Thanksgiving at Grandpa and Grandma's Farm

When I was a little boy growing up in Beaver City Nebraska in the late 1940's, I can remember going to my grandparent's farm for Thanksgiving. This had to be before 1945 when they moved to town.

As the youngest child of the youngest child it always seemed to me that everyone there except my sister was an adult. So she and I would go exploring in Grandpa's barn.

He always had big old work horses in the barn to pet and lots of cats running around. If we were lucky we would find a litter of new kittens to play with.

Their chickens just ran loose in the farmyard so we could feed them. I never could believe that my grandma would ring their necks to kill them and then eat them!

There was an old wooden framed and wooden finned windmill that pumped water into an oblong tank for the milk cows to drink out of. We would splash the water out of the tank until we got yelled at for doing it. I guess they thought we would spook the cows and ruin the milk.

And of course there was the big dinner with all the adults around the dining room table and the younger folks around the kitchen table.

It must have been a long and tiring day as I remember falling asleep on the way home!