My Sheepherder days at Kimama

We moved to Kimama which is between Ditrich and Minidoka, Idaho. Dad was Section Foreman
there . I went to School in a one room school house where all the grades were taught by one teacher . my occupation there was chasing the bands of sheep to get all the bum lambs .in those days kimama had a railroad water tank where the band of sheep were watered if mom or dad could not find me . they would go to the nearest sheep wagon Before we moved back to Hammett , I had my total of 41 sheep .one of the sheep was a buck who did not like mother and would butt her in the behind everytime she got in his sight . all i ever heard was "Donnie, if you dont make that sheep behave , your going to be eating him for supper "in those day their was a lot of sheepherders with big bands of sheep sometime numbering in the 10,000 sheep in a band . at Kiamama there was two section Gangs and i Signal Maintainer . Just across the Railroad track was the abandon prison camp for the japanese held durring world war II

The Line Change on Medbury Hill

The Original Oregon Short Line was Built in 1883 between
Hammett and Nampa , which includes the part that is marked in Blue,

The Line change was made in 1923 , and the Part that is colored in blue was abandon . Both Parts were called Medbury Hill .

Stories about "Top of Medury"

Red square # 1 - This is where an artisian well was , The railroad had bult a water tank over it
and when they made the Line change in 1926 , They capped to Well , but you could turn it on by turning a wheel that was on top of the Pipe comming out of the Ground , it was a four inche pipe , so it was a nice place for a bath . the water was real warm about 75 degrees .

Red Square #2 - This is a story that have have not told to many people , it was probaly my Dumest mistake that i have ever made , any way the story goes on as follows. They was a couple of kids that i used to run around with in Hammett , They were called the Mix twins , i dont even remember there names now . But anyway one day we all decided that we was going to catch a horse , as in this area they were always a herd of wild horses , because they had two horses with them we thought it would be a snap . We was riding bare back , but we did have some rope with us , anyway we figured out that we would have to tie the rope to something
so ,i tied it around my middle . To make the story short , Yes ,we did round up the horses in the box canyon, yes ,i did lasso a horse , But the dang horse took off and dragged me for a quarter
of a mile , we i went home mom asked me what happened , I told her i Just fell off the Horse.
Any way after that I decided that i did not want to be a cowboy ///

On the red square No 1. The Indians used to make arrow head here , evey time the wind used to blow pretty hard we would go out and search for arrow heads , we found a lot of spear

and arrow heads .

On the red square no.2 is where i found a broken calvary sword and a calvary pistol , did not find no remains ,but i often wonder what happened here .

on the white square no.3 , through this area there were a lot of pretty big railroad cement culverts , and in looking here was a lot of people signiture and dates where they had written , the dates varied between 1885 and 1900

I was Given a old Model T Roadster when i was even years old ,i Loved going on the old grade

and playing like i was a train , and many the day that i spent on this old grade . I just loved this

place .

My first day at school

My mother took me to school on my first day in mountain home ,Idaho , after she left and after thinking about school , I had decided that school was for the Birds, and so i just got up and quitly
exited the school and Walked home which was about three miles , when I got home,Mother said
what do you think your doing and to my dismay , marched me back to school.
and this was the only day of playing Hookey in my life , but i thought it was kind of fun untill Mom marched me back to school .

The Washing Machine Episode

When i was about four years old, My mother was doing the weekly washing in a Maytag Gasoline washing machine, we always used to have to put the washer next to a door may so that we could put the exhust pipe outside . it realy made a lot of noise . anyway , mom left the room
for a minute and being the sweet little helper that i was , i decided that I would help do the washing , so i started to put the clothes through the wringer , but the wringer grabbed my hand and pulled my arm clear up to the shoulder ,mother hearing the ruckus came running in and hit
the quick release and then when my arm was free , I fainted .
Lession - Dont let your children help with gasoline washer , well be we dont have them anymore .