Grandma's Visit

The chicks are growing right before my eyes! Their wing feathers are coming in nicely, and all of them have at least the beginnings of tail feathers. This morning, I heard quite a racket in the brooder box. Feathers were rustling, and chicks were peeping. I walked in to find that one of them had managed to get a piece of the pine bedding from beneath the box, and the rest were chasing her trying to take it, as though it was a worm. I had to laugh at the uproar it caused!

Pa drove Grandma Margie over today to see the chicks. We sure love living less than 5 minutes away from them. As I mentioned earlier, Grandma still remembers her mother’s brooder box and holding baby chicks as a small girl. She was thrilled to hold our chicks and watch the kids make their own memories. She even drew us out a picture of how their barnyard looked when she was growing up in the oil camps in Oklahoma.

Their feed room was located directly north of the hen house to block the wind, and the entire south side had windows to heat it up in the winter. Nesting boxes lined the perimeter, and a large outdoor run allowed the chickens to get ample exercise. The barn is where the cow was milked and slept if the weather was bad. Every morning grandma’s brothers--Gene and Raymond--would have to milk the cow and turn her loose to graze. In the evening, they called her back in to be milked. Grandma and her brothers treated the cow like a pet, riding her and occasionally giving her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

One morning her mom (my great-Grandma Annie) called the boys to get up and milk the cow, but Gene and Raymond didn't get up the first time they were called. Or the second time. Or the third. Until their dad (great-Grandpa Ernest) started walking back down the road; he had forgotten something at the house. Then they jumped out of bed and grabbed the milk bucket and hid it on top of a trunk in the closet, so he wouldn't know the cow hadn't been milked. When he got in the house, their dad went straight for the closet.  It so happened that what he had forgotten was in the trunk.  He saw the milk pail and asked what in the world it was doing in the closet, and Grandma Annie told him the boys hadn't been out to milk the cow. He sent them out promptly to milk her and put the poor animal out of her misery. 

It's interesting to note that my great-grandparents were not farmers.  They lived in the oil camp because that's how Grandpa Ernest made his living.  In those days it was common to keep chickens, a milk cow, and even a pig.  I hope to have a breakdown of start up and recurring costs posted before we leave for Kansas City tomorrow morning to see Dave Ramsey Live; however, "I make no promises; I tell no lies."