Chapter 4

While the mesquite was too crooked and twisted to use for lumber. It burned well and smoked sweet.

Barbecued goat quickly became the staple of farm life. I brought in a few wild hogs that I had shot to provide some variety to the meat that we ate. Without Refrigeration everything was shared with others before it spoiled or was wasted.

In practically no time, it seemed my friends had raised chickens and had brought a milk cow which provided plenty of dairy products. Any leftover or spoilage excesses got mixed with mashed grain and got fed to the pigs or chickens.

Whenever time permitted, I took up ironworking I had learned as a roustabout. Pipe threading, blade hardening, grinding and metal shaping were all skills that allowed me to make and fix hand tools and the like. The hard currency of such work meant that I could afford to purchase the necessary raw metals, anvils, hammers and the coal to feed my hearth.

Life was rough and lacked all but absolute necessities. Bathing was done in a canal or stock pond along with washing any clothes I had worn. Windows were wax paper; glass was a luxury he could little afford. All the furniture in his cabin was homemade too. Within a few years I had only made a few real improvements.

He had planted three acres that he had cleared in Citrus trees. Between rows he planted vegetables and grain. Anything produced more than my needs he sold in town or gave to my partners in trade from their surpluses. Bartering for trade was a way of life.

His house was a two-room cabin. It was a simple kitchen and bedroom arrangement, his roof served as a water source, catching whatever rain fell into a wooden barrel inside his kitchen.

He now had a cook stove that heated some water and kept his food warm. There was always plenty of work, and if he ever caught up, his partners in land ownership were not adverse to asking for help whenever labour intensive tasks such as gathering cattle or grains and hay when scheduled.

Patrick Owens lost interest after the first year and took up work as a ranch hand, I had rented his two acres of cleared land and planted cotton on it. With one irrigation it produced a bumper crop that first year. I earned enough to pay for it to be picked and sent by rail to a cotton gin in a neighbouring county.

Chopping the cotton stalks and ploughing that soil was almost as much work as clearing the land in the first place. But the profits from the ginned cotton allowed me to buy out Patrick’s share of our partnership that first year.

I planted more oranges after chopping down the cotton stalks. A second-row trees would be started the next year. Planting Citrus was a long-term prospect.

It would take ten years to see any profits, But the sale of fresh fruit was very lucrative as long as you could pick and deliver it to the railway siding in town. Even a wagon load represented a cash income on the farm.

But the real farm livelihood came from vegetables and food crops that sustained our families during the early years.

My partners in the land purchase became my extended family, not that I ever abandoned my own folks. Annual trips back home became the norm each spring after the planting was done. I returned each summer before irrigation might be necessary.

As everywhere else, water made farming viable. Having irrigation was a boon for producing more from each crop.