The farm was known as Silverdale Stock farm. This was in big letters on the side of the barn, that could be seen from the road. The live stock we had included pure bred Holstein cattle that because of their high quality Dad sold Bull caves to dairies all over. He even sold and shipped calves to five different countries including Australia. When Dad decided to retire and had sale dairymen came from as far as California to buy live stock. Other animals that we had were horses, pigs and chickens. The size of the farm was a one half section -- 320 acres. Our main crops were corn, wheat, oats and barley. some land was pasture for the horses and cattle. We had a hay field to feed the cattle we also had a silo that we filled every summer for winter feed for the cows. When I was about 8 I was working in the field with 4 horses using different farm machinery. When I was 14. I did most of the field work using a tractor most of the time. By that time my older brothers were no longer living at home. Dad and the smaller kids took care of the animals. That included feeding and milking the cows, separating the milk and selling the cream. Always had quite few chickens. sold the eggs. We also had a lot of honey bees that was quite a bit of work some times of the year. When they were swarming and when we harvested the honey. Grant Vogel |
