There was a hog pen on the north side of the barn, with sheds to protect the hogs from the summer heat and the winter cold. The horse lots and cow lots were on the south side of the barn, with sheds to shelter the stock. Feed troughs were under the sheds and feed was stored in the big barn.
I remember the hill west of the barn about a hundred yards. It wasn't a steep hill—just a gentle rise in the land. But it was high enough to get up on and see Uncle Andrew's house and Grandma's house. I couldn't see Grandma's house as good as I could Uncle Andrew's because hers had so many big trees all around it.
I remember we had a syrup mill too, up on the slope northwest of the barn. We had a horse that would go round and round and make the big iron rollers squeeze the juice out of the cane stalks. The juice would run down a spout and we would catch it in buckets. Then Mama would cook the juice in a big pan over a fire out there in the pasture.
Of course Frank and Susie and Earl would all help keep the fire going and help Papa keep putting cane stalks through the big rollers. Joel would help a little bit, but I was just in the way. And Albert had to be looked after too.
Sometimes the cows and horses would come and try to eat the cane and we had to put them in pens by the barn. When we finished squeezing the juice out, we would let them all come out of the pen and eat the stalks we didn't want any more.
When we got the juice cooked enough it was good ribbon cane syrup and we would put it in big jugs and take it down in the cellar. But not all of it. We would take some of it in the kitchen to eat.
I remember a big pile of wood and lots of mesquite posts. They were southwest of the barn on the slope of the hill. The wind had been blowing and lots of sand had drifted up in piles by the woodpile. Some of our plows and wagons were out there too by the woodpile. The posts were leaning up against big trees.
Just north of the hog pen was our stack lot with big stacks of bundled feed in it. And when I think of the stack lot, I think of a little black horse we had named Keno, because all too often Old Keno was in the stack lot without an invitation. He was not a big work horse, yet he could hold his own when hitched to a cultivator. And he could outdo all the others at acrobatics.
Yes, Old Keno was a fence jumper. We often found him in the corn patch or maize patch, what time he wasn't in the stack lot. That's probably the reason I always remember him as being fat and having a shiny coat; he got more than his share of goodies to eat.
Anyway, one time I remember seeing Old Keno in the stack lot when we were coming home from church or from Uncle Andrew's. We drove up from the west and as we came over the rise west of the barn, there he was, in the stack lot again.