Johnson Memories by Ted Johnson

JOHNSON, ARKEMA, DEHAMMER, HANNA

Posted By: Sheri Hubbell (email)
Date: 1/29/2003 at 21:49:05

I will start my part of this manuscript by telling some of the things I remember from boyhood.
My dad never raised much corn as our farm was more set up for hay and pasture. If we had 25 or 30 acres of corn, that was about all we could have in one year. We would let the corn ripen in the fall and then cut it and put it in shocks ("fodder shocks"). It was all hand work, and we used a corn knife, and set it up in round shocks and tied it with a heavy twine. Sometimes we would cut it all up that way, and then sometimes we would leave it stand as it grew and we would pick it by hand and throw it into a wagon and that was cribbed at the time and later fed to horses or hogs.
When all the corn was either cut or picked, whichever Dad decided, then I could start to school. Usually this would be the last of November or the first few days in December. I could go to school thru' December, January, February, and until the little lambs started coming in March. We usually kept 100 or more eyes on the other place, in a shed about half a mile from the house. When the lambs started coming, that was strictly my job, as Dad wasn't all that great with sheep. Often a ewe would have more than one--twins were quite common, and triplets occured quite often, so she would have to be penned separately until the little ones were agile enough to get to the teat on their own. They had to be fed and watered separately, too, and that meant carrying the water from quite a distance. We had a well on the place, a hand pump, and usually a bucket that leaked!! All very convenient, as I recall!! Lambing season would last from a month to six weeks or more, till all the ewes had their lambs.
Some days I would go to the sheep barn as soon as Mom could get breakfast, and would stay most of the day. Sometimes when I got to the barn, there would be 8 or 10 new ones that had been born through the night and half of them were lost from their mothers. Often it would take me all morning to match the lambs with the right ewe. By the time I got the new ones penned and the others fed outside, it would take most of the morning. Then, I could start over--feeding and watering the ones in the pens for the night, ending up with the ones outside. Often it was dark by the time I got back home.
We sheared when the weather got warm in the spring. It was usually a family affair--Willy and Walter could both shear, other of us could tie and sack the wool. This operation would take most of 3 days, and the bawling was deafening, as ewes hunted for the lambs and lambs hunted for their mothers.
My Dad always raised several colts and would keep them until they were old enough to be trained to work in the fields. On occasion, we would sell one before it was broken to the harness. Dad got around $100 for them at the time. It they were trained to work, he would get $200.
Our fun and relaxation consisted of fishing and swimming as we lived next to Cedar Creek. Often we would land a big one, and the largest I remember was 35#. Often we would land catfish or carp in the 10 to 20# size which made for pretty good eating.
The one fishing trip I remember well was when Steve Arkema and Gerrit DeHammer were at our place and Fred and Cress Hanna came by and wanted us all to go fishing with them. We fished all afternoon, but when we came back to our car, there was the game warden waiting for us!! None of us had a license to fish ($1.50) and we each had to purchase them on the spot!! The seine was borrowed and he took that so we had to pay for that wich was $5.00 each. Total cost was $6.50 which, at that time was a pretty expensive afternoon of fun!!