The black cows are back!

I guess Spring must be around the corner.  On my way into town yesterday I spotted the first calf.  Seems like they are a little late this year, but it is probably just that my memory is rather slipping.  I did see one little calf, but it was still laying in the field.  Soon there will be lots of the little fellows.  I would love to be able to delude myself into believing that maybe this year they will be allowed to stay together, but you and I both know better than that.  The best I can hope for is that some nice man will buy the calves and raise them to adulthood, but that is not happening.  Until some one proves me wrong, I will know that these calves are born for veal.

I gave up eating veal many years ago when I learned how it is made.  They take baby calves and put them in a very small space so they can not move.  Then they are fed nothing but milk.  This makes them very tender and it is the end result that matters, not how happy a baby calf's life is.  

This is from wikipedia, in case you think I am dreaming this up.  

Veal - Wikipedia

Jump to Cruelty to calves - Calves are slaughtered as early as 2-3 days old (at most 1 month old) yield meat carcasses weighing from to 9 to 27kg. Formula-fed ("Milk Fed", "Special Fed" or "white") veal. Calves are raised on a fortified milk formula diet plus solid feed. The majority of veal meat produced in the US are from milk-fed calves.

‎Definitions and types · ‎Culinary uses · ‎Production · ‎Animal welfare

I see stuff like this and I wonder why I am not a vegan.  I never thought about this until I researched veal.  My daughter raises cattle in Eastern Kansas and last year one of her cows gave birth and then died of milk fever leaving the calf to be bottle fed by my daughter until it was big enough to butcher.  I could not, personally eat anything that I had grown to love, but her reasoning is it makes her happy raising the little calf and then makes her happy again when the calf feeds her.  I guess this is why I have 8 geese out back that are so old they can hardly walk and I feed them every day.  I spend $32.00 a month on goose food. That is a total of $384 a year.  8 geese dressed out would produce 24 pounds of meat.  This is equal to $16.00 a pound.  I have had then 14 years so that makes one pound of goose meat cost $224.  

Beats hell out of me how I got on this tangent, but I am now a mathmetician!  I do know I just wanted to share with you about the little calves.  Farming is a hard life and I guess it takes a special breed to raise food to be eaten.  I am not cut from that pattern, so I will go scramble an egg for breakfast.  Years ago I did raise a couple pigs out back and that was some of the best pork I ever bit into.  I was hard hearted back then, I think.  Now I am old and I am a softie!  I do kill centipedes if they dare to come in the house.  I do not eat them.

Have a good day!

Plevna, Kansas holds my roots.

Gagnebien, Haas, Beck, Miller, Hatfield, and the list goes on.  When Haas members began to arrive through Ellis Island, they went straight to the "Beck Home" in Nickerson, Kansas and then branched out into the surrounding area, mainly Abbyville, Huntsville and Plevna.  Homesteading was active at the time and Nickerson was pretty well taken, causing them to branch further out in Reno, County. I have a family album that shows the Haas family cutting cottonwoods on the Arkansas River.  My branch of the family did not come here until 1884.  As I recall my grandfather was 6 or 9 years old when he went through Ellis Island.

I can still recall with fondness my Uncle Goll, Uncle Coon, Aunt Lizzie and my dear sweet Aunt Lena.  For some reason I thought my grandfather came to America in 1900, but it was actually 1884.  He was 12 years old at that time.  He married my grandma I 1900.  His father would be my great grandfather, Johann Jakob Haas.  Great granfather actually fathered 16 children by two women.   I come from a long line of weavers. tailors, vine dressers, bakers, and of course, farmers.  But all this is irrelevant to this post.

It must have been about 1970 or so that Dorothy and Ernie moved into a farmhouse outside of Plevna.  I know Little Ernie was just talking good.  I went to visit fairly regularly, but usually when Ernie was at work.  Little Ernie was always a special little boy to me although I had a nest full of my own.  He called me Aunt Do Do, since he could not pronounce Lou Lou.  "  I love you, Aunt Do Do."  Once he came running out of the bedroom to announce "Aunt Do Do, there is a hop grasser in my bedroom!"

