Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2015 - January 2016 i Farm and Ranch Living

“We aim to make sure our ranch legacy will pass on to our children and grandchildren so they can stay close to agriculture and the land.” Nestled at the base of central Montana’s Big Snowy Mountains near Judith Gap, you will find the Robert E. Lee Ranch Co. headquarters. Here my husband, Bob, and I began putting together our 15,000-acre farm and ranch operation in 1969 with the purchase of 880 acres of forested pastureland. Since that time we’ve bought five adjoining ranches and added lease properties. Both of our families have been involved in Montana agriculture for decades. Bob and I met while competing at the Fergus County Fair 4-H livestock shows. Each summer at the fair, we tended to our responsibilities, helped others, had water fights, shared jokes…

When our son Jeff was in seventh or eighth grade, the sisters at his school asked if we could provide one of our lambs for their Christmas pageant nativity scene. They wanted to use a real baby and live animals. We said yes, of course, but we warned them that most of our ewes lambed in February, so we didn’t have baby lambs in December. The closest thing we could offer was a partly grown sheep that had been born too late for us to sell at Easter. He was large and not at all tame. That didn’t worry them, but it worried us. The sisters had no idea how sheep react when they’re scared. My husband, Fred, started working with the lamb in hopes of taming him a little…

Sarah Ring, age 15 Conneaut, Ohio We live on a certified organic dairy farm, Shiloh Acres Family Dairy, in the northeast corner of Ohio. We sell our milk to the Organic Valley co-op. My dad, David, and mom, Laurel, have been married for 31 years. Along the way, they had 13 children. We all have been home-schooled. On the farm, we have around 100 cows, laying hens, a dog, some cats and a horse named Star. We grow lots of vegetables and fruit to feed our family. I enjoy helping in our farm store, Old Barn Bulk Foods, doing secretarial work for Dad and animal sitting. A few of us kids have small personal gardens, and I grow pumpkins to sell in the fall. I grow four types of pumpkins,…

By the time our agricultural forefathers set sail for America, most of Western Europe’s forests—and timbers for building large barns—were long gone. But the settlers landed on a continent carpeted in trees as big as their dreams. And in a golden age of barn building that spanned two centuries, America’s farmers and ranchers lined country roads with timber-framed cathedrals devoted to the belief that first you build a barn, then the barn builds a house. They adapted traditional designs to new times, technologies, landscapes and climates. They made their barns uniquely American, and they made them the beating heart of farm family life. We devote this special section to the families and communities who find the will and a way to breathe new life into their sturdy old timber-framed friends.…

New England connected barns were an innovative attempt to streamline the region’s labor-intensive farming/cottage industry lifestyle. These endearingly rambling farmsteads connect the barn to the house with separate kitchen, workshop, carriage house and privy buildings. This kept the family snug and productive through severe winters. The strategy reached peak popularity in the mid-19th century when, as author Thomas Durant Visser notes, “By rejecting traditional solutions and by taking risks ... they joined the spirit of invention that was revolutionizing industry and consumer life.” Ed and Susan Beddingfield recently embraced the idea when they converted the back section of their Sharon, Connecticut, barn into a home (above). “We bought it with the idea of living under the same roof as our horses,” Susan says. “People look at us like we’re crazy,…

The first barn quilt trail started in Ohio in 2001 and has spread all across America. A few years ago, my friend Char and I celebrated my 60th birthday by driving through nine counties and following more than 15 barn quilt trails in Kentucky and Ohio. Every mile carried us closer to the heart of the country. We were inspired by the resilient spirit of what I like to call “true homeland security.” It stood out most boldly on the Patriot Trail in Kentucky, where each barn quilt is painted red, white and blue in tribute to those who have served in the military. Different counties have different styles of trails: Some are themed and some not, some are planned and some random. In Lewis County, Kentucky, Char and I…

In 1939 my great-great-uncle bought one of the first Ford 9N tractors. It was the first tractor my grandpa was allowed to drive by himself. Eventually, Grandpa bought the Ford from his uncle, and he farmed with it for over 40 years. His sons—including my dad—also learned to drive on the Ford. My sisters and I learned to drive on it, and my nephew learned to run it last summer while helping us pick up rocks. The Ford raked thousands of acres of hay over those 40-plus years. It also ran the elevator to put those bales into the barn and pulled the fence-building wagon, the rock wagon and parade floats. It even pulled a few stubborn 4-H calves that did not want to learn to lead. (No animals or…

When I was growing up on our family farm in western Pennsylvania, our local dairy didn’t come out to pick up milk. We had to take it to them every day in 5- and 10-gallon cans. Besides our own milk, my grandfather also hauled milk for four or five neighboring farms. I often helped him pick up the full cans from the neighbors, deliver them to the dairy and bring back the clean, empty cans after the dairy ran them through a washer. It was a time-consuming job in the best of times, but winter turned it into a real test of endurance. We didn’t have today’s big snow-removal equipment. The secondary roads could drift shut for days, and we couldn’t get through with the truck. The only way we…

