This is a picture of the home where I grew up. It is on what is now called 330th St. and approximately 4 and 1/2 mile west of Conrad. The homestead has been, even at the time of this picture, almost completely dismantled; the round grain bins were not part of the farm; and now there is only a driveway. If you had a picture from the fifties I would be forced to pay such a price for a picture; but not for a picture that saddens me to see. Although it was never a pretty farm by today's standards, it was a true functional family farm. There were vegetable gardens, an asparagus patch (that produced inch diameter asparagus), a large grove of trees on the west and north sides, corn crib, windmill, pigeon houses, chicken houses, hog houses, farrowing houses, a machine shed in the grove, A seed house (old rail car) where we store seeds for next year to run through a fanning mill before planting them, an apple orchard, a cherry tree, walnut trees, raspberry patches and above all two wonderful parents who provided gave us a wonderful childhood and the of experiences of growing up and working on a farm. The barn shown where we shield cattle from the winter storm and milked the cows for the milk to separate for the cream for coffee or ice cream or to sell to the creamery, a hay mow to store the winters supply of hay and to play in or sit at our elevated perch in the doorway to stare across the countryside and absorb the summer wind blowing in, the horse stalls where we kept the work horses and later became hog pens for farrowing or for keeping my 4H calves to get them ready for the county fair. Sometimes you don't appreciate things until they are gone. If it were still the way I remember, I would be quite jealous of those that lived there now. Way too many farms like the one I describe are gone now. Today so many are trying to return to that lifestyle that my brother and sisters and I luckily grew up with. Then, the small family farm did not meet the standard for money, progress, greed and possession of things we really did not need, but had to have.