Memories Never, Ever Forgotten on the farm...

If you hang on to anything long enough, what was old becomes new again.  My Paternal Grandparents lived on a farm just at the base of Chimney Rock, close to Bayard, Nebraska.  It was always a  blast as a kid to visit.  Getting up at 4 am to milk the cow's and feed the chickens before the sun even decided to come up.  I can remember walking back to the farm house in the dawn of morning from the milk barn watching the sun come up. Was and still is my favorite time of day.  So peaceful as the sun burns off the night dew.  God makes the most beautiful art.

This is just outside Grandma's kitchen with her VW bug she bought with her milk and egg money

As my brother and I approached the little farm house which did not have indoor plumbing til 1965, we could smell the bacon cooking and the coffee brewing in Grandma's little kitchen with a wood burning cook stove in the corner.  Grandma would pull up a stool and put down the oven door to warm our feet and hands.  Breakfast at the Zemanek farm was always like a 5 course meal.  Bacon & liver from their pigs, eggs from their henhouse, pancakes very delicately whipped up by Grandma Margaret, home made rhubarb jam made with perfection from the massive garden they always had.  Grandad Dale always ended breakfast with a bowl of cereal he mixed up with 4 different cereals and warm milk from the cows.   Funny how things like that embed in your brain.  I won't forget because I learned to not like milk from these early days.  It was always warm and it was like putting solid lard on the roof of your mouth.

The reason I brought up if you hang on to things long enough...  Grandma and Grandad never got rid of anything, EVER.  When they sold the farm in the late 70's we went through the attic, all the barns and every inch of the farm inner fields.  Grandmas attic was massive.  I remember Aunt Janet handing things down to us and some of the ladies taking grandmas' stuff to the wood pile.  I cried in tears to watch Grandma's face.  The leather packed barn's smelled so good, but they too were cleaned out.  The inner fields were packed with anything automotive from as far back as the early 20's.  My brother and I played on each and every one of them pretending to be grown ups living in Paris.

Those were the days.  I will continue to write the memories as they surface.  Enjoy!