ok, so the next couple of blogs are going to be special stories that I have from my childhood. Most of the stories will center around my pawpaw and the family farm because that is where I spent most of my days. .
here we go.....
The farm across the street was for sale. It had been sitting there for years not being cared for. The orginal family had all died off. Pawpaw heard that there was going to be an auction and was determined to buy the farm that we had all been staring at for years. The farm was directly across from mawmaw and pawpaw's house. We would sit on the front porch to stare at the farm. I remeber many days spent sitting in the tree in the front yard, day dreaming about how beautiful the farm would be if only someone would take care of it.
I went to the auction with pawpaw. I watched him sit there in his fold out chair that he always carried in the back of his truck, smoking on his pipe, and scatching his head under his blue Mid-State hat. I was nervous. Rumor was going around that someone might buy it and make a subdivision. I didn't want to see that beautiful farm turned into a subdivision.
where in the world would I ride my motorcycle if that happened?
Pawpaw sat back very calmly in his chair and won the auction. "yep yep good piece of land!" he said when he had won.
My little self was SO EXCITED. a farm!!! a farm!!! we have a farm!!!! Over 100 acres to explore.
The first major task of the farm was getting rid of all the groundhogs. Because no one had taken care of the farm in years, the groundhogs had taken over. Pawpaw opened the farm up, telling people that he would give them $50 for every groundhog that they killed. That made for interesting days at mawmaw's..... a knock at the door would bring some dead nasty groundhog.
There was one specific groundhog that no one could manage to shoot. He was the sneaky one!
Pawpaw was starting to get very aggravated with it and declared "then we will just dig it out."
He sent my uncle Travis to get the backhoe and another uncle to get a shot gun. Us grandkids overheard the conversation and began screaming "can we watch Pawpaw? can we watch!" At that time there was me and 3 boys.
We sat in the back of the truck watching pawpaw directing the backhoe "Dig right over there Trav. Yep right there...... oh there that damn thing is......... Shoot it David...... shoot that damn thing (he spit on the ground).......you were too slow it got away....... (wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before putting in some more chew)
Dig over there Trav.... right there...I SAID RIGHT THERE.(almost choking on his chew) there that damn thing is .... shoot that damn thing David. SHOOT NOW!"
As a child I thought "wow this is AWESOME!!" I was watching my pawpaw dig up the farm to find and shoot a groundhog. It was very entertaining.
They ended up getting the farm groundhog free.
Next came fixing the old barn.......
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