Narratives of the Nevards continued

In 1933 the Reverend Cleesby came to assist Reverend Badham.
In November of 1933 a steer got into a storage well that we had dug. The only way to get him out was with a rope around his neck which, unfortunately, strangled the steer. Bill skinned it. The same thing happened some years later but that time Bill and Uncle Horrie chopped a trench in the frozen soil and got the steer out. Wet and thoroughly chilled, but ok. That year of 1933 we had all bull calves born. Bill named them, Hero, Zero, Nero, Gay Caballero and Qinque.
On the night of August 17, 1934 the worst wind storm we had ever experienced occurred. Our threshing separator blew over and was rendered useless. Our stable was pushed out of plumb. Two haystacks had their tops blown off. An open bin on a rise was flattened. One wall was scattered for a quarter mile to the East. The wind came from the West. Bob Miller, six miles to the West of us, also lost his granaries, two in number. This was a dry year. We only dug ten pails of potatoes. The following year we dug 37 bags which was , I think, our best year ever.
Dad put new roofing on the chicken house. We called this building "the Jew shack" It had been on Uncle Arthur's South quarter and Mr. Fastofsky had originally homesteaded that quarter. He was of the Jewish faith. Bill also referred to it as "the Israelite's cottage".
In July of 1935 the Reverend Hillary came as our rector and held services at Headlands. On Sunday, September 17th Bill and I took cousin Roy to St. Michael's Church in Lipton for confirmation.
Down through the years the Nevard family had an assortment of dogs and cats. Rustler had a family of kittens. One was Little Vengeance, another was Sunflower . Possibly a ginger cat or tortoise shell. Bill named them all. I believe he got the names from Treasure Island, a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. A story that Bill was very fond of. There were also two dogs, Bud and Snookums. Uncle Arthur had Bud and we had Snookums. We may have got them from Hobetzeders . Their rather short lives were ended by getting poisoned from a carcass on the way home from town.
Uncle Arthur also had a dog named 'Pants" . He got his name in the following manner. When he was a pup he was fond of grabbing and pulling on pants legs. Roy was just learning to talk and he said "Pants!" in disapproval. Uncle Arthur heard this and was highly amused. From then on he called the dog Pants. On December 21, 1935 Bill recorded: "Pants went to the happy hunting ground". And the following March, another obituary notice, "Sad demise of the venerable Grip from an attack by an unknown assailant. Grip had been Uncle Horrie's dog.
Christmas day of 1936 was spent at our home with the usual family gathering. That year we had a Christmas pudding made by Grandmother Nevard in England who was well up in her eighties at the time. She was the oldest resident living in the village of Lexden at the time.