CHERMEDEL FARM is the
COLTHOOD HOME OF "LARRY THE RED PONY"
"RINGO STARR" "ROCKING ELVIS"
"OLIVER TWIST" & "WILDFIRE"
At Chermedel Farm we are family oriented. The name came from the root names of our four daughters. From oldest to youngest they are Megan, Chelsea, Erica and finally Delta.
As a family we worked together and played together. We laughed together and we shed tears together. I grew up on this family farm with a younger sister.
In addition to our four daughters my wife Kathy brought four children into our farm setting. The transition from bachelorhood to a growing unit had some great memories that are truly priceless. I do feel sorry for the people that have no family.
Getting to the horse and pony business, we had POAs' at first and then transitioned into the Arabians. We expanded to two studs at this time. We then got a Welsh stud and sold one of the Arabian studs.
With the Welsh blood brought in we did not realize that we were getting into the hunter/jumper discipline of the pony world. They are so athletic and lovable to people.
I built a covered wagon for parades last year for the fourth of July parade, but could not get a team broke good enough to pull it. We are hoping to be in a situation to have this in the local fourth of July parade in 2008.
If you are in need of Hunter/Jumpers in Welsh, Welara or need other ponies or horses kindly check us out as I am sure we can fix you up with a friend for life.
We will also be taking in a very limited amount of outside mares during 2008 for our registered Welsh and Arabian studs.
This is the covered wagon we built last year This is the 4th of July Parade in Garnavillo, Iowa on the 4th. We have a 4 wheeler pulling it, because we didn't have any horses or ponies to pull it at the time. On the wagon is myself (Carl) left and on.the right is trainer Owen.
This is our family photo taken at our youngest ones graduation namely Delta. They are as follows:
Front Row Left to Right; Daughter #2; Chelsea, Daughter #4 Delta & Mother; Kathy
Back Row Left to Right Myself; Carl, Daughter #3; Erica, & Daughter #1 Megan.
The above photo shows Cincinnati with her mother Sugar Pie. Cincinnati is a full sister to :"Larry the Red Pony" who was sold at an All Arabian sale by Addis auctions.in Lexington, Kentucky. He was the first pony ever sold by Addis at an all Arabian & 1/2 Arabian sale.
Larry was the buzz of the whole sale. His trainer was our youngest daughter Delta. He was bomb proof. His young trainer could crawl under him, jump on from behind and do about anything she wanted to do. He was two years old when he was sold and brought $3,400 when the hammer finally fell.
The bidding on her brother was fast and furious and finally he was purchased by a top Arab breeder and taken to a new home for disadvantaged children.
Our latest upcoming trainer Owen with his father Bob. This photo was taken before his father's wedding. Owen appears to be quite happy with the adjustments being made to his attire. Bob is Kathy's youngest from a previous marriage.
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Above and below are other parade pictures from 4th of July parade in Garnavillo, Iowa..
CHERMEDEL STORIES.
Since our farm had been founded in 1852 there are many stories that come to my mind. Some are stories of myself, of my kids, wife, parents, my sister and a host of others.
God First!My roots go back to being founded a Christian family. So many incidents, life threatening situations and many other happenings have been the inspiration for this writing. Many are by the skin of the proverbial teeth. I can only say that if the Lord Jesus Christ had not had an active part in my life as well as in the lives of my parents, grandparents, great - grandparents great - great - grandparents, wife & children this farm would not still be here. I know in my own life that I would have been dead many, many times over if it were not for the miracles that had been performed in my life.
Quilting Frame
I am going to start off with a story of my mother and a neighbor lady.and a quilting frame that they would share. Now a quilting frame was four long narrow boards that were fastened together with cloth in the middle. These would take up a whole room and the neighbor ladies would sit around and hand stitch the different blocks onto the future bed linen. As they progressed they would keep wrapping the boards over and thus the quilt would be finished. This endeavor was big during the winter season.
The crux of this story is the fact that our neighbor Ione was moving the frame down to her place. Well, my mother and her put the frame through her car windows. One part was in front of Ione's neck and the other part was out the passenger window. As Ione was driving out our driveway my mother was trying to guide her.
