Got Milk Cans And Memories?

Several years ago, after my Grandpa and Grandma Peterson had both died, I was feeling a little nostalgic about them and longed to have something that belonged to them.  I just wanted something that was uniquely them.  Now, my grandparents were not wealthy people.  They didn't live in a big house, drive fancy cars, or travel the world wearing the finest clothes or jewelry.   Quite the opposite, they lived humbly, worked hard until they couldn't anymore, planted and bottled their veggies out of their own garden, and loved their family more than anything.

G and G's home in Monroe Utah

Hay fields in the winter time, looking towards the "Red Hill" and the Cemetery

Grandpa worked outside his whole life, planting crops and working his farm.  Many years before I was even born, he raised milk cows.  During this time, he collected several large metal milk cans for storing the milk in so it could be transported to the dairy.  Grandpa's milk can number was A-122.  All of his cans were marked with that number so that the dairy would know what milk was his and who to return the cans to.

I'm not sure exactly when, but at some point he got out of the milk business and focused on planting hay and alfalfa crops instead.  That is all I remember him growing in his fields but when my dad was a teenager, he apparently grew sugar beets and he and his 7 siblings all helped out.

G and G raised 8 kids on the farm.  (Five boys, Three girls)

I have very fond memories of traveling from California every summer to spend several days at the farm.  I loved it then and I still love it now.  There is a little slice of Heaven in that valley that I cannot explain.  Maybe it's because I felt free to roam around with cousins, felt loved when Grandma would bake cookies for us, watch my Grandpa work so hard and come in the house kinda smelly, okay, a lot smelly (they only bathed on Saturday nights).  They always seemed to have a ripe watermelon ready to slice, ice cream in the freezer and they were always willing to take dinner up Monroe canyon for an evening with family.

Our kids love the farm almost as much as I do.

One day I was wandering around the farm, enjoying the memories that flooded my mind, I thought of that stray dog who stayed in the crawl space under the house.  I thought of the many games of hide and seek that were played, the sweet memories of my uncles pushing me in the tall swing, climbing the hay stacks and the few cows I remember in the corrals. As I walked around their  house, I spotted two, old, rusted milk cans.  They were sitting in the old milking shed, covered with mud and the bottoms were filled with crank case oil that had been put there long after they were used for milk.  They looked beat up and worn but other than that, they seemed to be in fairly good shape.

Dave and I pulled them out, took them down to the local car wash and blasted them with hot soapy water.  Dave spent well over and hour pressure washing them but he never could get all of that grease out.  Since then, we've carted them around from house to house, where they sit on our front porch today.

I've looked at them many times and wondered what I should do with them.  Should I prime and paint them?  Should I put some decorative twigs or flowers in them?  Or should I just leave them alone?  My Grandpa's number (A122) is rustically painted on one of them.  It looks like Grandpa must have dipped his finger in blue paint and drawn his number on in a hurry.  I can't bring myself to cover that up with shiny new paint.  I like they way they look.  It's true to form coming from our farm.

Those two cans are all I have from the farm as far as tangible things, but I will always have my memories of a blessed childhood. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Peterson!