning that thing out between milkings and you were drag a$$ed tired after nightly milking and off to bed because you didn't have any energy to go out ramming the roads.Wake up the next morning, repeat and by the time you were getting near done, the ol' man started knocking down hay.
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Posted By: thendrix
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 1:46pm
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We call cleaning out chicken houses pay day around here. Of course we don't use shovels or forks anymore. Don't really remember a job I hated. Only one I can think of now is walking in the chicken house and finding a water leak. Only thing that smells worse than fresh chicken sh!t is WET fresh chicken sh!t. And it has to be shoveled out when birds are in to keep from over stressing. ------------- "Farming is a business that makes a Las Vegas craps table look like a regular paycheck" Ronald Reagan |
Posted By: TimCNY
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 5:49pm
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I never hated any of the jobs, except - well, it fell to me to do virtually EVERYTHING for my sisters' horses in addition to everything else I did. The girls always had at least 4. And it was always just ME, ALONE. When my wife and I were dating before we were married, it was the first time she "met the parents." We got to my parents' house/farm (ours, now - the farm, but not the house); the farm rises up several hundred feet to a ridge, the top of which runs parallel with and about 2,000 feet east of the road, and against the skyline at sunset the horses were running south-to-north in single file along the very top of the ridge. My wife-to-be saw them, gasped and said, "OH, how BEAUTIFUL! What are their names?" I said, very serious like, "Kibbles and bits and bits and bits." That was back in 1982. The horses have been gone from the farm since around 1997. I always thought I hated horses, but in recent years discovered that I really like them, and am thinking of getting a few for us and the grandsons. Turns out I only hated that my father assigned the task to ME (I have 4 brothers and 5 sisters lol), and that my sisters lorded it over me that I was THEIR, "hired hand that never gets paid." I always said back, "That spells 'slave' anyway you look at it." I only got to ride two of them, once each, and - that is another story!!! Slave-boy, all work and NO play. yeah... that sums it up! I always thought I hated horses... but nope. Just that aspect of it all.  ------------- I need more than 200 characters for my "signature." I'd love to see that changed to 250! |
Posted By: Thad in AR.
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 6:49pm
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I didn’t much care for cleaning the barn chicken house or hog pens but the job I liked least was plucking chickens. We milked by hand and on very cold nights I wasn’t too crazy about that but for some reason at times I didn’t mind milking. I was much finder of cows than horses. |
Posted By: Dakota Dave
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 7:03pm
| Didn't really like holding the bucket and bleeding out the pigs. But fresh blood was nessasary for grandma to make blood sausage. Cleaning the barn was probly the easiest job every day after school id get off the bus clean the stalls and wheel barrow the manure from the gutter out to the pile. Put in a little fresh straw and hay. And let the cows in. They got feed just before milking. We hand milked since we only had 2 cows and two calfs. Cows went out after morning milking and it was only a couple wheelbarrow loads each day. |
Posted By: shameless dude
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 9:27pm
| only job I really hated was casterating the pigs. dad let them grow to about 70-90 lbs before he'd cut them. always got squirted in the eyes with their juices, and we had to hold them down on their backs and sit on them with one foot over their snout so they didn't bite us! |
Posted By: HD6GTOM
Date Posted: 02 Mar 2020 at 9:54pm
| I'd forgot about castrating. Your right it took 2 of us boys to sit on them and hold them down. Dad used a cable hog catcher to keep us from getting bit. |
Posted By: Dennis(IA)
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 8:38am
| Fixing/making fence, just did not like doing that. The close second was moving irrigation pipe. I grew up in Nebraska and this was in the late '50s and '60s. |
Posted By: Tbone95
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 8:51am
| Cleaning out the bull's pen. It was only about half reachable by tractor, and had dirt floor. The part the tractor can't reach is by the manger, so lot's of hay pulled in and tangled in the manure. Only a big afternoon's work, but it was a terrible job. |
Posted By: Rhoadesy_65
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 12:40pm
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my least favorite is probably shearing day for grandpas flock. Hes got a guy that comes with a trailer that has the shears in it. We run them up into the back and then we catch them as they run out the back to trim feet. Least favorite part is Lanolin gets on your skin and makes your sweat sticky and seem like you arent sweating anymore. I also have a love/hate relationship with baling hay. I love the money, running the equipment, and the feeling of a good workout when done, but I dont like it while we are 3 wagons in and the queue of full wagons is growing faster than we can unload lol. ------------- Farmin' with 1981 7010 PD, 1983 6080, 1983 8010, Gleaner R42 in Darke County OH |
