EIF-A_Lasting Contributions

The land
will endure
BY DALE KILBURG
EASTERN IOWA FARMER
I
grew up just south of Maquoketa.
In l946 my parents had moved
from the hill country around
Slabtown, southeast of Springbrook,
to what we called the “level,”
that very different flat prairie land
that ran south into Clinton County.
We often visited the hills, however,
and my mother often warned my
brother and me to watch out for snakes,
rattlesnakes in particular. We actually
saw very few, but we grew up with lots
of stories.
Yes, even back then rattlesnake stories
had a longer shelf life than actual
rattlesnakes. Shorty and Johnny Crowley,
two bachelor brothers who lived in
Slabtown, once gave me a set of three
snake rattles, and told of waking up
once to find a rattlesnake curled up on
their front porch in the early morning
sunshine.
My father, Albert, once rented the
Crowley pasture, and as he walked it on
a very hot day just before a rain he ran
across a whole host of different kinds
of snakes. On the way back he stepped
over a log with a rattlesnake on the
other side. Albert and Bob Meyer once
helped make hay on the August Schroeder
place at the other end of Hell’s
Hollow, a mile-long hollow that ran
toward the Maquoketa River bottom.
In those days the hay loaders would
pick up snakes along with the hay in
the windrows and they would go into
the barn along with the hay, and the
snakes of every variety would crawl out
and hang from barn beams and rafters.
When Albert and Bob made hay there
after a rain on the Schroeder place
and worked together to spread out the
AFTER
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98 EASTERN IOWA FARMER | SPRING 2024 eifarmer.com