My ain’t that purty

We’re parked on the north side of Horseshoe Lake, looking across the lake over the remains of a yardsite that dates back to the early 1900’s.  My grandfather and his brother settled 3 miles south of here close to 100 years ago.  Today there’s someone else in the grandpa’s yard and it is in fact almost unrecognizable as the yard I have so many happy memories of.  Uncle Ernie’s yard on the other hand, hasn’t changed a lot from what I remember.  Aunt Velma’s animal cutouts are gone from the front yard and there’s more and newer buildings in the yard but the basic layout is still the same. 

We didn’t plan this as a trip down memory lane but it certainly hit me that way this afternoon as I turned north off 15 highway “just before the big hill” and headed up past grandpa’s old yard to Marvin and Marilyn’s yard.  Mother used to say “I don’t know why he thinks one hill is any bigger than the rest of them” but all of the hills on 15 highway have been tamed by years of road construction and there’s more happening right now.  We had to chug through about 5 miles of construction just east of Kenaston where they are raising and widening the grade.  I briefly considered trying to go around the construction but decided that 10 extra miles of gravel would be worse than just grinding along in 3rd or 4th through the work zone.

Marilyn is going to interview Paula in the morning about livestock production and we will take some pictures of cows on pasture tonight.  Marvin’s boys are combining wheat behind the yard so I’ll go down there close to sunset and get some video footage just in case.  I thought the cows would have been over to check us out by now but I’m sure before the night is over they’ll have come round to see what we are doing.  We’ve got several fresh cowplops smeared on the tires so I know they’ve been this way today.

The lake in the picture above was the source of ice for the farm.  I think I can remember there being an icehouse at grandpa and grandma’s but I may be just remembering father’s stories about getting ice.  Either way I’m glad my refrigeration doesn’t depend on cutting blocks of ice out of the lake and storing them in sawdust so they last through the summer.