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Several years back, my friend found a lone kitten in her horse barn. The cat was critically wounded, weighed next to nothing, and was as feral as the summer day is long. So, after a visit to the vet and some stitches, I took little Louise home—and I’ve been spoiling her ever since. Cats just have a way with some of us, as you will see in the collection of stories that begins on page 48. In fact, Shirley Nordgren’s tale of her family’s on-again off-again farm cat, Fluff, reminded me a lot of my earliest days with Louise. Not to be outdone by their kitty-cat counterparts, the dogs will also have their day. Turn to page 55 to meet the perceptive pooch who took top prize in the 2022…
Nuts About Barn Quilts I enjoyed the barn quilt feature in the Feb./March 2022 edition. This barn quilt, created and painted by my wife, Karen, adorns our newest barn and represents all the different cultivars within our pecan orchards. We use specific color markings to identify each variety of tree. FEL LEE MILLWOOD, GEORGIA Just Because There are a lot of farms and dairies around my family’s hunting land. (One of the closest is Lynn Dairy in Lynn, Wisconsin. They have fantastic sharp cheddar and great curds.) On a recent trip to our land, I pulled over in Auburndale to take a photo of this beautiful blue barn. ERICH DUERR MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN Sharing photos, stories and letters to the editor is easy. Visit us online at farmandranchliving.com/submit to share.…
1. GREETINGS, FARM FRIEND! Our granddaughter, Myla, enjoys spending time on our farm. She doesn’t care if she’s in a fancy dress or her play clothes. Farm life is for her! KEN MILLER SOUTH VIENNA, OHIO 2. TURNIP PATCH KID Emma loves her grandparents and helping out in any way she can. On this day, she joined them in the turnip patch. JASON ALTON MONTICELLO, KENTUCKY 3. LEARNING TO STEER Here is a photo of our sons, Lyle and Koen, riding their pedal tractor after my husband repainted it for them. ERIKA KIMM MANHATTAN, MONTANA 4. SPRAYING IT COOL On hot days, Kale and his Pappy like riding through the sprinklers. They sometimes set up small obstacle courses or make mud pits to drive through. Whatever they choose, they are…
ON A WEDGE-SHAPED PLOT OF LAND near Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, Hsar Lar Doe is busy preparing for the upcoming growing season. Lar Doe is tilling and testing the soil and deciding which crops to plant, and where to plant them, at Ohio City Farm. These are familiar tasks for Lar Doe, who emigrated to the United States in 2010. He and his family spent 15 years in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand before arriving here, but in his home country of Burma, he worked on his family’s “home farm,” growing vegetables and rice as well as raising chickens, goats and cows. Landing a job at Ohio City Farm not only gave him a way to adjust to his new life here. It has also enabled him and…
I was a young teenager in the summer of 1963 when a friend, Fred, asked me to help put up hay on his grandfather’s farm. I liked farms, and I would be paid for the work. It sounded grand. When Fred’s father dropped us off, we puttered around for a while, checking things out and visiting the animals. After dinner we listened to the radio and talked. Fred and I had a big day ahead of us, so we went to bed early. Then, way too early the next morning, his grandma called us down for breakfast. I’m not entirely sure the sun was up yet, but we ate and then headed out to the field. Fred’s grandpa ran a 1921 baler that made round bales secured with twine. As…
My family grew the best watermelons in the county when I was a child, and I’m not talking about just a few vines in the garden. We usually planted a thousand hills, all by hand. Then we would water each hill and cover it with a page from a mail-order catalog to prevent the sun from drying it out. To keep the pages from blowing away, we carefully piled soil around the edge of each one. It was slow, hard work, but many days could go by without rain, and the sprouting seeds needed every bit of moisture we could salvage. This method was my dad’s idea, and it was a very good one—until a thunderstorm rolled in late one night. Suddenly, it became clear that the slick paper leaves…
