Tales from Tug Fork

by Tom Hare

We bought our farm from Tom Hare and Judie Hansen. Tom still lives up the road and has become a great friend. He is first class raconteur and and teller of stories and we are happy to integrate him into telling some of the history of this plot of land we live on now. Below are the first installments in his Tales from Tug Fork series, which we intend to publish as a book sometime this year. We will be updating these from time to time with new photos as they are discovered.

Chapter 1: BEcoming Farmers

Just bought the farm 1992, now we are farmers. Not quite!

Growing up in Northern Illinois, I was always looking for money. Never having an allowance, I would look for any way to make money. I mowed grass for people, I had several paper routes, and I worked for farmers making hay at .50 cents an hour. At 16 years old, my first real job was helping a farmer milk his cows and drive his tractors doing field jobs. That job paid $25.00 a week, which was more money than I had ever made before.

Chapter 4: JUST SOME STORIES from our farm stay & hosting guests

Our very first guests were from Kansas city, arriving Friday afternoon. I forget what month. I was still working on the cabin; this time from the beginning going back five years. Judie comes over from the farm house and tells me they should be here any minute, Judie, thinking I didn’t hear her bends down and shakes my shoulders and tells me again. Here I am on my knees, tools all over the porch the only thing I could do is gather everything up put them in my  tractor buckett and haul them away.

CHAPTER 7: The Dangers of Living in Parasdise

Living in a beautiful part of the world does have its bad points and there are many I know personally. The first might sound silly, but never walk in the woods on a windy day as mother nature is just pruning its woodlands. This means dead branches falling including dead trees that were killed by incets, wood rot, and fungus of different kinds. There are names for these falling things —  they are called widow makers. Just ask any logger or their widow.

chapter 2: Becoming Rock Farmers

After selling that 40 ton pile of rocks and boulders we started thinking there might be some money to be made here. I asked the first realtor if there were any rocks on the farm or in the fields. In northern Illinois farm fields sometimes you find glacier rock here and there and any kind of rocks are a nuisance to the farmers. The realtor said she didn't think so but she didn't show us the farm that day so how were we to know. Lucky for us there were rock everywhere and now we were thinking only $$$$ signs to truly help us to living off the land.

Chapter 5: rebuilding a Vintage car in a barn

This story starts in 1959 - my junior year in high school. I started buying cars at 14 years of age with my fathers help. He didn't help me with the money part, but he did help getting and dragging them home, something I do today in 2023. My first car was a 1929 Ford model A for $15 dollars. Next was a 1924 model T Ford for $100 dollars. Then my first 1940 Ford, a two door.  I can't remember the price. Then came a 1940 Ford pickup for $150.

Chapter 8: WHERE I LIVE & THE MATHIS CLAN

As I mentioned earlier, living on the back side of Doggett Mountain (upper Spring Creek) feels like being in another country. During our travels to find a farm, my wife Judy and I encountered many interesting places. One of them reminded me of Willie Nelson's 1983 song "City of New Orleans," particularly the second verse about "graveyards of rusty automobiles."

CHAPTER 3: From rock farmers to wood millers

Learning how to use the new saw mill was not easy. The mill was built in Portland Oregon for the purpose of dropping into jungles around the world by helicopter. The mill was powered by a VW beetle motor, had no starter or battery, and just a gas can and a rope to wrap around the front pulley to start it. Just like the first lawn mowers. After some time the saw mill and Tom were in tune and the sawdust and chips started flying.

CHAPTER 6: FARM HANDS & FARM HELP, THE GOOD & BAD

Just to get into the vacation cabin business Judie and I soon found out we needed a computer and be connected to the world wide net. What that meant we did not really know but we were about to find out how powerful the NET was. Our first computer cost us $1200. I knew more than Judie about this new gadget — I knew it needed to be plugged into a wall 110 volt wall receptacle and that was about it for the two of us.

We soon found out Briar Rose Farm needed a farm hand but we were not sure how we would we find them.