HOMESTEAD FARMS WITH SATELLITES AND INTEGRAL KINSHIP

If I walked the designated route, being careful not to disturb any plants, I could inch through my mother's garden and then through my aunt's garden to meet my cousin at his front door.  Then the two of us would walk through the south raspberry rows, past the crab apple trees, to where the mustard lettuce wandered up to our grandparent's farmhouse.  It was the original homestead house where grandma tended the wood cook stove while a few other relatives were still in the fields working before the lunch she was making with wild mustard and some early corn.  

My cousin and I could earn a few coins picking raspberries, or harvesting cucumbers, or we could just goof off exploring the old barn and some new plowed dirt.  Black soil from ancient river flooding and years of careful farm enrichment.  That evening back at my cousin's home or my home we might have a visit from the grandparent's before they drove 8 miles to the Lolo ranch for their dairy cow chores.  The ranch is where they lived at night so my cousin and I might go with them.  Lee and I were not necessarily much help but we had fun watching the clear stream that flowed through the milk house to keep the cream cold until the morning trip to the dairy.  Or we might actually go to the south forty where a small river flowed cold and pure through the family picnic area among the cottonwoods.  

The homestead family that grew up on the farm and ranch had grown children now who purchased adjacent land and remained in the area to continue small-scale gardening as they also started new businesses in the community.  My father evolved a carpentry and home building business into a specialized masonry business.  He taught my uncles who started their own.  At Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any time the spirit moved the entire extended kindred would meet at the ranch for some wood stove cooked celebration.  Eventually the seasonal and gathering meals and board games were distributed to other designated homes.  

I knew all my cousins.  I knew distant aunts and uncles who still kept in contact.  We were close.  Civilization happened and most everyone moved away to pursue lucrative professions in the wide world.  Some stayed rather than take jobs at Wall Street offered to a Rhodes Scholar.  Education and agriculture were both important.   

There was something about being a professional farmer that was more than dollars and cents economics.  There was a meaning and kinship.  The practicalities of living were taken seriously with hard work but the rewards were far-reaching.  

When I learn more about attempts to recover the life I knew from 1949 to about 1975, I will return to this blog to tell what I've learned and give some links.