More early November pictures, 2012

[Soapweed]

Trailing young cows down the road

A couple of my kids

They are dressed for a cold day.

I'm feeling kind of underdressed for the occasion--kind of like showing up at a black tie affair wearing a tee-shirt. :roll: :wink:

A sea of shimmering black hides

Trailing along

And through a gate

Sharing my shadow

Discussing strategy

Telephone pole gates work quite well.

They are moving easily along

The destination

The best grass we could find

Their heads hit the ground immediately after going through the gate.

Sparky and his nephew

Sunflower

My dad

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

It wasn't a pleasant day here for a felt cowboy hat. I was standing on top of a windy hill helping lay Tam's uncle to rest and the cold sure bit the ears. Many hands made light work and we got got the vault for the urn lowered and the hole filled in. It was nippy.

 

[ND Farmer]

Thanks for the pictures. Its 5 degres and about 3 inof the whitestuff. First day of feeding for us here in SC ND.

 

[Larrry]

Isn't it funny everyone talks about telephone poles. You know I have seen a phone line that needed telephone poles in ages.

 

[Soapweed]

Isn't it funny everyone talks about telephone poles. You know I haven't seen a phone line that needed telephone poles in ages.

These were genuine original telephone poles. My first memories were of the old single wire telephone system. The operator lived in town. When you rang a single ring, the operator would say, "Number, please." You would give the desired number, and she would connect you. We lived on a party line. When "two longs and one short" rang in, we knew the call was for us. It didn't matter too much, because everyone on the line would pick up the phone anyway. :wink: There wasn't any television or computers for distraction, and the party line was about the only entertainment available except for reading a good book by the light of a kerosene lantern.

We got electricity from the REA in the mid-1950's. Dial telephone came in during the late fall of 1967. This line was put in by Dad, his hired man, and four other ranchers with their hired help. The area south of Bassett had gone to underground wire, so Dad and his neighbors purchased their old above ground wire and poles. They had to first travel to the Bassett area to roll up the wire and take out the poles, then transport them to Merriman to set up our line. Fortunately the ground didn't freeze up very early in late 1967, which allowed them to dig the holes by hand and set the poles. I got in on a lot of the work over Christmas vacation from school that year.

There were no cell phones of course in those days. We did have a "test phone" though, which could be hooked to any two-wire dial phone system. This allowed phone service if you could find a phone line close enough to the ground to reach. Many times, my dad would roll up the test phone in his jacket and carry it tied on the back of his saddle. I wish I had taken a photograph of Dad sitting on his horse on a hilltop, having the convenience of a telephone clipped to two copper wires. We also always carried the test phone in the glove box of our only pickup.

Underground phone service happened in our area in 1985. The old telephone poles were taken up at that time, and many have now found usefullness as gate posts. With a wire going from the top of one pole to the top of the other, the fence doesn't need any other bracing. There is a height limit though on vehicles or tractors which doesn't work real well at times.

 

[Larrry]

I had one of those overhead braces and was daydreaming coaxing cows to another pasture and the bale was as high as it would go...well you know the rest of the story. wouldn't ya know it was the shortest overhead brace on the place..

I can remember my grandmothers phone, didn't even have a dial on it.

I remember those party lines. Sometimes you would have to wait forever for a line to open up. One lady on the line would talk for hours. Another lady offered us kids entertainment. It was better than radio. Seems she had a man caller that wasn't her hubby. If you would take the mouthpice off the phone and pick up real slow no one would know you were there.

 

[Faster horses]

Another quiet way to listen in on a party line was to carefully hold the
button (really not a button, but I don't know what it was called) down that let the phone be on when you picked the phone up--
anyway, hold that down, which took a little doing, :wink: then pick the
phone up and then let up on the button you were holding down with your
hand. :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Oh, the good old days!!!

 

[Larrry]

Another quiet way to listen in on a party line was to carefully hold the
button (really not a button, but I don't know what it was called) down that let the phone be on when you picked the phone up--
anyway, hold that down, which took a little doing, :wink: then pick the
phone up and then let up on the button you were holding down with your
hand. :wink: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Oh, the good old days!!!

Yep, now how did you know that. Did ya know you can get three kids ears on one earpiece of a phone

 

[Faster horses]

Nope, never tried with three. :lol: :lol:
Most likely someone would start giggling and give us away. :shock:

 

[Larrry]

Nope, never tried with three. :lol: :lol:
Most likely someone would start giggling and give us away. :shock:

That's why we would screw off the mouthpiece of the phone. Those dang kids :shock:

 

[Faster horses]

Nope, never tried with three. :lol: :lol:
Most likely someone would start giggling and give us away. :shock:

That's why we would screw off the mouthpiece of the phone. Those dang kids :shock:

Unscrew the mouthpiece??? Darn! We never thought of doing that. :?

 

[Whitewing]

Nice pics! What happened to the trees? :???:

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

We were still on a party line in 1978. We had a week long blizzard blow up and we would hear the phone ring and would ALL pick up. For some reason they had dumped two lines together that winter so lots of us on line. Most of us were alone in the storm as quite afew were stranded away from home. Some were running out of heater fuel another girl was trying to get to the airport in Regina. The highways stuck a grader coming down a hill so had to go about 80 miles around to get the bottom of the hill plowed out so the could get to the grader. . I saw the big rotary plow coming by our place so got on the phone and gave the good news so the girl could make her plane. I followed the plow to town to feed some calves that the neighbor boys had been feeding with their Skidoos.