I Remember Grandpa's Old Farm

A childs view of "life on the farm". I never got to appreciate the down to earth "hands on" experiences most of you folk's have. When I was a kid tho, I used to love to visit my G. Pa on his farm in So. Illinois. He raised sheep, goats, pigs, cows, chickens & guinny fowl(sp). Then there were the fields of corn, wheat and soy beans. I only got to go there for a while in the summer and my "boy" cousins & I used to pretend we were farming and play on the old combine and tracter. We used to fish in one of the ponds where the cows drank, and play in the creek and catch "Crawdads". Not the kind we eat now that they call crayfish. Grandpa fixed his own leather straps for the plowhorses when he had them. Then there was the 3 holer "outhouse", complete with corn cobs, which Grampa stubbornly used even after they got the indoor bathroom. I remember the smoke house where there were hams, etc. hanging. I remember the little hand water pump in the kitchen sink, it got replaced sometime in the early '50's with an electric pump. Grandpa grew his own "baccy" and hung it over the closeline to dry before he chunked it up to chew all year! There was the ever present tomato can beside his Morris Chair rocker in the tiny living room. How cozy that room was with the little coal or wood burning pot belly stove in the middle of the little room. I remember the little stickery cedar Christmas Tree cut from the field and sitting on a box so it would be tall enough to be seen from the outside. Gone are all these things for others to see, but they still live in my heart.

Now there is a subdivision sitting on his 100 acers!!