Maud and Bird

They were my father’s last draft team Mares black and bay Grade Belgians 15.5 hands Maud Lead Bird Off I remember sitting on his lap As he sat on the steel bucket seat Of the mowing machine Their lines in my small hands Read more

My Farming Years

Nineteen fifty to 1960 were my farming years, the first three years and two months as my father’s partner. (He also practiced law). On June 29, 1950 I turned twelve, and on that day my father bought for $1200 a John Deere MT tractor for me to operate, retired our draft mare team Maud and Bird, and fired our resident farm tenant. The tractor dealer, Nelson Wimmer, to whom my grandfather had given in 1934 a seed and fertilizer retail business he founded in 1919 that never made money, converted it to a John Deere dealership that prospered many decades. Read more