Of Snow Days, Seed Time and Harvest

Mom is the photographer of this farm family portrait which includes our horses Beauty and Babe. Dad (Lloyd) is in front holding Donna. On top of the wagon, left to right are Keith, LeRoy and Carolyn. It would be six more years before Glen would arrive. 

Photo by

  
Margaret Walls  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
 

When I grew up on a rough 120 acre Ozark farm, wintertime had its regular chores and even some extra ones, but it was also the season to get ready for seed time and harvest.

For the first nine years of my life, my dad worked almost entirely on our farm. In 1954, after several years of droughts, he changed to working in construction full time while, with the help of my mom and us kids, he still operated the farm.

I find it pleasant to remember the simpler times when we farmed with horses, before tractors arrived on our farm.

When snow or ice kept Dad from doing normal winter farm work he would often bring some of his repair projects inside. Usually once each winter he would bring over the harness and let it warm up by our wood stove. He’d also bring in his shoe last and shoe repair supplies as well. I always enjoyed the smell of leather even when it included a mixture of horse sweat.

Dad would first repair any places on the horse halters, bridles, collars and harness that needed repair. Sometimes a quick baling wire fix intended to finish the day’s horse work would in actuality be left to finish the season. Most harness repairs were made by adding a combination of new leather, new rivets and sometimes some hand stitching using heavy waxed string. Next came cleaning and oiling of the harness leather. This extended the life of the harness plus made it more supple as was needed on the parts next to the horse.

While many of the leather supplies were out, Dad then oiled and repaired our farm work boots and other shoes. He kept some half soles, heels and tacks on hand for this purpose. On a few occasions I had Dad put metal heel plates on my school shoes. He didn’t mind doing this since it extended the life of the heels. My real reason for the metal heel plates wasn’t for economy or for a farm boy chorus line, but was to sound “tough” like my friend and his older brother.

On our farm a snow day often included time for Mom and Dad to make plans, consider costs and set priorities for seed time and harvest. This included deciding on fence, building and equipment additions and repairs. Plans were also established for crops, our orchard, garden, hog, dairy, poultry and other farm operations.

On the farm our winters and seed times had more expense than income but were soon followed by our best season for milk, hog, poultry, fruit, vegetable and hay production.

For me, during this era, snow days were often a time for inside games near the wood stove or outside sledding or having snowball fights with brothers, sisters and cousins. 

12/17/2001