Ione and her husband Harold were not very far from us. I would have to estimate that they were about 150-yards away. You could almost count the revolutions of the tire as she drove the car. My dad said it was like watching the Wright Bros. as they would maneuver their plane out on the runway.
My mother said, "I was signaling her to hurry up, but oh no she could not get any speed up."
Harold told us later that there was a gravel truck coming up the road and he motioned her to hurry up and turn in the yard. He figured she was going to wait for the truck to pass, which would have meant certain decapitation.
This was another place that the Lord had worked one of his miracles.
3 Miracles in One
I will never forget the birth of our youngest daughter Delta Starr. We almost lost her that early morning, as when we got to the hospital she was in extreme stress as the monitors showed. The doctors were very concerned as they were running tests and what not on Kathy as she had a very severe case of toxemia. (all toxemia is severe and life threatening) It wasn't long before there was no heartbeat according to the monitor and Kathy almost stroked out. I will never forget the look of terror on the one nurses face as her and several doctors were working on Delta's lifeless body, because she also had no respiration with no heartbeat. They managed to resuscitate her and get a heart beat. During the time they were working on her my eyes were opened to the fact of what abortion really is. I had never thought about it before; however I was changed forever.
Delta was promptly put in oxygen and Kathy was promptly administered to for her toxemia. It was getting past my milking time at home, so I went home to do chores. I gave the local veterinarian a call and told him what had transpired that morning and he told me that it was like toxemia in bovines. He asked what had happened to the cows when they had it. I told him that I had never had a cow or calf ever survive it. He figured it is about the same in the human world and that it was an infection that had no way to be treated. That no one had figured out where it come from or what triggered it. He said the only thing to do in this instance was probably prayer.
That is what I did that morning and guess what I brought Kathy and Delta both home the next morning. I cannot imagine life without any of them.
My Lord had performed 3 miracles that morning. Delta lived and Kathy lived are the first 2 miracles, and last but certainly not least was the fact that my eyes were completely opened up to what abortion really is.
Near Death in the Timber
This story goes back to when I was in my late teens or early 20's. Back in these days we had a lot of nice trees that were suitable for logs. My father would always ask me if I was going out to cut logs, which always occurred in the dead of winter. I would spend most winter afternoons cutting logs, brush, fence posts or whatever. In the morning after doing the milking and morning chores I would usually sharpen my chains on my chainsaw.
The day of our story is not too much different, except I did not have time in the morning to sharpen my saw. I ate dinner and about 12:30 P.M. I carried my saw, gas, oil and tool box that contained files, wrenches, extra chain & miscellaneous tools in it. On this early afternoon you could hear the snow crunch under your feet as you walked. That sound meant that it was very cold and this was the truth for that day as the mercury was hovering between -10 to -20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It never got above zero on that particular January day.
My dad wanted red oaks for logs that day. I came up to a beautiful red oak that had to go up at least 25 foot without a limb on him and the logs would be straight as an arrow. The saw started hard, which was not uncommon due to the extreme cold. I made my first cut and notched in where I figured I needed to be. There was no doubt that the saw was dull, which is a no - no in cutting any kind of wood. This is when people get hurt.
Needless to say this tree in less than a blink of an eye snapped like a rifle going off as it barber chaired up about 20 feet. It narrowly missed my head in doing that and there is no warning when they do this.
Now barber chair is an expression used by loggers and it means that before it can be cut the whole way through that the weight of the top causes the tree to fall and this great stress on the wood fibers causes it to split. So up above we have this huge split log hanging up with the top on the ground. The log is completely worthless by being split. It has the appearance of a barber chair with its complete high back. The stump is where the person sits and it has a high back with the rest of the log sitting up there. This happens a lot; however there are instances where the log splits off and falls to the ground, and usually kills or severely injures the cutter.
I cut two more red oaks that day with the same results. The last one I cut narrowly missed my chin by a quarter of an inch by my estimations.
I went back in after that last one and put my chainsaw back in the machine shed. This was about 2:30 in the afternoon. My dad wanted to know if I was done for the afternoon and I told him that I was.
