Mostly True Tales a complete hit

If you grew up on a farm or just wished you had, this book will entertain you and your children and grandchildren. There’s a ring of truth to the stories that I identify with as a boy just a few years younger than Donnie growing up on a Cedar County farm.

Donnie Levi practiced telling all the tales in his book as bedtime stories requested by his daughters over the years. “Daddy, tell us another Donnie Denim story.” It as their idea to change the family name from Levi to Denim.

There’s plenty of excitement in the pages but not enough to scare small children. Like the time a team of horses was startled by a big horse fly and ran off with Donnie alone in the rubber-tired wagon bouncing Donnie all over the bed of the wagon and finally throwing him out scraped and bruised but without major injuries.

Donnie noticed that one of the turkey hens was missing and Gram Ma Denim encouraged him to find where she had hidden her nest.  The tom turkey would have flogged Donnie so Donnie had to hatch a plan to outsmart him.

The biggest bullfrog on Turkey Creek lived under the tangled roots of a sycamore tree. Donnie enlisted the aid of a wise old neighbor to find a way to catch the frog in the daytime on his cane pole.

Gram Pa Denim didn’t own a tractor or a pickup.  Each week, Gram Pa listened to a couple of programs on a battery powered radio.

Donnie got to help cut wheat with a binder and shock the bundles just before the advent of the combine (combine means binder and threshing machine). He got to witness neighbors throwing bundles of wheat into the threshing machine so it could extract the wheat.

Donnie got to eat with the threshing crew.

Donnie was there when Sac Osage Rural Electric installed the first light pole on the Denim property and saw one of his grandparents flip the switch to turn on the electric lights in the house and in the barn.

The book is realistic and fun. I just about couldn’t wait when a wise old neighbor took Donnie fishing for the biggest fish in Turkey Creek.

Your children and grandchildren will enjoy getting a farm education from Mostly True Tales: Life on the Farm in the mid-1900s.

It’s available at Evans Drugs for $15. Just set aside a little time to read the book to your young ‘uns. You and they will be glad you did.

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