July 2, 1943

R 1 Box 100
Youncalla, Oregon
July 2, 1943

Dear family,

Again I say how time flies. I say that every once in a while when I realize that time is sliding by pretty swiftly. When you get this you will have celebrated the 4th and the corn will be layed by. I hope that you were able to get the cultivator fixed. I reckon that mom has a lot of jam canned by now too.
It just started to rain here but it may not be raining to-morrow. It can rain all night and clear up in the morning here or like it was today be clear as a bell all day and then rain at night. By the amount of rain you are getting you will probably have another good corn crop in spite of the late start it got. Some of you asked a few questions that I haven’t answered yet. I don’t think that the weather in general is as hot here as it is in Iowa. When we are working we usually sweat pretty good but cool off as soon as we stop. It feels hot in the sun and cool in the shade. We don’t have much wind here but there is usually a breeze on top of the ridges. So far we have been bothered very little by bugs and mosquitoes but there are lots of them down in the bottom of the canyons when there is a small creek there. They seem to be a small variety of mosquitoes and they hum around a lot but we don’t get many bits. The worst thing we have ran into so far was when the line ran through a swarm of bees. A couple of fellows got stung but I missed them. Then about 200 feet further we ran into a tree with a hornets’ nest in it one guy got stung by them. Then yesterday I was ahead of the rest and I stepped a few inches from a hornets’ nest that had fallen from a tree. I didn’t see it and felt something stick me in the left thigh. I though it was a rose bush and looked down at the hornets coming out like they do in the funny papers. But they didn’t chase me tho and my sting didn’t hurt bad only lasted a half hour or so but there is still a bump there. They sure must have long stingers to go clear through my overalls! About the rose bushes tho. We sometimes come to a pasture when it has been cleared and it will be quite well covered with large rose bushes almost as big as our old lilac bush used to be. They are something to chop through. We run into a black berry or raspberry patch once in a while. Sometimes they are ripe too.
They never have any bad snakes here. We see garter snakes and lots of lizards and snails.
Yea, Mom, sometimes we chop into the wrong tree but we can usually tell by the scar on the bark if it has been marked. It is kind of hard on them to chop into them but if they are a healthy tree they will grow over it again and if not we mark a new one. We have had a lot of trouble finding the old corners they are way off from where they should be. We are sure thet the first guy that surveyed it never ran all the lines or even set all the corners. He gets the corners in the wrong places sometimes he says that there in a creek running down the middle of a ridge so we know he never saw the place. Besides the records show he did this township in 16 days and that is impossible. They used to contract their surveying so that explains it and why it needs to be done over. Well, it is time for me to go to bed on my scented bed of fir boughs. Yes, I have to renew them about every 3 weeks the needles fall off by that time. I just carry in some more.
Love,
Bernard

P.S. Will you send (cutoff) drivers license (cut off)