My Father and Mother rented a farm in southern Mo. for a time. It was on a hill over looking a small valley with a stream running threw it, a large barn for milking cows North east of the house,a chicken house, a smoke house and a machine shed out back. Mom had a garden a few paces off the back porch that was made of concrete with a well and pump for water. We had a cook stove fueled with wood in the kitchen and a wood burning stove in the living room for winter. We had a root cellar a few feet just west of the house and an orchard a little further west. There was a patch of woods south of the house where we cut our wood for cooking and heating and some fields where dad planted some crops and where we picked rocks every spring so he could plant the seeds. There were about twenty five head of cattle to be milked every night and every morning and Dad had to work eight or nine hours a day for the old man that owned the property, in his fields. So he had more than a little to do to say the least. Dad got the cows in shape and they started producing good results but we needed a little more income so he asked Mr. Nicholson the owner of the farm if he would let him clear some of the land south of the woods to put in a crop. The old man agreed so in his spare time Dad started clearing the land with the help of some of us kids. I had an older brother and sister that helped out some but most of it was up to dad to get it done. When it came time to plow he barrowed a mare and her two year old colt from a brother. He got two sets of harness and bottom plows from somewhere and hitched up the colt to his plow and the old mare to my brothers plow. My brother he wasn’t big enough to handle the plow and the horse so they draped feed sacks over her back and I sat on top and guided the mare. It was the end of May or First of June and the Sun was already hot. That mare would work up a sweat and soak through the feed sacks and by noon I was wet from crotch to heel. I don’t remember how long it took but I do remember in no time I was red and so sore I could hardly walk. When the crop came in it was the best crop of corn dad ever had and he made a little money on it. Old man Nicholson asked dad how he did on the crop that fall so dad told him proudly. The old man scratched his chin said well with the milk check and the crops, your a makin’ more money than me, I think i outta have a cut of that crop money and you can keep the milk check…..That was the last straw…. and that’s when he gave up farming for good, but he was a farmer till the day he died and proud of it and I was proud of him…