Calves

Reading The Pioneer Woman's blog this morning jogged my memory about the first time Lowell and I bought some calves. Remember now that I was raised in a town and new NOTHING about farming or livestock. We were living on the farm in Redwood and Lowell was driving a school bus. We bought 2 Holstein calves at a sale barn and brought them home in the back seat of our '49 Ford. (we took the back seat out) I was supposed to have bought milk replacer the day before(I forgot) so when it came time for the calves to be fed the next morning I first had to go to town to get it since Lowell was picking up kids. I mixed it like the directions said and filled two pails half full. Lowell told me that the idea was to stick the calves head into the pails and they would drink. Yah right. I pushed - they bucked - I pushed - they backed up. I finally got each one in a corner and after a bit of persuasion they drank. I was wet, my hands were slimy and I discovered muscles I didn't know I had. It didn't take long for them to learn to drink from the pail and later from a bottle and it was kind of fun to feed them.

Birthday

Today would have been Lowell's 84th birthday. I would have taken him out for dinner and he would have had a steak. Me too. Seems unreal that he's been gone for 7 months already. I miss him!! But he's doesn't hurt any more and is standing straight and tall and that's a good thing.

Were we ever this young?

Were we ever this young? :) This was taken at one of those picture booths at the fair in Redwood county. I think it was taken the summer before we were married.

Book

I just finished reading a most wonderful book (fiction): Heart and Soul by Sally Mandel. It is about music, sadness, music, fear, music, love, music, tragedy, music, loneliness, music, and love again.

The last questions and answers

9: What was dating like when you dated? Do you think dating has changed with your children and do you think dating now is different than when you dated? Do you think you will date again?

I didn’t date much because I was interested in grandpa. So I don’t know much about the “dating game” when I was young. I do know that guys/gals did things in groups. And I think that is still the same. I’m sure that dating has changed. If the opportunity comes I may date - although I’m not sure I would call it “dating” I do miss the company of a man. It would be fun (but not yet) to have dinner or go to some event with guy.

10: What was love like in your relationship? Was it love at first sight or did love grow?

I think for me it was love at first sight and your grandpa always told me that he knew he wanted to marry me from the time I was a young girl. I didn’t quite understand that but that’s what he said. I suppose like a lot of married couples then and maybe even now it was mostly a physical relationship at the beginning but as time went on our love changed. It became the undercurrent of our lives - always there. We had fun and laughed a lot, worked hard, argued some, didn’t always understand each other and sometimes didn’t like each other but we loved each other always.

12: Now that grandpa is gone, how are you dealing with the separation? Do you think you are handling it well What is/has been the hardest thing to deal with?

I think I’m dealing with the separation well. I think that the fact that grandpa, as a truck driver, was gone for a week or two has helped. Also, since he was gone a lot, I was the one who took care of the finances. So I didn’t have to learn to balance a check book or pay the bills since I already knew how. Also I’m fortunate that I can live in this house as long as I want and that David and his family live so close to me. And I know that all my children care about me and “check in” every now and then. Another thing that has helped is that Sharon’s family has made me a part of their family. So many things I miss: having the outside light turned on when I come home at night; starting the truck when it was very cold so that it would be warm; his whistle; his giggle that only I heard; his “good morning”; his singing; his smile; so many things, but I what I miss most is feeling his arms around me.

Questions 7 & 8 & 11

7: What do you like about your role as a wife and a mother? What did you dislike?

I loved being a wife - I knew I was loved and I liked knowing I belonged to grandpa and he belonged to me. I don’t think there was anything about being a wife that I didn’t like. I enjoyed taking care of my kids when they were babies. It got harder because I was not a very good disciplinarian and so things were a bit chaotic at times. I enjoyed listening/talking with my children and still do. I didn’t like cooking or cleaning.


8: Because it’s typical that husbands take the lead in household, did you have a lot of say in your marriage or was it whatever he says, goes? Was it hard to stand back and have him take the lead, even when you didn’t agree? How did you handle that? 11: When there was a disagreement between you and grandpa. How id you two repair the hurt? Was there a time of thinking you didn’t want to be married anymore and if so, how did you go on?

When we were first married I was more than happy to let grandpa take the lead and don’t remember having a problem with it. But as I got older I developed an independent nature and sometimes grandpa and I were at odds about things. I discovered after we had been married for a long time that if I would just state my ideas and let him think about it for a while he was more willing to discuss. (I wish I had figured this out earlier in our marriage) As grandpa said I sometimes would run a subject into the ground ( and I know he tuned me out). He would
sometimes walk away from an disagreement because he thought it would turn into an big argument which is what he remembered from his childhood. But most of the time one of us would “give in” because the disagreement wasn’t worth continuing or important. There was never a time when I didn’t want to be married

6th question

6: When your children were growing up, did you let them explore and be open to ideas about their gender, society stereotypes, etc. or did you teach them how society viewed certain issues. For example, did you let your daughters play with cars in the dirt and did you let your sons play with dolls and play dress up or did you tell them that dolls and dresses are for females only and cars and dirt are for boys only.
When our children were young there was no reason to discuss gender ideas or society stereotypes because we were all comfortable with who we were and the subject didn’t come up (that I remember). We never told our kids that they couldn’t do something because they were female/male. In fact, the girls helped in the barn and with the livestock as well as the guys. Although there were some things that their dad didn’t ask them to do because they were girls. (they were happy about that) I think the reason the girls helped outside was because more hands were needed and that wasn’t the case in the house. Consequently the guys didn’t do too much in the house and they had their chores outside. I remember one time when your dad (Randy)was home from Fargo I asked him to help me with dishes because I had to go somewhere that evening - he looked at me and said “that’s women’s work” Boy, did that get me steamed so I retorted “ok, next time the cows get out, that’s men’s work”. I don’t know where he got that idea because I don’t remember either grandpa or me saying “that’s womens/mens work”. I don’t remember if he helped me or not. I also remember Barbara telling me that she was asked a similar question in a college class and she told them of the time that your dad was giving he a knuckle sandwich” (ask John what that is if you don’t know) quite often and I told her that since she and your dad (Randy) were the same size at the time she should “give it too him” and she did. Her class mates were surprise that her mother told her to beat up her brother. Barbara didn’t really like to help outside so she often would get a meal ready so that I could help outside since I would rather do that than cook. We all helped with baling hay and stacking it in the barn