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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 112/123

MAMA BUYS ’”SUNNY”

Mama wanted to try to upgrade the quality of our cattle herd. In the
late forties she bought a Registered Shorthorn bull, he was crated
and shipped via Railway Express to Fargo. We got one of the neighbors
to go to Fargo to get him in his pickup truck. He was only a small
calf at the time, just weaned. We named him "Sonny”, not his name on
the registration papers. It was fun having a new calf around, even
after he was grown he was generally docile.. When at his average
weight he was about 1200 pounds of live bull and we had to be careful
around him. The years we had him, he did contribute to the upgrading
of our herd and some of the neighbors as well. Kudzu was the rage
then and Mama ordered a bale of it and we planted it in one of our
fields that was not very productive. In retrospect thank goodness it
never took roots. She didn’t know what a monster it could become,
just look on the side of the road in a lot of areas for an example.

I worked improving the swine part of our livestock, when through the
4-H Pig Chain I got a Registered Hampshire Gilt. The first one
developed Bangs Disease and she had to go. The next one (Dream Boat
Lou by name)produced a large litter either nine or ten pigs in the
early spring of 1952. Carlton came by one day in the early fall of
’51, to sample some of our grapes and I asked him if I could get some
less than perfect cypress boards to make some hog troughs, that
afternoon he drove up with about six or eight 1x8 ’ s of good cypress
lumber. I told him I didn’t need anything that good, his reply "if
you need more let me know." And he would not let me pay for them,
"The grapes this morning were mighty good, let that be the pay." That
lumber made hog troughs for many years to come. With the cypress if
it was kept wet, and it usually was it would last for a long time.

Our barn was built for convenience, a large open area in the center
with a hay loft and stalls on either side. The crib was once a large
separate building, as it reached a point of needing a lot of repair
Papa converted a couple of the stalls into a corncrib in the main
barn. This made it even more convenient, the feed could be kept dry
while taking to the various stalls for the different animals. The
loft also made a good place to play especially when it was raining,
we could get involved in our world of make-believe and kill an entire
afternoon. All too soon it would be time to begin our part of doing
the evening chores. Here again Vera reminded me of something that I
had completely forgotten. Papa would cut crabgrass and other grasses
for hay, after it dried, he would haul it to the barn and put in the
loft. Vera and I would talk Papa into letting us jump from the loft
onto the wagon load of hay before he put it upstairs. We would make

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