Written in 1959, this author is an amazing storyteller. It is a memoir, a coming of age story, an era in life which transitions between the open wild, wild west frontier to the influx of homesteaders and their marked off property lines of barbed wire fencing.

In 1910, Hal was 10 years old when his father decided he wanted to take up a homestead on 320 acres of government owned grassland, considered wasteland, or "unsalable desert", in northeastern Colorado, 30 miles south of the Platte valley town of Brush in Morgan County, and 15 miles to the closest village of Gary, which just had a Post Office and a small grocer carrying a few basic items. It was land given as a railroad promotion in 1910 to depression-era farmers of 1907 who believed they could farm the land for five years and claim ownership without starving to death. Hal's father accepted the challenge, and after the five years, the land was theirs.

He helped his dad build their first house ever...just a 14 by 20 foot long rectangle, and dig a well for water. Then, they sent for his mother back home in Nebraska to begin their life on the new Colorado frontier...and so the adventure begins. ( )

This is the first book of Borland's childhood memoirs. The second book is Country Editor's Boy.
Borland's father was a newspaper editor in Nebraska. He had been raised on farms. His father and grandfathers were farmers. In his 30's he decided he wanted to try his hand at farming and homesteading. He moved his young wife and their 9 year old son, Hal, to the just opened Colorado frontier. Set in the years 1910-1913, Borland describes how he and his father, in the spring of 1910, built their one room home, their barn, dug their well and fenced and planted their fields. Most of their time is taken up with chores to get the farm settled and productive so that they can survive winter. A sheep rancher used pastures near their homestead for grazing his sheep in the summer. Hal is given a gift of one of the sheep dogs puppies. Lucky for him, because Hal will be the only child on this section of the Colorado frontier for nearly two years. In his free time Hal, and his dog, explore the frontier, meeting their few neighbors and studying the local wildlife. Hal comes to know the ways of the local prairie dogs, the scheming of the badgers, the wars of the ants in their tall pillars and the slow struggle of the dung beetles. Things go well the first summer and winter and spring starts on a good note. Then the locusts come and eat up the entire county. Hals father is forced to go into town and take a job at the local newspaper. Hal and his mother spend a blizzard filled winter alone in their one room home, eating beans and drinking grain "coffee", and having to dig a tunnel daily to the barn to feed and water the livestock. Mr Borland returns with the spring thaw. They start plowing and planting the new crop. Before the planting is completed Mr Borland takes ill. He has to be rushed to the hospital in town, many hours away. Hal is left alone at home for 2 days. He finishes the planting. His father has to stay in the hospital for a month. When released he remains in town, working at the newspaper in order to pay the doctor bills. During this time a horrible accident happens and the family lose both their horses and one of their two grown cows. Mrs Borland is forced to hitch a ride to town to buy the only horse the family can afford. She gets an old coach horse who has never worked on a farm. Hal and his mother, and the coach horse, manage to harvest that years crop and get everything ready for the winter. When Mr Borland returns to the homestead he is very dejected. He feels guilty that his wife and son have worked so hard and look half starved. He talks about giving up and returning to Nebraska. They assure him that they love living and working there and do not want to leave. They live on the homestead for another year. Mr Borland decides that the life of farming is not for him. The family moves to a just being settled town elsewhere in Colorado. Mr Borland starts a newspaper there and teaches Hal the trade.
This is a great book, full of detailed descriptions and lovely prose. You can tell how much Hal Borland loved being a child on the Colorado frontier. Highly recommended. ( )

Story of 3 years of his boyhood moving from Nebraska to Colorado to homestead on plains - about 1910-13. Beautifully written, informative novel-like memoir. Mostly wonderful, strong, plain, pioneer types with a couple of toughies and one evil sadist in the mix. Shall read again! ( )

"But even the yucca and the sagebrush and greasewood and the cactus were lost in the vastness of grass. The highest sagebrush weren’t as high as the hubs of the front wheels of the wagon. “Good soil,” Father said."


Long celebrated as a beautiful memoir about life in a simpler time, this is a true account from the author’s childhood moving to the eastern plains in 1910. It is a good example of Colorado pioneer life and the strong determination to succeed in those times.

This book, and the sequel Country Editor's Boy are what I call "keepers". Even books I like enough to rate 4 or 4 1/2 stars I don't keep - I either pass them on to someone I think will like them, or donate back to the thrift shop, but these two books I know I will want to re-read. ( )