About 2:00 in the afternoon on a very special summer day, I would be sent up to the north window to keep watch. There is a little landing three-quarters of the way up to the second story where the staircase turns … Continue reading
Category Archives: The Farm
For the Dear Hearts and Gentle People Who Still Live in my Hometown – Culbertson, Montana
Like some others in the community, we (those kids of Immanuel and Edith Larsen) did not live at Culbertson except for the first decade or two of life but like most in the community, our lives were and are utterly stamped, … Continue reading
Posted in The Farm, Travel, Uncategorized
Leave a comment
WW I Vets were subject to the first peacetime draft in 1940
This post is being updated on 9/24/2017 to include historical information regarding the peace time draft first imposed in 1940. I was born in 1944 so that was all before my time – and I had not pieced together the … Continue reading
Posted in History, Larsen Family, The Farm
Leave a comment
Dots and Panoramas, Calderas and Fractals
Ninety years ago my Dad and five other farmers went together to buy a seeder, each of them contributing $9 to its purchase. They shared the costs of equipment for seeding in spring and threshing costs in the fall. When summer … Continue reading
Posted in Dad's Farm Records, Larsen Family, The Farm
Leave a comment
As I Remember It: Chores and Chickens
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Every Saturday I changed sheets in three bedrooms, vacuumed rugs and dusted furniture. In exchange for that, I got a weekly allowance of 25 cents. The cows were milked twice a day and the whole milk processed through the separator with the resulting products of … Continue reading
As I Remember It: The Front Room
This gallery contains 3 photos.
It was never called a living room. The front room had sheer curtains on the one south-facing window; an upright piano until about 1951 when it was replaced by a studio piano; a maroon patterned rug (never called a carpet) … Continue reading
Winter On The Farm In The 1950’s
This gallery contains 12 photos.
We weren’t frustrated by winter because we didn’t try to evade it. Winter featured unheated second floor bedrooms (sometimes with light snow cover on the blankets in the morning); frozen rabbit turd collections in the wheelbarrow, shotguns in the moonlight … Continue reading
Just Because It’s There: Climbing Stuff
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Nine times out of ten, around ten years of age, I fell off whatever it was I had just climbed. Climbing was great free entertainment and available in a dozen different forms. There was no need for organized PE. Good grief, one of the … Continue reading
As I Remember It: Not Milking Cows
This gallery contains 2 photos.
We always had one or two cows to be milked twice a day, every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with the cats always getting their portion, both air-borne and in the pan. I never milked a cow. Even though I often begged … Continue reading
Water…..Cool, Cool Water
This gallery contains 13 photos.
In 1925, with his World World I Navy service behind him, our father was beginning to work his own land, thinking about rain and wheat. He wrote the following to our mother in a letter dated September 14, 1925: Dear … Continue reading
The Bonus Army and the Baby Chicks
In 1924, Congress authorized payments of $1.25 per-day-of-service for all veterans of The Great War as a bonus for their service in Europe and on the high seas. Dad’s Navy service had been on the USS Plattsburg of the … Continue reading
Count Their Legs and Divide by Four
This gallery contains 12 photos.
Branding irons and barbed wire fences were frequently the frame for range wars in the 1800’s. They were sometimes cause and sometimes consequence of bitter battles between competing ranchers; between those who owned cattle and those who owned sheep; and they … Continue reading
Others Lived There First
This gallery contains 12 photos.
Some who drive through eastern Montana on I-94 today believe it’s a place you go to only to go through. Even those who love Montana understand that. One time my Dad said with a chuckle, “I think we should just … Continue reading
Mailboxes and Old Barns 