Women in Agriculture I am a volunteer for The Sight Seer radio service here, and I have a weekly program titled “Country Living” in which I read Farm & Ranch Living, Country and Country Extra for the blind. I really like all three magazines. A cover line on Farm & Ranch Living’s August/September issue, “Heartfelt Tribute to Women in Agriculture,” inspired me to write to you about American Agri-Women (AAW). For many years I was involved with AAW and one of its founding organizations, Women for the Survival of Agriculture in Michigan. We were not necessarily out in the fields as the women in Marji Guyler-Alaniz’s article (“Women’s Work”) are—although many were. But we worked on legislative issues that controlled much of farm life, such as regulations and price controls.…

Dad grew up on a small farm in northern Vermont during the Great Depression, which meant that he was comfortable working with horses and that he was deeply frugal. Both of these factors play a major role in our story. To give you an idea how far Dad would go to get a good deal, consider that he once sawed an old barn in half, dragged it home with a bulldozer and pieced it back together. That was 50 years ago, and it’s still there, chainsaw scars and all. One autumn, Dad got the idea to spread manure in the winter to save time in the spring. However, he needed a free horse to pull the spreader through the snow. This led him to a big, strong stallion that belonged…

It’s still dark when the alarm in my head goes off. I roll out of bed and turn off the actual alarm—I beat it again. Just because I’m awake doesn’t mean my husband and daughter have to be up yet. It’s my turn to milk. In a few minutes, I’m ready to go. I slip on my muck boots and zip up my army surplus work coat. I tap my pockets and find my pocketknife, my keys and an open spot for my cell phone. The Gator can’t make it through the snow, so I pull out the orange sled my nephews were fighting over yesterday, place the bucket of udder wash on one end and set the portable milking machine in the middle. The milker is heavy when it’s…

Welcome to our farm in Williston, located in Chittenden County just 12 miles from Burlington, which is Vermont’s largest city and shopping center. My husband, David, was born and raised on this farm along with 12 siblings. It’s been in his family since 1871, when his great-grandfather, Jairus David Isham, bought approximately 119 acres to add to his original acreage, expanding the farm to around 162 acres. He named it Maple Grove Farm. When I married David in 1959, the farmhouse became a two-apartment house. After David’s parents died in 1986 and 1987, we hired local contractor Michael Larson to remodel their apartment, a portion of ours, the attic and later the woodshed, making a total of four apartments and giving us income from three of them. We also ran…

Pioneers clearing forest for cropland often had minimal tools, minimal carpentry skills and lots of trees, so they built their barns of logs. By the end of the 18th century, there were about 9,000 log barns in Pennsylvania alone, according to Eric Sloane in An Age of Barns. Log barns began as little more than small corncribs and roofed pens for livestock. But like most things American, the humble log barn evolved into large, elaborate structures like the Marlin Hoff barn on page 63 and the double-crib cantilever barn in Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s Cades Cove. When farmers could afford it, though, they happily gave up the backbreaking job of stacking logs and hired specialized timber framing craftsmen who brought centuries of expertise from Europe. “When the professional framer…

Our farm had a large two-story log barn when my grandparents moved here around 1922. Grandpa farmed with workhorses and had to clear several acres. Because of tight finances, they sold milk and eggs to pay interest on the mortgage. My dad could not afford to attend college, so he stayed home and helped farm the land. We have a copy of a newspaper article from 1936 showing Grandpa and Dad dismantling the old log barn, which dated back to 1850 or earlier. They probably burned all those walnut, cherry and poplar logs! That same year, Grandpa built this impressive barn. It had special stalls for workhorses, a modern concrete area with stanchions for milk cows, two large mows for hay, and upper storage rooms for oats and wheat. After…

For one night, the barn came back to life. Country music echoed off the curved rafters. Boots slid across smooth plank floorboards. Laughter filled the air. The site of upwards of 100 barn dances, Ken and Janet Bargfrede’s barn in rural Petersburg, Minnesota, had sat mostly silent for more than three decades. But it was coaxed out of retirement on a Saturday last July for a very special evening. The circa 1920s barn hosted its first dance on May 5, 1967. A photograph of the affair published in the following week’s Jackson County Pilot showed a crowd of more than 80 dressed to the nines for the gala event. “It’s fun to look back on that now and see all the gents in white shirts and ties,” says Ken. The…

Almost everyone in my family will tell you that Daddy’s 1953 Allis-Chalmers CA was the star workhorse on our small farm in south-central Texas. But I still have mixed feelings about it. When I think back to the heyday of the Allis-Chalmers, I also think of stifling hot, dusty, itchy corn patches. I remember my daddy putting me in the tractor seat and telling me to keep pace while the rest of the family harvested our corn crop by hand and tossed the ears onto the trailer I was towing. And at 10 or 11, I remember, I could not seem to get a handle on staying in the right place. I can still hear Daddy’s loud voice over the noisy engine: “Too fast! Too slow! Easy on the clutch!”…

