Cambridge, Nebraska | Bef 1990 |
Description:
MEMOIRS
Father went to Missouri and bought five Jacks, sold some of them
and kept some as he had two Stallions and did commercial breeding,
that brought the mules into the community for farm work power. I
recall one morning the men were ready for breakfast when my oldest
sister came in from outside and said "King Humbolt" is loose. They
all jumped in haste to go to the barn and she said "April Fool's
Day". A family like ours was always looking for an opportunity to
pull some joke or trick on someone.
There was lots of poultry raised, eaten and eggs sold from that
farm. We had chickens, turkeys and guineas. The guineas were not
used for food but kept for the alarm they gave if anything strange or
unusual was about, because if there was, they let out an awful loud
quacking sound ever heard. If a chicken hawk flew over or near or a
coyote was lurking near the sound would send the chickens and turkeys
for shelter. Mother raised turkeys and at Thanksgiving and Christmas
would kill, dress, cool, wrap, pack them in a wood barrel and ship
them to Proud Fitt and Orsborn Co., Denver, Colorado. She did this
more than one year as she wanted to have an organ in her home for her
family. She did buy a beautiful peddle Organ, which was enjoyed many
evenings with my sister playing Hymns and the others singing.
Often in the fall some farmer or man of the community would ship
in to Cambridge a car load of mixed vegetables such as apples and
potatoes, cabbage and onions. Father would go in with the wagon and
bring back several bushels of apples and potatoes, perhaps one or two
large sacks of cabbage and a few pounds of onions. The apples and
potatoes were stored in the cave in separate bins and this meant
those would have to be sorted now and then to take out any that was
not keeping good. Mother would take those apples and make apple
butter which was delicious. My nephew asked me if I knew how grandma
made her apple butter, said he had eaten lots of apple butter but
none ever tasted like Grandmas. The cabbage was made into kraut in a
big stone jar or keg and some to use other ways. Mother was a good
cook. Oh, those drop dumplings were so good.
After harvest was over, Father would take so many bushels of
wheat into the flour mill and exchange for so many fifty pound sacks
of flour which would be enough to do the family till the next summer.
Those sacks of flour were carried up stairs and stored in the spare
room on a bench.
One year they had planted sugar cane, and when it was ready to
cut or harvest it was loaded on the hay rack and he took it to a
neighbor who had a sorghum mill. He came back with many one half
gallon buckets of sorghum, that was also stored up stairs in the
spare room.
I remember of Mother and Father saying many times those first
few years were pretty tough, especially the first year, it was
cornbread and milk or mush and milk three times a day.
When fall or cold weather came there was some butchering done.
A hog was killed and the big iron kettle was boiling with hot water
and the hog was immersed for a little while, removed and with knives
the hair removed by scrapping the hide. It was dressed and hung in
the windmill tower to cool or freeze and to keep the cats and other
varments from helping themselves. There was no refrigeration of any
kind, only mother nature. It would be cut up in pieces salted or
fried down. In the winter it was put into a wood barrel and placed
on the north side of the house. If for summer use it was fried down,
put into stone jars and covered with lard.
The harvesting machinery has made the most changes as first it
was cut with a binder made in bundles, tied with binding twine, then
was shocked, a threshing machine with a separator and steam engine
threshed the grain from the straw. The next was the header and
barges and stacking the cut straw and grain into large stacks, to go
through a sweat process, then run through the threshing machine to
get the grain of wheat. Today it is the combine that does it all in
one trip through the field, cuts, and separates the grain from the
straw but leaves the straw on the ground.
