F is for Farm
I grew up living on a farm. We lived on a rented place of about 100 acres. It was 2 miles north and 2 miles west of Halsey, on Potter Road, which later was named Oak Plain Drive. The land was owned by Mr. Gene Stockwell, who was a grandson of Ira Hawley. The story told was that Ira bought farms for Gene and his sister Lena, both farms in the Halsey area. Ira Hawley was one of the original settlers in the Cottage Grove area, where I now live. Mr. Stockwell and his wife generally came to visit the farm every year. He was an attorney and lived in the Los Angeles area. It was a big deal when they came to visit, the house was cleaned and the table was set with "company dishes." Often they came in the summertime and if it was harvest time, Mr. Stockwell would take a ride on the combine. I remember that they always sent beautiful expensive looking Christmas cards. I received a nice gift from them when I graduated from the 8th grade and also from high school. My grandparents had first started renting this farm in 1914, when my Dad was about 7 years old. In 1964, the Stockwells had a special dinner held at the Eugene Hotel to celebrate 50 years for the Albertson family living on the farm. My father retired from farming in 1972 and it was rented by nearby neighbors, the Coon family. They eventually purchased it. My father continued to live on the farm until he died in 2004.
My father also farmed about 100 acres directly north of where we lived. He and his father had purchased this land and later my grandparents deeded it to my parents. This was not sold until after my father died. There was also about 100 acres which my father farmed about ? miles south of where we lived. My grandparents owned this, but when they retired and moved to Eugene, my father did the farming. It was willed to him after my grandmother died in 1960. We called it the Hetzell place, because that was the owner at one time. This land was eventually sold to the American Can Company who built a pulp and paper mill there.
I can remember my father growing grass seed, wheat, barley and oats. Grass seed, mostly ryegrass, was planted in the fall (unless you had some perennial planted) and harvested in mid summer. The grain crops were planted in the spring and harvested in later summer. So that would spread out planting time and harvesting time. Some of the implements that I can remember are the tractor (2-large and small), plow, disk, harrow, drill, fertilizer spreader, mower, windrower, and combine. Later my father had a self-propelled combine. I did help some on the old combine. It took a different type of header for the seed crops and the grain crops, so they had to be changed. I can remember helping hand tools to my father while he was doing this.
F is for Fishing
I mostly associate fishing with my Dad. He really liked to fish. During the winter when he did not have farm work to be done in the fields he went about twice a week to the Alsea River, about 40 miles away, to fish for steelhead. Usually he went with someone else, so they could visit and tell stories while waiting for the fish to bite. They had a certain place they usually went where the man who lived there let them use his boat to cross the river and fish from the other side. When their fishing was done, they would bring it back across. I think that usually Daddy would take his own outboard motor to use so they didn't have to row. I liked it when he caught a steelhead, because they were very good to eat. Over the years I ate quite a lot of fish. During one Christmas vacation my whole family went. The fish were really biting and I caught a fish. I was old enough that I was supposed to have a license. Since we were catching so many fish, my Dad took me in the boat back across the river so we could go to the little store and buy me a fishing license, so there would be enough licenses for all the fish we had caught.
In the summer during our annual trip to the coast at Newport my Dad would drive up to Depoe Bay and take one of the charter deep-sea fishing trips in the ocean for salmon. It was very exciting when he would catch one.
During the spring my Dad would go with one or more of his friends and "run the river." They would usually take my Dad's boat with his outboard motor and fish on the Willamette River. Often they would start at Harrisburg and finish at Peoria. One of the wives would drive them to Harrisburg where they could launch the boat and then later in the day meet them at Peoria where they could take the boat back out of the water and load it on the trailer and take it home. They were fishing for trout in the river and usually caught at least one.
Another place for fishing was the Cascade mountain lakes, Odell and Diamond. I can remember one special trip to Diamond Lake. Our whole family went, along with my Aunt Lois (my mother's sister.) I can't remember if I caught any fish, but I do remember sitting in the boat on the lake and enjoying the scenery. My Aunt Lois went to sleep in the boat and she got sunburned.
My other special memories of fishing are of the times we went cat-fishing on Muddy Creek which ran through our place. We would drive about a mile down our private road to a spot opposite of the catfish hole, then would walk the rest of the way. There was a small dock built there and a little rise above the creek where we could have our picnic. We went in the evening and would build a little campfire so the most fun was roasting hot dogs and eating the picnic there in the dusk and eventually dark. We fished by securing the poles and putting some type of noise maker on them so if a fish bit, we would know it. I don't remember if I ever caught very many, but I do remember that someone must have because often the next morning we would have catfish for breakfast. How yummy!
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