In 1931 Dad wanted to move back down to Vernon County so he traded mail routes with Mr. Gander of El Dorado Springs and we moved there in the fall. We lived just south of the old football field. The next summer we bought 80 acres about 2½ miles NW of ElDorado Springs. Dad bought a team and I learned to use them. The first time I tried to harrow I turned too short, the harrow caught and flipped over, just missed me. I remember I found quite a few good arrow points while cultivating there. Every year we cut timber in poles and hauled in to stack. Had Eldie come with his saw rig and we would have a 2 or 3-day sawing and I did most of the off bearing (Left side of  picture with no shirt).

We rode to town with Dad mornings to go to school. During football season I practiced late and had to walk home. I had sheep for a FFA project and was doing all right until a dog from ElDorado started running the sheep and wiped me out. Killed 18 altogether out of 25.

The house on the farm was old--what we used for the kitchen was one big room built of logs. Rafters in the attic were white oak poles. Someone had built on 2 rooms to the south with porches full length East and West sides. They also cut dormers in the roof of the attic and thats what I used as a bedroom in the summer. The east porch was screened in and I slept out there part of the time. We woke up one morning with 1" of snow on the bed! We sure jumped out of bed in a hurry, and headed for the heating stove!

At threshing time we traded help with enough neighbors to make up the crew.  I liked to run a bundle wagon (hauled in bundles of grain, wheat or oats) and feed it into the thresher.  We moved from farm to farm--all those big meals!  More fried chicken than you can imagine!  Shortly after moving to the farm we cleaned about 3 acres and finally got it plowed.  Dad had a blacksmith make an A frame harrow to work around the stumps.  Then we planted 3 acres of strawberries and the work really started.  The berries had to picked, sorted, boxed and crated.  Most were sold to stores in Nevada.  We bought apples by the bushel and dried them.  That was done by peeling and slicing and spreading them on screens covered with cheesecloth and putting them up on the west roof of the house where they would catch the sun and we would take them down every night so they wouldn’t draw moisture.  This was repeated every day until they were good and dry.  They were then put in boxes and stored in a dry place.  As I remember they were all used for dried apple pies or they could be stewed.

In the fall of 1935 I went to work at the Nevada Hatchery.  Culled chickens before the hatching season started.  Worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week for $40 a month and bunk in a storeroom plus all the eggs I could eat.  Any that were cracked on arrival couldn’t be used in the Hatchery.  The incubators were about 9' long, 7' deep and 6' tall and opened on both sides and they ran continuously.