Thirteen Foot Fish-Within-A-Fish At The Sternberg Museum In Hays Kansas
We spent several days in Russell and did some touring around the area. We went to the Sternberg Museum in Hays one day. We have talked about stopping there for a good many years and visiting it. But until now there always seemed to be some reason to pass it by. But finally getting to stop was well worth the wait. In addition to the many dinosaurs they have a famous “Fish-Within-A-Fish” fossil. The predator fish is named Xiphactunus and is just over 13 foot long. The fish it swallowed whole was a Gillicus arcuatus, which was about 6 foot long. If any of you remember the scientific names of the fish you do a lot better than I can do. One of the other displays there was a temporary one of the “Super Croc” which was up to forty foot in length and weighed up to 10 tons. Inside the museum it looked huge but when I think it could be as long as my motorhome it is really brought into perspective. One thing was for sure, it was a lot cooler inside the museum than it was outside. While we were driving away from the museum and on the main street of Hays near the college the thermometer on my Jeep registered either 112 or 113 degrees. About thirty miles away in Russell where we were parked it was only 103. Not much difference at those numbers. Simply hot outside.
I have wanted to go the the Stone Post and Barbed Wire Museum in LaCrosse ever since I first saw it perhaps twenty years ago. At that time it was only open on the weekends and was in a small frame house. Today it is in a native stone house built by homesteader Dan Haley. In a lot of respects I am glad I waited so many years to go visit. I started reading about the actual work done to make the stone posts maybe ten years ago. In spite of the fact that I have seen the equipment used by some quarry men it is still amazing that it is modified wood working braces and bits. Local blacksmiths made the tools that were used. The laborers claimed that they developed calluses on their chests because of the downward pressure on the tools that they exerted. Wedges were placed in the series of holes and driven in to split the rock apart. When the limestone was first quarried it was relatively soft but then hardened when it was exposed to the air and dried. The quarry men charged a quarter per post in the beginning and the more profitable farmers could afford to buy stone post later the price worked its way up to a dollar and more. Before the stone post industry faded away there was around 40,000 miles of fences installed. The spacing between the post was perhaps 20 to 30 foot, so you can figure the number that were produced.
In the middle of Kansas there is a lot to see if the time and effort is taken seek it out. In addition to all the cowboy, farm, and oil field history there is also the geographical center on the 48 states, Pyramid Rocks, Rock City, Garden Of Eden, the only Giant Van Gogh painting in the USA. And the list goes on, so when somebody tells there is nothing to see in Kansas don't believe a word of it. It is just that it is not along the Interstate. Lucas is the home of the “World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things,” and it is a traveling museum I have a reason to go back there.
As I promised I would add some of the writings that I have done in the past so this is some more Memories of a Kansas Farm Boy.
PICKING CORN
learning to work
As a child that was raised on the farm I did the things that are normal for a farm kid. There were the usual farm chores to take care of the animals, and the usual field work, and work that we exchanged with the neighbors. There were many accomplishments and many struggles, along with the privilege of a classroom in nature that is unparalleled anywhere.
One year, about 1946 or 1947, Dad had a field of corn south of the house on the east side of the lane. Shortly before the end of the year he was trying to harvest the corn before it was lost to heavy snows and weather. He did not yet have his first John Deere tractor, so he was using a team of mules to pull the corn wagon. Any work that was done had to done by horsepower (mule power) or by hand. The team was trained to move forward by command and to stop and stand upon voice command. Apparently they also knew to follow the rows of corn and not start off across the field, unless something spooked them. To be sure, these were mules that were used in working the fields, from plowing, disking, planting, cultivating, and finally harvesting. I am sure that they had many years of training.
The weather was cold, the sky was overcast, and probably threatening to deliver snow. I am sure that Dad and Mom were anxious to get the corn from the field and into the corn crib. Laura and I made several trips back and forth from the house to the work area. I likely followed her to the field the first few times. Lauralea must have been old enough to be in school, but it seems she was with me, so perhaps it was a Saturday or even a school break. I remember putting on Dads old work coat, or perhaps even a couple coats just to be warm and several pair of gloves with holes in them, so that the good parts of one pair of gloves covered the holes in the other pairs. The layering of clothes was not to have layers but more so that no part was uncovered. The chances are that I also wore one of his old hats. I thought that it was fun to put on Dad’s clothes.
With warm clothes on, I headed out to see Mom and Dad. It was easy to tell where they were picking by the sound of the corn hitting the backboard, or as it was called sometimes, “the bang board”. Imagine an ear of corn hitting a wooden board fastened to a wagon, it goes “bang”, and then falls into the wagon. I approached from the side of the mules. When I was a few rows away I startled the closest mule. When he started jumping, that startled the other mule. Dad had quite a time preventing a runaway team. I was instructed to approach the mules from the front where they could see me, and not from the side where the blinders prevented their vision of me. As long as they knew that a person was around there was little danger of them becoming scared. That was the last time I didn’t follow proper procedure when approaching the mules. Even at a young age I could see the danger of a runaway team.
