Mar 22, 2010

Describe some outside chores.

After the incident with Leesa and the dishes, I began milking and feeding the cows. That involved going down into the field or pasture where ever the cows were and bringing them up to the barn. I would then take the three milk cows into the barn where we would lock them into the stantions, hobble their feet (being sure to lock the tail in with the hobbles), the using a one legged T stool to milk them each by hand. We had one cow that would only allow us to milk her with the milking machine, that is until I got tired of always having to wash the mlker and began to milk her by hand as well. It was actually easier. After milking the cows and straining the milk to remove the hair and other incidentals that would fall or slash into the bucket, I would let the cows out and go feed them. That included a walk to the stack yard some 50 yards or so from the barn and getting two to three bales of hay off the stack and then spreading them along the manger. I would then carry a half bale over to the horses, about 50 feet away, and when we had pigs would then slop the pigs(pull a bucket of sour milk from a barrel and put into their trough and yes it smelled like sour milk). Then I would go back to the barn and wash out the manure trough and then take the milk into the house. When the cows were giving a lot of milk we would also have to put it through the milk seperator and take the cream only into the house and carry the rest of the milk to the pig pen and add to the barrel. After the milk was to the house the I would get two buckets of hot water and carry it back to the barn where we would fill the tubs and wash the milking equipment. The milk seperator took a long time because it involved pulling apart the center section and cleaning each on the fifty cones one at a time. It usually took an hour to an hour and a half to milk the cows.

Other chores included carrying the coal to the furnace. I got to where I could carry 4 five gallon buckets loaded with coal into the house and down the narrow steps to the furnace. I had to do that at least once a day during the cold season while the furnace was running. I then would carry the bucket of clinkers that I would remove from the furnace, with the clinkers that dad would remove each morning, and carry them out onto the driveway where we would spread the around on the dirt road.

I also would mow the lawn with a push mower, later we got a gas one, and the rake up the grass clipping. We had a huge lawn and it took a long time to do that as well.

During the summer I also had irrigating duties, as well as cutting, raking, baling, hauling, and stacking the hay in the stack yard. Then there was the seasonal chores of washing out the bottles before canning and helping to pick, wash, cut and can the fruit. We had apples, apricots, pears, and cherries that we would can each fall.

The other main chore that I had were the usual cleaning the room, and taking the garbage to the big 55 gallon drum where we would burn it.

The summer time also included planting, weeding, watering and harvesting the garden.

I hated to weed and still do but the Clement weeder helped a lot. It was a blade on the front of a triangle assembly with a single wheel that allowed you to psuh it just under the ground and cut off the weeds. It was invented by Uncle Lyle Clement.

Mar 21, 2010

Describe some household chores you had as a child.

In my early years , prior to 8 or 9, I had the usual indoor chores. Every Saturday was wash day. We had an old washer ringer combination washing machine as seen in this picture with the blog. (That is the actual washer we used, mom gave it to me for photography.) We would do a lot of loads that day which included the loading of the washer, adding some homemade lard soap (MADE FROM COWS FAT THAT WE SAVED FROM SLAUGTERING OUR OWN BEEF, melted in a big copper kettle over an outside wood fire, and adding lye, I couldn’t tell you anymore than that) and then letting the washer do it’s thing for a half hour or so and then, after the rinsing, pulling the clothes out one by one and putting them through the ringer and into a wash basket. In the summer we would then carry them out to the clothesline and hang them up to dry. Later we would go back out before dark and take then in and fold them before taking them to our rooms to be put away. This took most of Saturday to accomplish.

I also helped with the dishes. We were assigned to set the table one time, then clear the table, then wash dishes or dry dishes and put them into the cupboard. There were four units to the project and we would do something different each time.

Later after Uncle Clair went on his mission in 1965 or 66, I took over making bread for the family. This meant coming home and mixing a batch of bread and baking it. It took usually till nearly 10 pm before it was done each time. However the fresh bread was always worth it. I would do this 2 to 3 times per week.

Saturday night at around 11:30 pm was always a time to hate chores. That was when mom would finally be ready to mop the kitchen floor and we were asked to help. I don’t think that mom ever went to bed before midnight but Saturday night the mopping had to be done before midnight so that we were not working on the Sabbath.

More on chores tomorrow.

Mar 20, 2010

What do you remember as your favorite time of the year? Why?

It would still have to be Christmas time. First because it meant that we would have a couple of week off from school and next, well, it was Christmas. I always loved Christmas and the chance to be able to be free of school work for a few days and to be with family during that time as well. It was hard to get to sleep because of the excitement surrounding the next morning also. With all of these things put together it was of course my favorite time of the year.

Mar 19, 2010

If you ever hitch hiked explain.

