Synnove's Neighborhood

How proud my dad Art was of his barn! He told the story many times about how he was discharged from the Navy after the war and all he wanted to do was come back home and farm. His first project was to build a new barn. He and his brothers dug ditches deep and wide, and filled them with rocks and concrete. The footings were massive and meant to last a long time. In later years, one of my uncles took credit for mixing all of the concrete by hand in a wheelbarrow with a hoe.

The barn was built into the side of a hill. Both levels, the milking parlor and the hayloft, were accessible at ground level. My grandfather Jacob decided on the measurements, which were 30′ x 40′. The round rafters were laminated and constructed out of poplar trees cut on the farm, and were pulled into place using a Model T Ford. Neighbors attending a local GI school helped raise the roof. The floor joists were made out of tamarack. At the time the barn was built there wasn’t any rural electrification in the area (although it arrived soon after), and water pumped by hand up on the hill ran through a sloping underground pipe down to the stock tank where the cattle were watered.

By the time I came along, the farmhouse had electricity, indoor plumbing, and hot and cold running water. The kerosene lanterns used to light the way in the dark to do chores were worthless relics that sat on a shelf in the back porch. My dad had built a second house when he and my mother got married where we three lived that still used a water pail and a slop bucket. It consisted of three small rooms, which was not quite enough space for three people, and my mother was quite unhappy with her living situation.

For its time, the barn was handy and state-of-the-art. Hay hooks attached to a ceiling track and powered by the tractor and a wooden pulley lifted loose hay into the loft, which could then be pitched through the hay holes in the floor and into the manger. Gutters in the concrete floor made it relatively easy to shovel out the manure. They kept it painted up, red with white trim. One time my grandfather was up in the peak painting and he had a heart attack. My dad had to carry him forty feet to the ground.

Haystacks and straw stacks were more common in this area than bales. Or perhaps the old ways persisted longer. I got in on the tail end of the era of threshing. When a farmer raised grain he would have to wait for the threshing crew of which he was a part to arrive, which depended on weather, whether the work on the previous farm was complete, and, sometimes, the condition of the threshing rig. He, and the womenfolks of the family, had to remain ready to go. Threshing usually took place during the hottest days of summer, and the men would work in the hot sun until they were drenched with perspiration. In the meantime, the kitchen was an even hotter place as a full and elaborate meal was being prepared and a proper table set with china, silverware and a fine lace cloth. The men would wash up, usually outdoors and with Lava soap, and come in to eat. The kitchen smelled of dust, straw and sweat. The food was plentiful but there was no time to waste, and not a lot conversation. Sometimes, due to weather or mechanical problems, the meal could not be eaten, the men went home, and the food had to be crammed into the small refrigerator.

Usually the rig broke down once or twice, which necessitated a trip to town for parts, and someone lying on the ground under the machine, muttering bad words while trying to get it to work.

The barn held 14 or 15 cows at the most. Before my time they were milked by hand, and my grandmother was considered the fastest milker, but later they got milking machines which allowed them to milk two cows at a time. The machine and its parts had to be washed thoroughly twice a day. In my memory there was a separator in the milk house, as well as a butter churn. I don’t remember daily butter churning. The milk cans were placed in a tank of cold water and a milkman from the local creamery came five or six days a week to pick them up. Some of the milk was for our own use. Since the animals were kept in the barn at night, the morning’s milk had a different taste than the evening’s milk, after they had been eating weeds. This seemed to be seasonal, and was most pronounced during the spring. My mother wouldn’t drink the evening’s milk because she didn’t like the taste. Grandma couldn’t taste the difference and would often try to palm evening’s milk off on my mother when the other wasn’t available. The predominant breed of the herd was called milking shorthorn, or Durham. When the cream would rise to the top of the cans or containers, it was thick and yellow and almost like custard. In those days the best milk price was for that with a high butterfat content. (Nowadays higher prices are paid for casein). My dad improved the quality of his herd through artificial breeding. I was generally not allowed in the barn during births or when the the cows were being inseminated.

