My Dad turned 74 and we had Casey's pizza, made a brownie cake, and got him a fire pit. Mark, the boys and I didn't get to Williams until 7:00 so it made for a short night. My parents were already tired from a full day of barn tours. They were part of the foundation for barns tour. They had over 300 people stop by and visit the barn. We got a tour also and I was reminiscing all the things I can remember. I recall at one point my dad having sows in every single stall, and baby pigs in the back, and then more pigs in the farthest north pen. He had pigs everywhere. I remember him filling the feed room with a heaping pile 12 feet tall of ground corn into a feed mix powder. He would fill 5 gallon pails and carry them out to the lots and dump them in long rows for all the pigs to eat. He did that for years. I spent a lot of time in the hayloft searching for baby kittens. After school I would climb up and search for the kittens. All our pet cats were tame and would have their babies wherever I would put a cardboard box and blankets. I knew the mother cats and would tame all the babies. However, one stray mother cat would run from me and hide her kittens in the hay loft. She never did trust me with her babies. I would go into the hay loft when the kittens were around 3 weeks and meow like the mama. They would usually stick their head out of a hay pile and I knew where they hid. I then would bring up moist cat food and coax them near me. Little by little, hour by hour, day after day, I could start to pet them and play with them and before long they were tame. I did this year after year. I never wanted wild cats running around, I wanted them all tame and named. I had a lot of cats! The barn is really neat with a lot of history, all barns are. When my dad was young, long before I was around, he had cattle in the barn, milked some cows, had a chute in the back that his dad made. He gave us a tour as we asked questions. I also remember when the hog confinement building was built. I would watch the builders each day with fascination. I remember putting my hand in the concrete and watching the framework and then the sides and roof. I always thought that building was beyond stinky inside. I usually went into it with my nose plugged, It was rank. I could never enjoy being in that building even with a mask because of the smell. That smell would get in your hair and on your hands and stick. My dad always had a hint of hog manure smell to him. It was just part of it. I helped my dad now and then with clipping tails and teeth or vaccinating piglets and sometimes scooping feed into the sows feeder. I liked the baby piglets, but they would squeal so loud.. Sometimes I would help with moving pigs or sows with hog panels onto a trailer. It could get pretty wild sometimes.
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