I hitch hiked one time in my life to date. It was on a very cold day in January in 1972. Lynn, Leesa and I were returning to Snow College after the Christmas break. We were in the old blue Chevy truck and had gone from Duchesne across Indian Canyon to Soldier Summit. The traffic was backed up for miles which we learned after crossing over from the Emma Park road intersection to Colton. There is an ara just after Colton near the turn to Schofield where you can see for several miles and it was nothing but taillights all the way. We slowly crept along until we had crossed Soldier Summit and headed toward the Tucker Rest Stop. But prior to getting to the rest stop the truck died and we couldn’t get it started again. I finally got out and hitched a ride to the café around the corner from the rest stop. I called our Bishop in Ephraim and he drove up from Ephraim to help us. He drove right past me as I stood in that outside phone booth waiting for him. There were three inches of very cold water standing on the floor of the phone booth as I stood there for about two hours waiting for him. He finally arrived with Lynn and Leesa as they drove the truck up to the booth. He apparently didn’t realize I was waiting in the phone booth and had driven past me until he found them. Now for the final kicker, I was wearing my very old worn out pair of tennis shoes and my feet were very cold.

Mar 18, 2010

Tell me more about your college years, or your work experiences in early adulthood.

My two years of college were fun and hard. The first year of college was a bit of a lonely time in a way and a mixed up time as well. I was there with a brother and a sister but they had been there a year already and had their friends and activities pretty much already set so I spent a lot of time by myself in my room studying or on my bike riding around Ephraim. It was still fun though in that I was in the electronics program and soon had friends there as well as in the general ed classes too. The second year was totally different in the fact that Marie was there for the first part of it and then I was engaged and she was at home and I spent 10 to 16 hours a day in the electronics lab for the last half of the year so I could graduate and begin raising a family.

My first three years in the workforce were with a television repair service. I had many experiences there which taught me a lot about working with people. I enjoyed my years with American Television and there are several stories that I have written and many that I will still write for my personal history.

Mar 17, 2010

What memories do you have of St. Patrick’s Day in your childhood?

I remember the usual stuff like hiding your green so when you got pinched you could pinch back. O course it wouldn’t really be hidden it would just be in a place where it wasn’t easily seen unless you looked for it because if it was actually hidden then you really got pinched or punched depending on whom you pinched. It seems too like I forgot plenty of times as well until the first pincher came along and then I quickly had to find a green piece of paper to pin to my shirt. I don’t remember much from school but it seems like we did often cut out shamrocks for the room decorations.

Mar 16, 2010

Tell your major and how you choose it.

My major in college was Electronic Technician. I chose it because of a love for electronics that began in high school in a chemistry class where I built an electron cell.

I then went to snow College and started in the electronics program there and really enjoyed it as well. I probably enjoyed electronics because of a natural curiosity to take things apart and put them back together again. Then there was the time in the barn while doing chores that I fixed the old Zenith radio and didn’t have the slightest idea of how I did it. I worked in the field of electronics for 18 years and then things started to diversify due to Signetics moving out of the county. I did chocolate making, insurance, cabinet finishing, and finally working at Provo craft doing what I had really done since 8 years old, a photographer. I never wanted it to be my vocation and yet that is where I am at now and loving it.

Mar 15, 2010

If you went to college tell which college you chose and why?

I went to Snow College and on my mission and back to Snow college for my last year of education. I was young enough when I graduated from Duchesne High School to go a to full year of college. Snow had given me a scholastic scholarship plus Lynn and Leesa were both there that first year so it was a logical place to go. (Not counting the fact that mom graduated from there as well as Stan and Clair too.) It was a small college also and that would allow me to fit in better after having attended a small school during my youth. I liked Snow and really enjoyed the two years that I was there before graduating with an Associate of Applied Science degree in Electronics. I went to work right after school and getting married using that degree to jump start my career in TV repair and equipment maintenance. After that it was just OJT in other jobs and professions.

Mar 14, 2010

Do you remember your first pizza?

NO! I must have had it sometime but I don’t know when. In fact the first pizza’s I really remember were after my college days. You see Duchesne, Roosevelt, Vernal and Ephraim were not good places for pizza establishments because we all pretty much ate hamburgers and fries with milk shakes or drinks. I really have no idea when I had my first pizza, it was probably on my mission.

Mar 13, 2010

Did kids ever tease you and why?

I think that I have answered this question several times already just explaining other experiences like the hair cut and the physical size. Other than that I pretty much liked everyone and they must have liked me. When you start out in elementary with about 25 kids in your class and you grow up with them and graduate together all of those teasing things get over long before you get very far into school since you can’t just go and get a different set of friends. They are all your friends and really pretty good friends at that. Now we were joined in about the 8^th and 9^th grades by another 20 or so kids but we got to know them pretty quick as well and didn’t really get treated poorly by them either. I was very fortunate to have grown up with a bunch of youth that I can still call my friends today. (Some of them are even my Facebook friends now as well.)