I loved growing up on my parents’ farm and learning the lessons farm life can teach us. Now I dairy farm alongside my husband and his family, and I’m still learning. Of all those lessons through all those years, my time with Popeye remains the most memorable. He was born to a first-calf heifer two weeks before Christmas in 1993. She wanted no part of him. Finally, I gathered the little guy in my arms and marched out of the barn to share my concerns with Dad. I was only 10, but with Mom’s help, we started bottle-feeding the orphan Hereford-Holstein calf. My little brother, Kenny, and I immediately took to the bull. I begged and pleaded with Dad and Mom to let us keep him, and one day we…

Each year around Christmastime, I think back to the stray dog that appeared at the family farm in Cottonwood, Minnesota. His visit became a gift of comfort that my family still talks about. It was 1999. Minnesota’s weather was mild that autumn and stayed mild all the way into December. A few days after Christmas, a black dog with a little white around his mouth wandered onto the front porch and settled in as if he’d lived here all his life. He quickly decided that his job was to guard the house against squirrels. Every time he saw one, he’d bound off past the garden to the cottonwood trees, baying at the top of his lungs. Then he’d saunter back to his position on the porch, ever vigilant. Inside, the…

“We live by the same lessons Dad taught us when we were kids: Work hard, run an honest business and sell only quality citrus.” My younger brother, Ted, and I started picking and selling oranges from the front porch of our house when we were in grade school. We asked Dad for new bikes for Christmas, and he told us that if we wanted new bikes, we’d better get busy. Dad would drop us off in the grove early on Saturday mornings with picking bags, ladders, field boxes and a cooler of water. We bagged the citrus in 50-pound mesh bags and stacked them on the front porch of the house. We put a sign on the lawn, and we were in business. About a week before Christmas, we’d sit…

The Dutch built some of the first timber-framed barns in the New World. Dutch-style barns were typically square, with steep-pitched roofs, low side walls and both wagon doors and smaller livestock doors on the gable ends. The framing was a distinctive H-shape with rafters balanced on purlin plates atop the H posts, so the side walls carried virtually no weight. Massive anchor beams spanned the threshing floor and tied the main support posts together. Wedged and pegged anchor beam tenons extended through the posts and were decoratively rounded on the ends. This style didn’t spread far beyond the Dutch settlements of New York’s Hudson River Valley and northern New Jersey, so relatively few original Dutch barns survive today. But the ground-hugging profile of the earliest designs got a second wind…

Most folks saw no hope for the broken-roofed round barn on old Route 66 near Acadia, Oklahoma. But Luke Robison wasn’t most folks. “Dad was a carpenter all his life, and saw potential where most people couldn’t,” says Luke’s son Lerence. “And besides, he always loved a challenge.” First, the retired contractor and his wife, Anna, helped talk its owners into donating the unique barn, designed and built by farmer William Odor in 1898, to the then newly formed Arcadia Historical and Preservation Society. Then he combed the area for guys who’d work hard and work for free. “We were all in our 60s, except for Luke, who was 78,” recalls Wilbur Holbrook. “They called us the Over-the-Hill Gang.” Meanwhile, women in the society raised $65,000 for building materials, almost…

Clauson’s Historic Barn Theatre will launch its 13th season of dinner shows in April. The theater, near Coloma, Wisconsin, sits on a 20-acre property that my family purchased in 1991. The property had been vacant for many years and the buildings were in dire need of repair. The farmhouse was a Sears, Roebuck & Co. home, hauled in by railroad in the early 1900s. The barn, now the home of the Clauson Family Music Show, was built in 1890-’91. Visitors can see the year 1891 on an interior wall where it was originally stamped. The restoration and transformation into a theater was completed in 2003. My family knew it was important to preserve the barn’s original character. Inside, the rustic wood interior remains the same as it was in 1891.…

My husband’s father, Anton Bergstedt, bought a brand new Case tractor on Dec. 6, 1941. But, of course, it’s the next day that Carl will never forget. The family had gathered outside to watch Anton drive the new tractor around in the yard while Carl’s mother, Ruth, took moving pictures. A short time later, she came running out of the house, yelling, “They’re bombing Pearl Harbor!” The tractor proved to be a reliable workhorse on their farm in Walkerton, Indiana. And when Carl’s parents divided up the farm equipment among the rest of the family in 1973, Carl got the Case. He then moved it from the family farm to our home in Shipshewana, where it sat rusting and unused in a shed. In 2006, Carl retired and finally had…

Stepping through the open barn door, I am enveloped by the sweet aromas of hay, alfalfa, clover, grass, ground corn and protein supplement with a hint of molasses. Horses and cows turn their eyes toward me in hopeful expectation of food. Neck chains jangle like Christmas bells. Streams of milk beat against the bottoms and sides of stainless steel buckets, the sound deepening as the frothy milk rises in the pails. I have a place in this barn. All in attendance recognize me as a source of food and even a bit of pleasure and one-sided conversation. I, in turn, treat those present with a humble sense of gratitude for their gifts of companionship and sustenance. I clean their rooms, rejoice in new life and mourn death. The door is…