When I told him what had happened he told me of the probable causes of this. He reiterated what I already knew that you can't cut with a dull saw, because oak is very susceptible to split and red oak is probably the worst and splits like walnuts do. The third point was the temperature and when the wood is froze like that it tends to split easier. The last point, that I did not know was that after you make your front cut for the direction you want the tree to fall you cut one side off first and keep cutting to the others side on your back cut. That way you don't allow the tree to have that broad area to split up on.
He suggested that I take a log chain and chain binder with me and bind the chain very tight, that would not allow the log to split up the tree. I did not try that and it was many years later before I could walk up to a walnut or oak to fell it. I had at that time lost all my nerve.
I knew on that day that my Lord was out there in the timber with me and had put his protective hand over me to shield me from death's mighty snare. I was truly blessed in having three separate miracles worked on me on that particular day. This told me that he had other plans for me yet. This goes to show you how truly blessed our family has been.
My Neighbor's
Francis Kister was my bachelor neighbor who lived with his parents Joe and Coletta. They were a great family that lived about a mile and a half down the road from me. They are all deceased now. I have nothing but fond memories of them as they were truly very good and kind neighbors. If you stopped down there you had to come in the house and have something to eat. They had lived through some of the worst times there were.
Joe and Coletta had lived with Joe's folks on the home farm. They had carved there farm literally out of the timber. They had a sawmill set up on the farm where they had home sawed all of their lumber and custom sawed for others. These were like most all others around honest, God fearing, hard working, simple folks. If you had a problem they had a problem. They would literally give you the clothes off their backs.
This particular story was the year of the famous April snow storm. I don't remember what year .it was, but it had gotten suddenly colder and the snow had started to fall on a Sunday afternoon. It continued the next day and well into the evening with very strong winds pushing it.
When it had quit all the roads were plugged and there was no way anyone could get out. Well I had talked to Francis on the phone and told him that we were out of room for milk storage. Well Francis and his dad had hauled canned milk for years.
About an hour and a half later here comes Francis up the road with his 350 diesel Farmall tractor pulling a gravity box. In front of our farmstead we have a large grove of pine trees. On the county road in front of our grove is a snowdrift that extends at least 10 feet tall. I tried to stop Francis from trying to get to our driveway, but was too late. He pulled that tractor up that grade and never spun down. The snow was packed like concrete from the wind. He got in our yard and unhooked the gravity box.
He told his dad about our predicament with having to dump milk. His dad and him loaded up this gravity box with milk cans and told Francis to bring them up to us. Frrancis told us if we needed more he could round up a lot more.
We told him we didn't need any more and that the snow would be gone before long. We thanked him and told him that we would bring the cans back as soon as we could.
He told us that there would be no big hurry.
On a Sunday afternoon my dad had me hook my D-17 Allis Chalmers tractor to the gravity box and take it back down to Joe, He also gave me a $20 bill and said I should make sure to give this to Joe and thank him very much.
I got down there with the wagon and milk cans and Joe was elated to see me. I got the $20 bill out of my pocket and tried to give this to Joe.
"No you don't!! If you make me take that money you're not my neighbor anymore. Don't ever stop in again Carl."
"But Joe, my dad told me to give this money to you. The money that we made by your milk cans was worth far more than what I am trying to give you."
"I was very glad to help you out and did not ever expect to be paid and will be insulted by pay."
We spent some more time visiting and his brother-in-law, Coletta's sister and niece drove in the yard.
I told Joe that I had probably better be getting home since he had company.
Joe told me, "No! They're not down here to see me any way."
I told Joe that I didn't want to interfere with his visiting time.
Needless to say I spent another hour and a half outside visiting with Joe. We then went in the house on Joe's insistence an played cards and ate a lunch.
This was the way everything was back then and I had the high honor of living through all of this.
I had mentioned how they had lived through some of the worst times. This was and is very true to this day. We are a spoiled society today and are liken to a spoiled brat banging and crying with our rattles. We think that we are all deserving of entitlements.
We can all take lessons from our parents and neighbors from the two preceding generations. They came home from World War II and after enduring a Great Depression before the war. The nation was united to both causes. Today everyone is wondering what can be done for us and are unwilling to put forth the effort to straighten this out. They fail to remember what JFK had said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for your country."
Francis parents both lived through the Great Depression, and that is what gave their being integrity, perseverance and total loyalty. I will continue with stories of them and other neighbors and friends at a later date.
