The Wind Blew Right Through The Boards

I also spent many boring hours in the swamp in the late summer haying. Dad would have me mow the tules for cattle feed in the winter. It wasn't very good feed but there was lots of it. There was close to one hundred acres to hay. I would just go around and around the square field for several days to cut it all. The ranch was under the training flight path for jet fighters out of Nevada and Klamath Falls, OR. One day I was mowing hay in the swamp when one went over. The shadow and noise came at about the same instant, causing my heart to stop, and die, as the sound of the tractor covered up the jet noise until the moment of the shadow. Hauling those light tule bales was a breeze though compared to heavy alfalfa bales. We would stack the hay high up in the lower barn.

The lower barn was down close to the swamp at the north end of the property. No one that grandpa Leo ever talked to knew when it was built and it was always felt to be very old in the 1960's. All the main timbers were hand hewn and wooden pegs held them together. It was a very large hay barn, about one hundred twenty feet long, with manger stalls under the roof so the cattle could feed out of the weather. When it was empty and you looked inside knowing you were going to have to fill it you got a pretty overwhelmed feeling. Dad had put a tin roof on it. The roof came from buildings he helped tear down at the Pit 3 powerhouse.

I spent some the coldest times in my life in the lower barn feeding cows. The cold north winds would just pass right through the boards not to mention the sifting snows. Some mornings would be ten or more degrees below zero. I would get up in the barn and find several inches of frozen crusty snow on the bales. No amount of gloves or hard work could keep my skinny hands and feet warm. Sometimes it felt like I had no feet or hands left. When the tule hay ran out we would begin feeding off the back of the Hoopy. (See my blog of Sept. 8. 2008 for more about Hoopy)

In the mid 1980's we had to tear the lower barn down as it was starting to fall and had collapsed in one place. My father-in-law, Bob McKernan, along with help from Mexican hands, Bruce and me took the barn down. For some reason we all still loved that old barn no matter how daunting the job of filling or miserable the job of emptying it was.

I started driving Hoopy before I could reach the peddles.

Hoopy is a 1928 Chevrolet one ton truck my grandpa Leo bought new in Redding. When I was very young, I think before ten or so, dad would let me steer the Hoopy while he cut the bales and fed them from the back of the truck to the cattle. Most of the time this feeding was done near the lower barn. Dad would set the throttle and point me at a mountain in the Big Valley mountain range. He would then climb on the back and start feeding. Sometimes I would get too close to the swamp so dad would have to climb back inside, turn the wheel, and get me back on track.

I wasn't tall enough to reach the peddles so I could stop or strong enough to turn the wheel. Old vehicles had hand throttles so it could be set and just leave it. This is how I learned to drive.

As I got older, it was often my turn to feed from the back of the truck while Bruce (he's my little brother) or someone drove. Most of the time we drained the water from the radiator so it wouldn't freeze. It had too many leaks to put antifreeze in and waste it. One winter that was very cold I remember dad had to set a fire under the Hoopy's radiator to thaw the water. Hoopy wouldn't start after we poured the water in so the water froze. We only had to be careful of the lower hose because everything else was steel and it wouldn't melt.

Hoopy had to be hand cranked to start. Dad always told me to set the timing retarder/advancer before cranking it. He said it was more likley to kick back if not set right and the crank could break an arm. I think I always remembered to do that. It has wooden spokes for wheels, wooden slats in the roof, a four cylinder engine and four speed transmission.

I spent many an icy cold or wet rainy morning on the back of Hoopy too. Bruce still has Hoopy at his house in the hopes of getting it running again. I hope he does someday before it gets too deteriorated.