Sometimes we had a bull. My grandfather believed that bulls go wild when they see red and he wouldn’t allow me to wear shoes with red laces around the cattle. With his Norwegian accent, he would pronounce it “r-r-r-red”, which amused me to no end. For some reason our bulls were never mean and aggressive, although precautions were taken, such as always leading them around with a big ring in the nose. The neighbor was not so fortunate and at one time was cornered in the pasture and one of his sons had to shoot the bull.

My grandparents had lived in town before they bought the farm, and they still belonged to their former church, which had the reputation of being the “rich people’s church”. The ladies from town liked to come out to the farm for ladies aide because the common wisdom had it that food on the farm was better and more plentiful. Some had the idea that it was also free, and they helped themselves to produce from the garden without asking.

The barn was a warm place, even in winter. Sometimes it was too warm and airtight. One time with the doors closed my dad found the cows all lying down due to lack of oxygen. They revived as soon as he opened the door. I enjoyed hanging around the barn during milking time.

Every morning and evening my grandpa would stand in the doorway of the barn and sing “Come, boss!” He was from Norway originally and the musical tones he used reminded me of motifs from Edvard Grieg’s piano music. The cows would come single file, kept in line by a small, yellow cocker spaniel named Pal. In later years we got a puppy, a collie mix we called Smoky, perhaps a more appropriate cattle dog. I don’t remember how well Smoky kept the cows from straying. But I do remember that when he was removed from the back seat of the car, Pal immediately bit him hard in his long collie nose, which from then on was just a tiny bit crooked. The two dogs were enemies forever. One day a few years later they got into a fierce fight in the ravine and Smoky killed Pal. We also had cats. My favorite was Molly, an orange striped female who lived to be old and produced many, many litters of kittens. Her offspring were known as good hunters and were easy to give away to the neighbors. However, there are always too many kittens on a farm, and in those days people didn’t spay and neuter. The mortality rate for cats was high. They would snuggle up to the cows’ warm backs on cold winter nights and now and then the cow would roll over on them. But when the feline population exceeded the farm’s resources and needs, my dad discreetly disposed of the extras soon after their birth.

I remember the day my dad quit farming. Grandpa had gotten sick and couldn’t help with the chores anymore. Grandma had used a walker for years, and had a hard time getting around. My dad struggled on by himself. Then Grandpa had to go to the hospital. The insurance ran out and bills came due. My dad wrote to his siblings and asked for financial help, but they were unable to help and suggested selling the farm. The county put a lien against the property, which was in my grandparents’ name. Nobody tried to shield me from the fact that we could soon be homeless and without a way of making a living, and I remember those times as being very stressful. Then one day my dad got the flu. There was no one to help with the milking, so he shipped the cattle and got $800. That must have been the money we lived on for the next year or so.

My dad never went back into dairy farming. Prices were too low. My grandfather passed away, my dad modernized our little house for Grandma, and my parents moved into the old farmhouse. By this time I, who had been an only child, had a new baby brother. My dad became a door-to-door salesman, a job that he hated. Somehow he hung on to the farm.

The barn sat empty, although it was still used for storage, and to shelter a pony and rabbits. Someone else farmed the fields and the hayloft remained unused. Time and neglect took their toll on the building. Then one day my little brother who had grown up without any firsthand memories of farming decided that he was not going to let this part of his heritage fall by the wayside. He hired roofers and carpenters to restore the building, and retrofit it for a new purpose. He put in a balcony, a stage, and a dance floor. We finished the project off with a green neon sign that read ART’S, in honor of our father. By that time our dad was in a wheelchair but he attended some of the barn parties and enjoyed himself thoroughly. After he passed away, we used the barn as a setting for Hospice fundraisers.

Sometimes people refer to our farm as a “hobby farm”. I always tell them that farming was no hobby. It was how two generations of my family made a living.