Ernie had fenced off a portion of the yard and made that a pig pen.  I do not remember where he worked at the time, seems like he worked for Morton Salt.  Could be wrong.  The important part was that he was gone all day and Dorothy was pregnant.  One weekend he decided to build a new sty for the pigs so he got his lumber and drill.  Please know, that lumber and drill should never be used in a sentence with the name, "Ernie".  In typical fashion he held the 2 x4 up with one hand and drilled through it into his other hand.

They had a station wagon at the time so Ernie laid down in the back, kids were some where and Dorothy began the flying 20 mile trip to the hospital in Hutch.  Ernie would call out every few minutes, " I am still alive.  Drive carefully so you don't wreck.  Hurry!"  Dorothy told me that was her most harrowing trip in her life.  They sold the pigs soon thereafter and moved into town.  Think they moved out on Duffy Road at that time.

For many years we had a Haas family reunion at the school gymnasium.  Everyone brought a dish and we just kind of caught up on each other.  They tore down the school where I had attended my freshman year, but left the gym intact.  Hinshaws Dry Goods store burned.  I went through there once many years ago and the Smith house was a trailer park of sorts, meaning there were several mobile homes on the lot.   The Congregationalist Church was still there as was Grandma Haas's house.  The bank was still there.  I have got to take a day and go there next time I head East.  Course I remember when I stopped at Grandma's old house and got covered in ticks!  Do not want anymore of those.

Towns were built 7 miles apart back then because the trains needed a water stop.  Kansas is full of those little towns, or the remains of them.  Some of them survived, but many did not.  I love to look at my family book and try to envision what life was like back then.  Grandpa Haas married Josie Miller in 1900.  Uncle Gol married Aunt Helen who was Josie's sister, so I have double cousins out there in Southeast Kansas.  

My family is so diverse and far flung that one time I met a boy at a dance and came home to tell mother how great he was.  Her response was  "Forget it!  He is your cousin."  End of that romance and I do not even remember his name, so that is that.

I think I will plan a trip back home and go touch base with the old places in Plevna.  Aunt Lena is gone.  As far as I know the house where grandma lived is still standing.  Maybe I could find one of the Hinshaw twins!  Dean and forgot the other one.  Dean was dark complected  with dark hair and thin.  The other one was fair skinned with freckles and reddish blonde hair and a little on the heavier side.  I have forgotten my friends names!  Janet something.  Charlene Smith.  Damn!  A complete blank!  Maybe I will forget that trip.

Sure wish my momma was here.  She would remember.  

Nickerson on the Ailmore place.

Here we go down memory lane.  This first picture is Roy Keating's house just up the road from us.  Roy raised pigs, and I mean really big pigs.  I have rarely seen pigs that big.  They were black and white.  He also had a chicken house.  I gathered eggs while dad took care of the pigs.  Mother had told him what would happen to him if I got eaten by one of those damned pigs.

Going on past and then taking a left turn would bring you to Bull Creek.  Normally it was dry, but this spring it was almost out of it's banks.  This is the same Bull Creek of that bull frog episode that occurred with sister Josephine.  Made me want to get out of the car and wade like I did all those years ago.

 Right past the creek was the Rumble house.  I was surprised that it was still standing, but houses were built to last back then.  Mr. Rumble told me one time that if I learned the words to the song "Buttons and Bows" he would give me a shiny dime.  That was a fortune back then for a snot nosed kid, but so was the song playing on the radio.  I have since learned most of the words, but sadly no one wants to hear me sing!

 I think this is the Barthold house where I used to spy on the sisters drinking tea in their back yard.  Damn!  I know now what an obnoxious kid is, and I sure think I qualified!

This is all for today.  The computer is not wanting me to do this.  

Tomorrow I will journey down Strong Street and go to the cemetery.  I want to thank you for joining me down memory lane as I confront and exorcise my demons.  This is something I have wanted to do for years and knowing you are with me makes me stronger.

I love you all!

Ring! Ring! Oh hell! Sorry about that.