Posted By: DiyDave
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 5:18pm
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Mucking out hog pens, old style, with a pitch fork hadda rate as the worst. What wasn't slippery was dusty, and for days after, if ya coughed or sneezed, ya smelled hog sh!t! Oh well what don't kill you, only makes ya stronger, in more ways than one, I suppose! ------------- Source: Babylon Bee. Sponsored by BRAWNDO, its got what you need! |
Posted By: GARY(OH/IN)
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 7:36pm
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I think I grew up at the wrong time. A young farmer in his forties recently told me he has a 24 row planter that he drives 10 MPH and can plant 72 acres an hour. $350,000 planter pulled by a $550,000 tractor. His words not mine. I grew up on a 300 acre farm, land split 19 miles apart, planting with an old Case two row steel wheel planter on each farm then cultivating with a JD A with hand lift cultivators on the one farm. Had it made on the other farm with an unstyled WC with 2 row mechanical lift. Down side the steering was so worn on the WC you couldn't help but plow corn out and Dad sure didn't like that. |
Posted By: LeonR2013
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 8:10pm
| How was the pay for all that work? When I got old enough I was the only boy left at home so it fell to me to do all those jobs plus take care of around 350 Acres, repairing fences, doing all the farming, which I enjoyed, the cows, hogs, 200 laying hens, no limit to how much I ate and they set a good table. Back to how much per hour I made. Dad paid me off in the fall. Can you guess how much? $5.00, honest to god. Oh, I did get get some nickels thru the summer, forgot about that. And I'm sure many of you had the same experiences and Dad and I squirrel hunted a lot, rabbits, coon, AND FISH. It really wasn't too bad, nothing like the kids are experiencing today. And it did make it easier to not date a certain big chested neighbor. Guess Joe would have rebelled, but like one of the guys said, when you got in at the end of the day you were too danged tired to go see one of those silly old girls. (Got over that!) Leon |
Posted By: DiyDave
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 8:16pm
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One thing I learned, on my grandfather's farm, working there, it was a dollar a day, and he'd "forget", if ya didn't ask, at the end of the month! So we learned to ASK! ------------- Source: Babylon Bee. Sponsored by BRAWNDO, its got what you need! |
Posted By: LouSWPA
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 8:57pm
I'll bet the feeling was mutual! LOL ------------- I am still confident of this; I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Ps 27 |
shameless dude wrote:Posted By: allisrutledge
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 9:10pm
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Pulling tobacco plants,hoeing tobacco,grading tobacco, but loved payday ------------- Allis Chalmers still exist in my mind and barns |
Posted By: desertjoe
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 9:28pm
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Well,,I grew up on a 120 acre farm bout 5 miles south of town and my dad was the only laborer on the farm, til the owner sold the farm to big Farma so, we had to move into town when I was 14 years old. I actually liked livin on the farm as the owner would let my Dad plant a 5 acre space for a garden right behind the house The only'ist part I hated was havin to go down the tomato rows and pull them big old fat worms by their tail hooks and splash em on the ground,,,and sometimes on each other,,,UGghhhhh,,!! Keeping them weeds down was a big chore but we also got to keep the money them city folks would pay us for the produce,,,,  It is amazing that I still like chicken any which way its cooked as I used to hate when it was chickie slauther time.. We would build a big fire and put a 55 gallon barrel on it and heat water to boiling and my Dad would get the chickies by the head and a quick spin and there be a birds floppin all over the ground. We'd stick em in the hot water a couple of times and go to pluckin feathers and he would do the guttin and Mom would do the cutting up. The only'ist thing bout them good ole days is,,,,they gone forever,,,,,
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Posted By: shameless dude
Date Posted: 03 Mar 2020 at 9:39pm
| fat worms with tail hooks????? good for fishing? |
Posted By: desertjoe
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 3:25am
Yep,,,them fat greenish colored worms bout 2- 2 1/2" long and they had a Hook on one end,,,we'd grab em by the hook and ,,,splat em on the ground,,,,
Don't have an idea where they come from but they was on the tomato plants every year. You could find em by where they been eating the tomato leaves... Same for the corn,,,when they was almost ripe we would pick a bunch or ears and peel back the husks and sure enough there would always be one of them worms eatin on the corn. We had to "clean" em as the city folk would NOT buy em unless they was clean. We used to sell em "50 cents A Dozen", watermellons at .25, canalopes for a nickle,, plus we had 3 kinds of chili, cukes, and my favorite yellow crook neck squash and zuccini,,,, |
Posted By: TimCNY
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 8:38am
Tomato hornworms... lovely things, aren't they?  ------------- I need more than 200 characters for my "signature." I'd love to see that changed to 250! |
