10-11-06

The sprawling spread of sandy, loamy soil that the fourteen-year-old father of them all, Wesley Calvin Redfearn, settled was the home of the Redfearn family. He never failed to take his eye off the land until his large family of five boys and two girls had reached a productive state for supplying the large family with essentials.

If Wesley Calvin Redfearn, the fourteen-year-old teenager, could make the trip back today, he would see many of the agricultural implements that he used back just after the Civil War. He would see that the sandy farm looks like the Smithsonian Institute. There is a huge display of old plows, hay balers, and tractors that were used by Wesley Redfearn which are still in existence. There was no doubt of the family blacksmith shop, because with a blacksmith shop on the farm, they were able to quickly repair or replace broken parts for the equipment during that period.

I was dumbfounded to observe the large lineup of antiques when Bobby Redfearn drove me by the old equipment. And sure enough, there was an old John Deere hay baler that was operated by a one cylinder engine. Bobby said, "Bouncer, I’ll bet you have seen that baler, or one like it." I commented that my job around the hay baler as the engine would pop around and then a large horse head apparatus would chug along and mash the hay down into the hay box and then a large wooden block designed to poke the wire down through the hay bale. The tyer (a person who followed the baler) would tie the wire. The bales were long oblong bales of hay that weighed about 60 to 100 pounds. It generally required 20 to 40 men working hard to process the hay field.

Someone came by the other day and wanted to know what I was going to be writing about next. I told them that I was going to continue writing about the Redfearn family. He replied very rapidly, "you won’t ever get through with the Redfearn’s, because there are too many for one story."

One such visitor was Charles Floyd, a former citizen of Aubrey. He currently lives in Ruidoso, New Mexico. He said that his office in Ruidoso is across the street from Jane Clark, who formerly owned Winterhaven Ranch some 15 to 20 years ago.

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