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Just after the start of the 20th Century, around 1910, a tall lanky cowboy from the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina (USA), packed his bags and headed west for the Idaho Land Rush. For $4,000 USD you could stake your claim to 80 acres of rough land filled with rattle snakes, jackrabbits, and sagebrush. The only requirement stipulated you had to build a house on the property within one year.
After purchasing a complete pre-fabricated home from Sears and Roebuck, my grandfather dug a 12-foot deep, full-size basement using nothing but a “Fresno” – a large metal earth-moving scoop – pulled by a single horse.
Blowing up old tree stumps with a quarter-stick of dynamite and removing stubborn sagebrush roots with a “come-along” – that’s a hand-operated winch – were normal everyday activities.
Singlehandedly, my grandfather assembled this two-story, three-bedroom, one-bath home-kit. A few years after burying his first wife due to tuberculosis, he married my grandmother, an immigrant from Switzerland, and they raised four children, each one born in their large elegant mansion.
I remember sitting on the huge front porch in the heat of the summer as an eight-year-old boy, eating ice-cold, farm-grown watermelon and spitting the seeds over the wooden railing! So many great memories of that place!
Over the years, our family-owned spread became an apple orchard, apple-packing plant, and a productive farm that raised alfalfa, wheat, corn, and the world-famous Idaho potatoes.
One hot summer day while sitting and spitting (watermelon seeds), I asked my grandpa how he made the rows of corn so straight. They looked like they were drawn with a pencil and ruler! His reply was the seed thought for these comments.
You set your eye on yonder tree. Point the nose of your tractor at that tree and don’t look back.
—Julius Walter Wagoner, circa 1965
In other words, you need to keep your focus!
Read the rest of this story here:
https://www.walternigh.com/keeping-your-focus
After purchasing a complete pre-fabricated home from Sears and Roebuck, my grandfather dug a 12-foot deep, full-size basement using nothing but a “Fresno” – a large metal earth-moving scoop – pulled by a single horse.
Blowing up old tree stumps with a quarter-stick of dynamite and removing stubborn sagebrush roots with a “come-along” – that’s a hand-operated winch – were normal everyday activities.
Singlehandedly, my grandfather assembled this two-story, three-bedroom, one-bath home-kit. A few years after burying his first wife due to tuberculosis, he married my grandmother, an immigrant from Switzerland, and they raised four children, each one born in their large elegant mansion.
I remember sitting on the huge front porch in the heat of the summer as an eight-year-old boy, eating ice-cold, farm-grown watermelon and spitting the seeds over the wooden railing! So many great memories of that place!
Over the years, our family-owned spread became an apple orchard, apple-packing plant, and a productive farm that raised alfalfa, wheat, corn, and the world-famous Idaho potatoes.
One hot summer day while sitting and spitting (watermelon seeds), I asked my grandpa how he made the rows of corn so straight. They looked like they were drawn with a pencil and ruler! His reply was the seed thought for these comments.
You set your eye on yonder tree. Point the nose of your tractor at that tree and don’t look back.
—Julius Walter Wagoner, circa 1965
In other words, you need to keep your focus!
Read the rest of this story here:
https://www.walternigh.com/keeping-your-focus
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