Whitewater News & Opinion for Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Montana’s own Senator Jon Tester was honored on the TV show “The View”. It is my favorite daytime TV show.

Congratulations to our Whitewater Penguins and Mavericks on their recent wins in volleyball.

Most farmers are through combining. Harvest is a lot easier than when I was growing up. Now they have huge combines and modern machinery.

Here’s a chapter from by book “Hills Beyond Whitewater Creek”.

Chapter 38. Bringing in the Sheaves

“Sheaves” are of course, bundles of freshly harvested grain sheaves. But when I was about five, I thought sheaves were sheep, probably from singing that wonderful old hymn titled “Bringing in the Sheaves” in Sunday School and connecting it with Jesus in bringing in his sheep, (people).

Anyway, in the 1940’s as now, an important part of our livelihood was the harvesting of wheat and oats. First, the grain had to be cut with a mower, then the sheaves gathered, tied, stacked in small mounds to dry before threshing. This process was called “shocking”. This was a very important family affair, and I went along as a preschooler. I was not much help and began chasing birds and discovered mice running out of the shocks. By some miracle, I caught a baby field mouse, tiny and soft, but he was probably terrified, because he bit me so hard, blood ran from my finger! I ran to my mother screaming “Mom, help me I’m bleeding to death.” She made me promise “that you’ll never touch another mouse, due to the threat of disease.” I didn’t understand all this, all I wanted was a cuddly pet.

The moral of the story, don’t play with a mouse!