A typical day around the farm in summer started around 7:00 with a breakfast of Ham or Sausage, Grits and eggs.  After eating we would fuel up the old Farmall Cub tractor and if it was raining, wipe out the magneto case so it would be dry enough to crank.  Then we had to get the crank from under the seat and put it in the slot in front of the tractor and "CRANK" it by spinning the handle around.  Usually it started on the second or third spin.  You had to be careful or the engine would "kick back" and the crank would break your arm. The Cub had 3 forward gears and a reverse - no hydraulics at all, you had a spring assisted lift lever.  It would fairly fly in third gear, but it wouldn't pull unless it was in first or maybe second. 

Sometimes we would hitch up the wagon and pick up rocks in the pastures.  You would put the tractor in low gear with the throttle almost closed and just let the tractor slowly wander over the field while you walked behind and picked up rocks to put in the moving trailer.  When you judged that you had a full load, you would have to "catch" the tractor by jumping up on the moving wagon tongue and climbing over the seat to proceed to wherever the rocks were needed.  In the '50's we had a lot of 8 to 10 foot deep gulleys that needed filling so the rocks would always have a place to go.

Other days we took the axes and chopped bushes - persimmon, locust, sweetgum, etc - that grew in the pastures.  Chopping bushes with an axe is definitely work.  You have to learn to pace yourself and slowly mow them down one by one.  If you attack bushes with a madly flying axe, you will burn out in less than an hour.  Our hired hand named Gus taught me the knack of going slow and lasting the whole day.

As I grew older, I could hitch up the sickle mower to the tractor and cut everything in my way.  One day I was mowing along on the field above the pond and hit a huge nest of red wasps.  Theory was that if you didn't move, they wouldn't sting you.  I'm not sure that's true because I couldn't sit still. As I was dodging around getting stung around the head and ears, I fell off the tractor, hit the ground and got up running. Thank God I fell behind the sickle mower!  I ran right into the pond and finally lost the swarm.  The tractor continued merrily mowing along until it hit a tree on the edge of the field and choked down.  There was no damage, so none of this was reported back at the house.

Other days there were jobs like picking up the hay and putting it in the barn, building or repairing barbed wire fence, cutting posts, cutting firewood, chasing cows, hoeing the garden, catching chickens for cooking, gathering eggs, churning butter, shelling peas and butterbeans, and on and on!