Mother worked at that time cleaning houses for people in town.  Mrs. Hawk, the dentist's wife, Mrs. Massey, and I forget who else.  Our means of communication was a black telephone that was in a wooden box that hung on the wall.  To call some one you needed to pickup up the ear piece and then turn the crank on the side.  This would ring in the telephone office down town and the "operator" would put a plug, the other end of which was attached to her head piece, into the circuit which was lit up and say,  "Number please."  The person calling would then say the number which was usually two digits.  Later it changed to three.  The operator would then plug the wire that came from your number into the number you were calling.  And thus a call was connected and would ring and some one would answer.  I know all this because we took a tour of the phone company.  You could call it a tour if you want, but that place was so small that we could only get in two or three at a time.  The operator set on a little stool and could connect the whole town without having to move.
At that time there were "party lines."  A party line meant something way different then than it does now.  Take our phone.  We were on a party line with the Rumble' s and several other people.  Only rich people could afford private lines and we were far from rich.  The way the calls were handled was this, each person on the party line had their own distinct ring.  Ours was two longs and a short, Rumble's was one long and two shorts, and so forth.  We knew when someone got a call cause it rang in all the houses on that party line.  These means of communication were rather primitive, but they did work and they called for a certain etiquette.  If we wanted to place a call, we picked up the receiver and first listened.  If some one was talking, the line was in use, so we should hang up and try later.  If the line was free and we wanted to call some one on our party line, we simply turned the crank and rang their ring.  Like Rumble's.  We rang one long and two shorts and Mr. Rumble would answer.
Or if you are little kids home alone and bored you could pick up the phone and "listen in" which was not only rude, but illegal.  So one day we were rather at loose ends and the phone beckoned to us.  Now I say "us", but I am pretty sure it was Jake and me.  Donna may have been involved.  So we kept picking the phone up and some one was talking to some one else.  We may have tittered and they heard us.  This made it more exciting.  We were eavesdropping and they did not know who we were (or so we thought at the time.) or where we lived.  Then we discovered that if we turned the crank the phone made a very loud noise in their ear.  They were getting very upset and made threats about turning us in to the phone company.  We knew there was no way the phone company could track us down.  After a while they got tired of our shenanigans and just hung up.  So we moved on to more exciting things like wallowing in a mud hole.
And then mother came home.  So and so up the road had stopped her and told her about what her babies had been up to while she was at work and Josephine was laying around some where reading.  We, of course, pointed at the younger kids.  They did it, not us.  They were just playing and we were doing our chores and knew nothing about that.  Those kids were just trying to get us in trouble.  Mother had not forgotten when we hid behind the tree and threw rocks at every car that went by and we had tried to blame them innocent babies for that too.  I began at that time in my life to think that mother was clairvoyant and I resented those little kids because they were always trying, and succeeding, to get us into trouble.  Had we had the mindset, we might have murdered them and hid their bodies in Bull Creek, but we were just a couple ornery kids trying to find our way in the world with very little actual guidance.  Back then kids just kind of raised themselves and fathers were mainly "head of the family" by sheer virtue of having been born men.
And so I close the door on the Ailmore Place and lock it against intruders.  There are things I can see that when I went back years later were not there.  The long walk to town was maybe four blocks.  The big bridge over Bull Creek is actually a culvert.  The big beautiful home of Roy Keating, the pig farmer was just a little house with a couple of sheds out back and a couple pig stys.  The Rumble's house had collapsed and where had they gone?
I think not long after the big storm, Doc Ailmore died, so we were on the move again.  I remember that my dad had horses and a hay rack and a hay wagon.   These were pulled by a team of horses.  I was too young at the time to realize that the tractor was an up and coming thing and horses were on their way out.  All of our belongings were loaded on these two conveyances with the kids thrown on last and the horses pulled us through the edge of town to the other edge and to our new home. This one my father would buy.  We had not seen the house until we pulled in front of it and began to unload our precious belongings. 
I had way more important things to worry about because I was in school and I had to learn my ABC's and numbers and lots of other really important stuff.