Thursday, May 10, 2012

Big city farm girl



When our Grandpa Patton passed away in 1968 my dad inherited a farm (250 acres in Vigo Park, Texas) which grew wheat, cotton, maize and sorghum.  My dad managed the farm by weekly calls to his farmer from our home phone and then he would visit Texas each summer. His two lady cousins owned 250 acres together and at some point he bought them out.  Five hundred acres sounded like a lot of land to a big city girl like me. My parents moved to Amarillo, Texas when my dad retired from the LA City Schools and after living there about 8 years, they sold the farm (to a man who owned EIGHTY THOUSAND ACRES in the county -- now that's a lot of land!) and moved to Portland, Oregon where they live now.  I have some good memories of "the farm".  I hoed cotton one summer earning 15 cents a row.  And another summer my brother John and I almost bought a shetland pony for $15 (I had $8, he had $7) at an auction (we didn't think about how we were going to feed it or house it since we lived in LA--minor details).  I always enjoyed visiting the surrounding small towns (and their drug store soda fountains).  I would have loved to inherit one-fourth of the farm.

3 comments:

Wade said...

Obviously, John would have owned the back half of that pony.

LL said...

"hoed cotton" add that to your resume.
AWESOME!

Anonymous said...

I was just out with a guy here in Dallas who got a text and said, "Oh, that was just my farmer." To which I said, "Hmph, I don't have one of those." :) I'll have to check and see if he needs a cotton hoe-er!
Louise