Carolyn Gay Taft Farm Letter - April 22, 1928

Old Mission, Mich. Apr. 22nd 1928

Mt Dear Miss. Taft:

You will begin to think I have for gotten you but I haven't. I have been feeling miserable lately head ache & up set stomach. I couldn't write until I felt better. Will make a try at it today.

Have had two dreadful snow storms since I last wrote to you Easter Sun. had a Jan. blizzard and again the 14th of Apr. It has stormed & snowed since but not so hard. The fruit hasn't started yet so no harm done so far we are sure of that. There is still lots of ice in the bay. Last Mon. after the storm the ice was frozen solid out to the island.

If you people in Illinois has had what we have I feel sorry for you.

Clarence Kroupa tried to haul hay down here a week ago & he was a hour coming from Stutsman place to your's. So you can imagine what kind of roads we have down in here. The road down near pasture is still flooded so we can't come thru there. He brought about 10 bails of hay to us and will haul the rest when he can get down here. It is fine hay 1/2 alfalfa & timothy $18.50 delivered. Tang is selling hay but poor trash. Jos. will buy of whom he can get the best for the money.

There is a new Farm implement store in Traverse Also garrage Jos. got a pulley for $2.25 and all farm machinery is very reasonable he bought his lever drag there & is going to get a 7 tooth cultivater also I am so glad he got the drag as it will do so much better work than the old one. And will help make the work easier.

Jos. had Harold Lardie down to repair the engine & get it ready for spraying yesterday. It went wrong last Week & Jos. couldn't get it started or could perry Christopher so Harold doctored it up his bill was $1.25 and he said you could pay it when you return this Spring. Joseph doesn't want to depend on the Wunsch mud puddle any more as some times the sprayer get all cloged up from muck I have to laugh at Ernst & Henry talk they say if you hadn't wanted so much down on your farm they would have bought it last Fall. You are wise if Wunch or any one else could get it with a small pay ment down & keep it a few years & half spray the way their orchards are in 3 or 4 years you could have it back & nothing on it. The party will come along that has the money yet and willing to pay for it. Think of it Mr. Wunsch is paying $75 rent for the little log cabin for Henry & they don't work half of the time. He will wake up some day & see for himself.

Today is Sun. but Jos. is working on the spraying in order to have it O.K. last Fall he cleaned it well & stored all parts so it would not be eaten out from old spray material.

The people who live in the Helfrich house are only renters not bought. About two weeks ago the house Archie was living in caught on fire & burned to the ground & nearly every thing they owned went with it It burned between three & four o'clock in the morning they blame it to a mouse chewing a match as the first started in an up stairs room next to where the little boy was sleeping they got him out just in time & no more.

Mr Scoefield changed his mind about the Knagg's place so Curtis Gillmore bought it for $1,200 Jos. could have had it for 1,000 but didn't want it. We may have the opportunity to sell ours so didn't want the other. Altho' I think we can make a good home out of it some time.

Did you ever locate the towels that you couldn't find last Summer? You mentioned it to me & I have intended to ask in one of my letters & have always forgotten to. I don't think any one ever molested any thing out in the shed so thot' you might have packed them in the wrong place & took them with your instead of leaving them here. I do just such things myself.

I had a dream about you last night & thot' we were visiting you & you told me Alberta wasn't coming. And you was trying to tell me about some nice cherries you had set & I didn't know about I could see them so plain but it turned out to be only a dream after all.

Must get dinner now so must close with love Essie. K

$[2.40 on hand]

 2.25 for pulley
  .10 rivets for harness
  .40 gasline
 ____
 2.75 exp. /$2.40 on hand
 2.75
 2.40

______

  .35 you owe me.

Monday a.m.

P.S. Mr Eiman had to sell his cherries for less than he could have gotten last Summer. People won't buy those high priced cherries. When I was up there as few weeks ago I asked him about it. He said he was game to lose once in a while. He held for $14 a doz. but lost out on it.

Mrs. J.D. Marshall & I were visiting the other day & she said Mr Hazrock is offering .6[cents] per pound now & money down to any one that wishes to borrow money on their crop.

Must close as Roger wants to go to school

Love E.K.