Life On The Farm – The Animals

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Heber & Effie Murdock my grandparents – Taken from Memories of the Farm in Heber, Utah 1916-1930. My dad John H. Murdock remembers:

“Dad had his two big horses for pulling the plow and the wagon. Kate and Nell were their names. He loved all of the animals he had, had a name for all of them. Pal was the little riding horse.  There were other horses that came and went, Pal is the one I remember the most.

1914 Grandpa Heber on horse copy1

Heber on “Old Pal”

Kate and Nell, they were really good natured horses.  I guess they were Dad’s pets. I don’t think he ever whipped them or anything. Dad would just holler and say “hey get here’, he’d call them by name, hell you could see them pull just like they’d been whipped with something.  Dad figured he talked the language of the animals I guess but that damn bull, he didn’t talke the same language, he was an ornery son of a bitch.  I remember hearing Grandfather Murdock plain as day telling my dad, “you get rid of that damn bull, he’ll kill ya.”  It was a prediction that came true.

 

We had cows, I don’t remember how many there were, but it seemed like quite a few. Dad milked them everyday by hand. We had pigs, chickens, sheep and goats.

 

One of the dog’s we had was named Laddie.  He was a little black and white Boston Terrier.  Aunt Sadie got him for her kids, Glenna and Elmo Thurman.  Old Laddie just fell in love with my dad and wouldn’t have anything to do with anybody else. He stuck to dad like glue.

 

We had this little colt and Mary and Dan thought it would be fun to bring it into the house.  They coaxed it in with honey in a comb and the colt got into that and Mother came home and here was the colt with the plate of honey stuck to it’s nose.  That didn’t please her, I’ll tell you she had quite a time getting that colt out of the house.”

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