Posted By: tadams(OH)
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 12:30pm
| My wages on the farm was what ever I got from my pigs from 4-H project. Dad paid for the feed and I got to keep what ever I got from my pigs for my wages. We moved to town when I was 14 and when I turned 15 I worked summer for a farmer, his father -in-law would pick me up each morning and take me to work, I think I got $20.00 per week that was good money for the summer. |
Posted By: thendrix
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 4:24pm
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I like the way pawpaw paid us. He'd say "let's go to the chicken house", "I don't really want to pawpaw", "do you want to eat lunch?" "yeah", "did you eat breakfast?", "Yeah", "well... Get your ass up and come on!" We got paid a little every week depending on what we did but this was one of his favorite quotes. Another favorite was when Nana would give us our checks he'd say "I didn't pay you what you're worth. I didn't want you to go into debt at such a young age" and then he'd laugh ------------- "Farming is a business that makes a Las Vegas craps table look like a regular paycheck" Ronald Reagan |
Posted By: Dave in PA
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 4:30pm
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Posted By: DiyDave
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 5:13pm
Not only fishin, if you wanna have some fun, throw as many into a coffee can, as you can catch, and empty the can into the chicken yard! [TUBE]AXU9XIciyvU[/TUBE] ------------- Source: Babylon Bee. Sponsored by BRAWNDO, its got what you need! |
Posted By: iowallis
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 9:52pm
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Mine would be when dad called the vet to pull a calf. The vet would swing the calf over the gate to clean the nostrils out and it was my job to hold the slimmy back legs. Had a weak stomach to begin with and I would be a pukin' while the vet was laughing at me. He would say "kid, nothing cleaner than a just pulled calf". Maybe it was clean but it was gross.
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Posted By: LeonR2013
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 11:07pm
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Oh my. Green eggs and ham. Leon |
Posted By: LionelinKY
Date Posted: 04 Mar 2020 at 11:43pm
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Our cows never went outside all winter so we never had this issue but when I went to work for our neighbor as a teenager, his cows did so once every year their rears and udders were clipped. I really hated those days that it took to do the whole 50+ cow herd. ------------- "My name is Lionel and I'm an Allisoholic" |
Posted By: Ted J
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2020 at 12:58am
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Cultivating corn was no fun with a brand new CA. I liked the horses. With them you could fall asleep and when you'd get to the end of the row, they'd stop and you'd wake up and turn em around. On the CA, I'd fall asleep and pretty soon you were going ACROSS the rows. Pa wasn't happy at all with that..... Fencing was probably the worst PITA.... Every spring, in all that muck. But then there was the hay loft when it was 90 outside, it musta been a hunnert and 40 up there. And you were always tripping in the spaces between the bales and falling down, usually with a bale across your body. We only had one cow that kicked, so you knew her. Nothing was really that bad, it was the freedom of working outside, with the horses or on a tractor that snorted also. Going to the swiming hole after haying, stopping by the local bar for a soda after hauling the milk cans into the creamery in the morning. ALL that GOOD FOOD!! Good thing we worked our tails off, or I'd a weighed at least 600 lbs by the time I was 14. My FAVORITE job????? THRASHING!! Those of you who've done it, know what I'm talking about......and where some of this big belly came from. ------------- "Allis-Express" 19?? WC / 1941 C / 1952 CA / 1956 WD45 / 1957 WD45 / 1958 D-17 |
Posted By: Thad in AR.
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2020 at 5:22am
I didn’t eat chicken until my late 40’s and still don’t much. I can still smell the smell of those chickens when they come out of that water. We would do 100 at a time and grand parents and family were all involved but only us boys would have to pluck. |
Posted By: Tbone95
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2020 at 7:05am
Ted, I'm guessing there was a "Barrel" of something involved, judging by my father in law's stories?
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Posted By: DMiller
Date Posted: 05 Mar 2020 at 7:37am
| As kids we would go out in the pasture, kick up the grasshoppers and other flying bugs herd them toward the chicken yard, the birds would go berserk as the bugs entered the compound!! Used home made slingshots with busted corn cab chunks to drive the rats into the hog lot, old sow would see them and run them down to eat them ALIVE!!! Cleaning the manure from the milk stalls was bad, all hand done, watching the uncle dig out the feed lot with a trip bucket seemed to take FOREVER to get done, the see him put on the 'dirt' covered rain slicker hood up middle of a bright summer day and head out with load after load in the spreader to fallow fields. He had some make of Front Slinger manure spreader, shields were all busted up so the old Deere got a plastering as much as got dumped to ground. |