Summer Work

Uncle Edson his wife, Arlene and daughtor,Lynn visited the ranch during the summer.  They took their time and drove from California.  Lynn was young at the time and it was a good sightseeing trip for her.  Being in the country on a ranch was exciting for her.  Dorothy and I showed her around.  

While they were at the ranch the Martins invited us down to watch branding and have a picnic lunch.  It was extra fun for those of us who helped by wrestling the stock to be branded.  After working in the sun during the morning it felt good to sit in the shade and have lunch.  Lynn had grown since we last saw her and she was very interested in ranches.  Mary missed our outing as she was finishing a required summer class, so she could start her first teaching job in the fall. 

I wanted to get coal and wood in before going to college but those weren’t good jobs for hot weather.  The wood was a combination of cottonwood from the river and cedar pulled from the canyons.   We set up a buzz saw and cut a huge pile of cottonwood.  Making firewood from cedar began with grandpa and me on the ends of a crosscut saw.  The big blocks had to be split with an axe.  Small limbs were left for grandpa to work on in cooler weather.

The trip to get coal brought back memories of the many other times we had traveled into the hills for our winter’s fuel.  This time we took the truck to haul the coal and a light wagon and scraper pulled by the mules.  It was a good opportunity to give them another work out.  Grandpa preferred to take the team and wagon, so I drove the truck.  Grandma and Dorothy rode along in the truck.   We had packed a picnic lunch as reward for our hard labor.  Grandpa arrived soon after us.  His mule team stepped along making good time.  Using them on the scraper was a new experience, so grandpa held the lines and I worked the scraper.  The only part of the operation that bothered Jack and Judy was the dumping of the scraper.  It flopped over to dump the dirt and the mules seemed to think it was coming after them.  After a few rounds of dumping, they got used to it and all went smoothly.

Grandpa tied the mules firmly to the wagon that was parked around the corner of the hill from the blast site.  All the blast procedures were completed and grandpa lit the fuse.  The dull thud shook the hillside and sent dirt cascading over the coal bank we had just exposed with the scraper. Once again the mules were hooked to the scraper to clear away the dirt.  The mules took the blast well with just a curious gaze in the direction of the noise and dust.

The blast was a good one, loosening a large section of good coal.  When the dirt was cleared and the mules tied to the wagon we decided to lunch before loading the truck.  We had some butter sandwiches made with Grandma’s home made bread and some fried chicken.  Dorothy had made ice tea and the picnic was complete with Grandma’s sugar cookies.  It was difficult to jump right up and work after the lunch, but the coal had to be loaded and we wanted to get home before dark.

*Taken from "Which Road Should I Follow?, Volume 1, Growing up in the country", an autobiography by Edwin K. Hill.