Boon Lake Township – Part Two
Early months in 1966, Orlin and Dad were busy. We were moved onto the farm in Boon Lake township. The house was in great shape. I kept busy taking each room at a time. Using some elbow grease, soap and water, spring cleaning was in full force. Carrie was a good baby and with her in her plastic chair, she went wherever I was in the house or outside. They didn’t have the cushy infant seats as they do now. It virtually was a molded piece of plastic with a bit of a cushion in it. With two grandmas there was no shortage of warm blankets.
With Dad’s help we had a line of credit at the Gibbon bank to get us going. Dad and Orlin were busy going to farm auctions to purchase livestock. The dairy barn on the place was in fair condition and the sale of the farm from the previous owners included all the milking equipment. We started out with ten milk cows and eventually filled the barn to its capacity of eighteen. There was one empty calf pen in the barn. The sales barn in Hutchinson was visited by Dad and Orlin to purchase hay to get us through the first cutting of alfalfa. Dad knew the sellers and Dad knew a good price when he heard one. There was one field that had alfalfa as a carry over and then the sales barn purchases would be history.
Dad came over for every morning milking and Dad and sometimes my brother, Michael, came over for the evening milking. Orlin had never milked a cow in his life. It took a week or so and we were doing the milking solo. A learning experience beyond belief. Every morning Clara Luthans would be at the farm to pick up the milk cans full of milk from the cooler, take the full ones and leave the empty ones. Clara always took time to give encouragement. That gal slung full milk cans as if they were filled with air.
I had no problem helping out with getting the milkers washed up after each milking. I had done it as a child living on Mom and Dad’s farm. I came in handy for cleaning the gutters as well. Until the cows could be left out in the pasture, it was cleaning gutters twice a day. Carrie and I took the pitch fork duty. Bundling Carrie up after she had been fed and had dry diapers, she would be good for several hours napping in the feed bunk of the calf pen that was empty. Orlin needed to go to Dad’s to borrow the feed grinder once a week. As it was, there was ear corn left in one of the corn cribs. That coupled with concentrate from the Hutchinson elevator kept the cows milking to their capacity . . . once they were assured that the young fellow milking them knew what he was doing. Orlin’s time in between milkings was getting the hog barn ready so some sows could be purchased at the sales barn that would be coming on board ready to farrow.
We had also inherited the sheep from the previous owners. Even I was not up to speed on taking care of sheep, so we soon learned together as it was apparent there would be a lambing season coming up. Get out the heat lamps!
Needless to say the first three months of 1966 were busy as there was “Farming 101” going on non stop. Lots of things to get under control before the spring field work started.
—— to be continued at some time.
Yesterday I had experimented with a simplistic digitization program I had purchased from my Bernina people in Bird Island several years ago. In the past I have made up my own phrases on projects to stitch out. I can also download certain designs from collections that had been purchased and regroup them for a project to be stitched out. That was my current quest. The towel I had photographed earlier was completed, ready to stitch from the collection. I had wanted to take the frame of that project and make up my own design to stitch. It was a lesson in patience. 
Placing each aspect onto the area and getting it sized to work out took a few tries. As I am typing the finished stitched project is in a tub of water getting the stabilizer soaked off. I almost screwed up the entire thing as the last item to stitch was the bug. I had shrunk it down a bit too much as at some point the stitches did not reduce as much as I thought they had. 
I bypassed several of the embellished overlays on the wings. It would have been pounded into a mess. So much for creativity. If you don’t try you can’t succeed. Tomorrow the towel will have dried for a posting of it.
Needless to say the world around us on Stauffer Avenue is very quiet, but we find ways to keep ourselves centered and balanced. It’s going to be a great new week with many positives. Save the best and leave the rest.