Memorial Day
I can remember this incident as if it was yesterday and it is as if I have night crawlers crawling around in my spine. I was between 16 or 18 years old. My parents were up town for the Memorial Day parade and I was cutting hay.
This was a memorial day when I was in our back field cutting hay with a New Idea trailer type mower. I had my 400 case tractor on the mower. I broke the sickle cutting in pocket gopher mounds.
I took the sickle out and drove around the road,, which was a little over 2 miles. I had a new sickle at home.
I put the new sickle on the frame of the tractor and the other end was balanced between the operator's seat and the fender. (For those.who don't know, a sickle is a series of serrated blades that are razor sharp.) This sickle was mere inches from my leg.
I started up the dusty gravel road and when I came to the second curve in the road, which is quite severe to the left my tractor started to bounce from the washboard left in the road.
Needless to say the front of the sickle fell down to the road surface and the whole sickle flew past my body like a rocket.
It bent the sickle like a U bolt, but once again my Lord had sought to spare my life. He must have other plans for me.
A Tribute to a Man
By
Carl Stickfort
He may have been a leader of a foreign country, or he may have been foreign dignitary but he was neither; he was my neighbor. He taught young people how to live, he taught them respect for their elders or for their neighbors. He taught them how to drop everything they were doing to help someone else. He was like the men in Second hand Lion with his man speech. This is what the country needs now, men teaching young men how to live. I grew up with these kinds of kings in my corner. They may think I’m talking about them, but I’m talking about a conglomeration of men they do not fit one personality but they fit a multiple personalities.
We no longer have this type of leadership available in America. This take charge state of America is no longer a part of the American fiber. This neighbor seen the need and he filled it, whether it was to take the youth hunting or fishing, or spending quality time with them. He donated time where time was required and he made his little part of the world a little better place to live in.
I was fortunate enough to have known men like this for these were my neighbors. Some of these men have been gone for many years, and some have recently passed on to the great divide. They all had one thing in common, they always taught these boys to never take the easier way out of a situation. Many of the situations they got into would have meant to destroy life. These great men taught these boys to man up, and take their own responsibility in anything they did. Because these were my neighbors and friends, they were part of the Red, White and Blue, the colors that would never run. For I’ve known these men all my life and they were totally not like the leaders of today—whose main mission was to cut and run. When a man gave you his name of honor, you could take that to the bank. They were the type of people that kept their promises no matter how hard it was for them. They were the kind of people that would give you the shirt off of their backs if you needed it and be glad to do it. They never ask how much help you needed; they were always there never expecting or wanting payment in return. If you ever offered payment, most of them were greatly offended. They were trustworthy, honest, men of true virtue and have been greatly missed through the ages. No man has ever or will ever fill these great men’s shoes, they were kings among men; pillars of the community. He was MY neighbor.
Megan's Photographic Imagery
This is a photograph of Cincinnatti that Megan has enhanced. Megan took 2 years of photography and journalism at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is the oldest of Kathy and my daughters. She was also the driving specialist that broke ponies to drive. She had Wildfire dead broke before Delta broke him to ride. Megan is the joker of all the kids and has pulled some of the ultimate pranks. You will crack up when you read about some of these stories that I will write later.
10./10/08
This picture shows bovine and equine living in harmony in our timber pasture, THe scenery is a typical fall scene as our God puts together a spectacular color set every fall. This scene is priceless and brings back the memories of when I was a young boy growing up in his great creation that man is incapable of ever coming close to duplicating.
10/10/08
Lunch is being served as one of our crossbred cows feeds her young son his bottle. You can see more of our cows in this picture. They are really contented cows and the rate of gain on the calves is quite phenomenal. I liken this time of the year as the calm before the storm, because winter is coming on and that can be quite sever in precipitation and cold.
10/10/08
The following video is when our family went to the state fair to receive our prestegious Heritage Farm Award. This is awarded to farms that have been in the same farm family for 150 years or more. THe quality is not the best since our grandson Owen did the camera work..
New addition to the Stickfort Family-Christian Frank Allen Stickfort was born June 25th. He was named after his great great great grandpa and has his grandpa Carl's middle name.
new little pony trainer- sad because he wants to see the ponies
A happier version of the new pony trainer :)
