6. Economic Challenges and Opportunities: Meeting Barbara and the Lives and Enterprises That Ensued:

We began making plans for a sprinkler system on the south 40. Something had to be done to make the irrigation manageable.  Electricity was the most desirable but the cost of several thousand dollars was out of the question at the time. We had a small tractor, but what we needed was a pump that we could operate with the equipment we had and of course 1320 feet of pipe. We got a crop that year but it was nothing to brag about.  Of course the bills began to mount up and we were unable to make the loan payment on time as it came due early the next year.  The humiliation of having to ask for an extension was devastating but it was done and the payment finally made.  

Incentive for looking for a more stable income was prominent.  I found the opportunity in  the Bureau of Land Management.  Through my brother Jim I found that BLM would hire teachers during the summer months for fire fighting crews. This along with some remodeling jobs made good summer income, but it left Barbara in charge of the farm and her mother disapproved of how much work she had to do.  The extra income was good enough however, that we sold the troublesome south 40 and that took some of the load off Barbara’s shoulders. Kiva’s birth on November 4, 1963, added another cherished child to the family, and family was always of prime importance in Barbara’s life.  The birth was on a Monday, of course I was teaching at Hillside Jr. High School and  Barbara had to get herself to the hospital. She solicited help from a neighbor lady once again. The family now had five children and the youngest had to put up with four tutors in the form of older siblings. Barbara’s workload was affected again when I received a National Science Foundation grant to attend a summer program on The Atmosphere and Weather.  Barbara decided that the family needed a vacation, so she loaded everyone in the car and drove to Bellingham, Washington, at the end of summer program.  An interesting antidote of that trip, the family could smell this strange odor as they approached the coast. No one felt that the ocean should have that kind of smell, and upon inspection, they found one of Kiva’s dirty diapers pushed under the seat! 

My Hillside teaching assignment was all science at this time and I had the opportunity to introduce The National Science Foundation’s Earth Science Curriculum Project to my 9th grade class.  This was a great program and fun to teach. It combined  the scientific method, the history of science, and up-to-date theories of Chemistry and Physics as they applied  to Earth  Science.

Frank