Hot Rod Cowgirl

The smell of the wheat is in the air tonight…that smell speaks to my heart and soul:) It is a smell you never forget…much like a cattle truck pulling up to the barn or corrals to load out cattle or deliver cattle…I can hear the trucks as I write…familiar sounds…smells…memories that bring comfort as…

Times past speak softly to me of heritage and family…traditions and hard work.

My heart can hear the sounds of my families history…the sounds of the horses pulling the combine…with the men it took to run it…dry dusty hot days for man and animal alike.

Before the farmer had a truck to haul the wheat into the elevator he had men who would sew the sacks of wheat shut…can you imagine harvesting thousands of acres and having to put the kernels into gunny sacks and then sew them shut…then you loaded your wagon and went to the elevator to unload the sacks of wheat…often driving your team of horses with the wagon several miles to reach the elevator.

My Dad remembered having to take the wagon loaded with sacks of wheat to Vansycle Elevator which is 8 miles away…16 miles round trip…he said it would take the day to take one wagon and the horses or mules would be exhausted when you reached home…all of Grandpa’s horses and mules were very well cared for and loved…they had to do their job but they were cared for. Dad used to come here to the barn (our barn is older than our house) and ride some of the work horses bareback…he spoke often of the various ones he remembered…Grandpa kept around 80 head.

Today we have semi trucks with double trailers hauling wheat out of Juniper Canyon…night and day.

Heading on down the road to the Columbia River…

Where the kernels of Juniper Wheat are loaded onto a barge…and they begin the journey to feed the world:)

Self leveling combines…hillside machines…can you see how the combine is leaning a bit…it is leveling itself.

This photo is better so that you can see how the combine keeps itself level rather than leaning…I heard that most farmers do not buy the combines with the automatic levelers anymore due to the price…

Wild Bill is showing how the leveler works as he is touching the spout. I could not imagine not having the machine level as we have some really steep hillsides!

Here is an older picture of the land when we farmed it…sorry this is a scanned image before digital…the house complex is our home and the green fields are the wheat crop of that year…see the road over in the dirt?

That is WB’s air strip for his plane…looks cool sitting in the wheat…actually it is on the strip.

Tucker is hiding in the grass…she follows me everywhere keeping an eye on me:)

Soon farm families will once again put in long days to bring the wheat crop in…as has been done for over a 150 years.

150 years of country strong…we dig deep when it comes to toughing it out.

And if the going gets tough…the tough get tougher:)

No matter how hard!

Harvest is a time of hard-working families working together for the same reason…the goal to get the crop in…harvest is like gathering cattle with my Dad in the mountains…we shared our work effort together to round-up the cows and that is what makes memories and heritage!

It is the working together and sacrificing…and harvest time is a sacrifice…husbands leave the house before sun up and come home when it is dark…often putting in 18 plus hour days in the heat of harvest.

I grew up driving wheat truck through my high school years with my other cousins…then after WB and I married, my Mom taught me (no this picture is not of Mom and me…more like my Grandma and Great Grandmother) the tradition of cooking a large lunch for our men and the crew. While it was a lot of work to cook a huge meal by 1:00 each day it was my family…I came to enjoy hearing about what had happened in the field and then all the joking and funny times too…I felt very much part of the harvest crew and was always sad when they finished the fields around our ranch moving on to the fields around my Aunt and Uncles homes.

Food was in abundance when the crew came in for their hour lunch break…we had home cooked meals with meat, potatoes, gravy, salad, vegetables and desert…and home made ice tea…no not sun tea or tea made by a tea maker…real deal tea!

Here is the recipe:

Get a small sauce pan and fill with cold water…buy Lipton Black Tea…loose leaves….put 2-3 heaping tablespoons in the pan and boil…then cool it and strain out the leaves…dump the tea water into a gallon jug and fill with ice-cold water and ice and you have real ice tea…all the good caffeine and antioxidents…and so refreshing!

Harvest skies and harvest heritage…have a good night wherever you are! HRC has her eye on the land…will post new pictures as soon as harvest begins….stay tuned…I keep hearing the song Country Strong going through my head…in fact I am going to go listen to it now!

Country Strong

I know you see me, like some wide-eyed dreamer
That just rolled in, off a dusty Midwest bus
Yeah on the outside, Hallowed fragile
But on the inside something you can’t crush

I’m Country Strong, hard to break
Like the ground, I grew upon
You may fool me, and I’ll fall 
But I won’t stay down long 
‘cause I’m Country Strong

I have weathered, colder winters
And longer summers, without a drop of rain 
Push me in a corner and I’ll come out fightin’
I may lose but I’ll always keep my face

‘Cause I’m Country Strong, hard to break
Like the ground, I grew upon,
You may fool me, and I’ll fall 
But I won’t stay down long, 
‘cause I’m Country Strong