When corn was picked, it was often removed from the husk. The husk was left on the stalk and just the ear was thrown into the wagon. I have heard that years before that corn was picked husk and all, placed in a large pile and shucked later. There were even times that many families would get together for a shucking bee. At times there was a tradition of putting a red ear of corn in the pile of yellow corn. The young men sought this red ear so that they could get a kiss from some girl. Exactly what the rules were I don’t know. This was not the way it was done on the Peace farm. There was a device worn on the right hand, left if you were left-handed, called a shucking hook. It was a flat piece of leather that the index finger slipped through with a leather strap that buckled around the wrist. In the middle of the palm was a metal hook that was used to aid in removing the shuck from the ear. With one hand on the stem of the ear, the hand with the hook pealed back the shuck and twisted the ear of corn free. Then of course the ear without any shuck attached was thrown against the bang board and then fell into the wagon. This process was repeated for every ear of corn in every field. It was a great deal of labor that was eventually replaced by the corn picker. The only corn picker Dad ever owned just separated the corn from the shuck, but many corn pickers also removed the kernels of corn from the cob.
It was an incident in the process of corn picking by hand that caused the vivid memory of the scaring of the mules. Like a normal kid I liked to be in the middle of the activity. Where was the greatest activity around a picking operation? Right in the middle of the wagon where the corn was being thrown. I could see Mom and Dad picking the corn. I could see the mules. The wagon was high enough that I could see any cars that drove along the highway at the edge of the property. Also I could remove any stray bits of husk that happed to get missed. If I wanted to, I could help by picking a few ears of corn myself. My guess that Dad and Mom spent more time helping me put on the shucking hook than I saved by picking corn. At least that was true for many years. I never picked enough corn to ever be good at it but I did pick out a lot of turn rows and areas that were too wet to drive the tractor in later years.
I was in the wagon doing what ever it was that I did in the wagon. Perhaps I was marveling at the length of the ears of corn that year. To be sure they were longer than normal. To me they seemed to be several feet long, but they were actually only about a foot to fourteen inches long I suppose. I don’t think I caused any problems if I stood in a place in the wagon and did not move around a lot. The folks could throw the corn to wherever I was not in the wagon. Usually I stood wherever the pile was the highest, the best vantage point. I had been down in the wagon, pulling shucks or maybe just sitting, and I stood up against the bang board, just as Dad threw the largest ear of corn from the entire corn crop that year. That huge ear of corn hit me across the forehead, halfway between the eyes and the hairline, exactly in the middle of its length. I think that Dad was probably moving to get to me before the ear ever hit me. I am sure that he was sure that he would have a screaming crying kid on his hands the second I had enough breath to make the sounds. I am also sure that the mules would not have taken kindly to a sudden outburst of crying. But for whatever the reason, that ear of corn broke in half. One part banged against the bang board to my left and the other part crashed against the bang board to my right. Dad sometimes called me knot head. I guess that sometimes it pays to be a hardheaded kid. I was not hurt enough to consider crying. And probably the attention I got was also enough to make it worthwhile not to even admit that the blow hurt at all. The two ends were found and we put the ear back together. It was truly a long ear and a big round cob.
About the only other thing I can remember about the mules is seeing them for the last time. In about 1947 Dad bought a 1942 John Deere “B” tractor, it was built the same year I was born. When the tractor came to the farm the mules were sold. Louis Foltz had a trucking company that operated out of Princeton, Kansas, about three miles from the farm. So anything that was sent to market was shipped with the Foltz Truck Lines. The mules had been loaded and the truck was moved out to the head of the lane and was parked under the big elm shade tree. I climbed up the side of the truck and looked at the mules for the last time. I had no way of knowing that I was looking at the end of an era. I would never harness a team of draft animals, perhaps in my entire life. If I ever do it will need to be after the start of 1998. (Now 2008) I would never again drive a team of mules from the work area to the barn to have the harness removed and to be fed. Actually I don’t think I had up to that time. Dad would release the mules from the field equipment, and I was allowed to flip the reins so that they knew to head to the barn. They knew what they were to do. They did not need a kid to guide them anywhere. But I thought that they could not get to the barn without my help. All I really did was follow along. I don’t remember doing even that much more than a couple of times. I could not know it at the time but that was a time that someone should have taken pictures. It is possible that I have helped Harry Schaefer put a harness on his mules, but I have a feeling that I did not do much more than pull the mules tail from beneath the strap that went around the rear. I did help him hook up the team to a wagon a few times, but even that was something that was rare. There was simply no need of me doing anything like that.
I can remember that years later the old harness was still hanging in the barn and I tried to visualize how it would fit the mules. Because the harness had not been touched in years it was dust covered and the spiders had built many webs on, in, and over it, that in itself contributed to a look or mystery. There were a few tools and supplies around that Dad had used to repair the harness. There again there was never any reason to use them and I was never trained to do any work with the leather.
There was a tool that Dad used behind the mules that had always fascinated me. It was called a slip. Basically it was a large shovel that was pulled by a single mule or horse to dig and move earth. In modern times it has been replaced by the Caterpillar or similar machines with a blade and/or bucket on the front. An operator would tie the reins of a single horse together and loop them around his neck so that they were always handy. I think that most of the commands were done verbally. By lifting the handles just right the slip could be filled with dirt or gravel and then pulled elsewhere. Then the handles could be lifted again and the slip dumped. There was some way that the slip could be flipped upside down to the normal orientation and the open end of the slip was pointed back. In that position it was fun to ride along behind the mules or later the tractor. Because the slip was pointed back when it was not being used to move dirt, if I fell out I was simply dumped on the ground and there was very little chance of me getting hurt. Perhaps a bump but at that age I got two or three bumps every day.
A SLIP IN CIMMERON, NEW MEXICO
This picture of a slip was taken in Cimmeron, New Mexico while we on a little vacation down there in 2001. It was at a small museum that was closed when we were there. It is very similar to the one that Dad had with the exception of the handles of his were wood.
