In the years following their purchase of the farm in Simons Valley, steady construction continued to add buildings to the farmstead. Lumber was cut from trees that were logged about 15 miles to the West. Tina recalls that her parents and some of the boys would pack food for a week and make the trek to the bushland for their logging “expedition”.

     Henry writes,

“The first year we were on the farm we had a real heavy crop, but it was killed in an early frost. All the grain had to be cut and put into bundles and hauled to Burns in Calgary, for feed. This was a big job, and my brothers spent all winter doing this. They would load it up early in the morning and it would be late in the evening before they came home again. This was our only income that year, although anyone in our family who had a job elsewhere gave their earnings to my parents.”

     Their close quarters became even “closer” in 1929, when they were unexpectedly joined by Eitzen relatives from the USSR – nephews and nieces of Maria Loewen. They were among the few, gathered in Moscow in the fall of 1929, who managed to “escape”. They had left parents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts behind in Moscow, whose lives were forever changed for the worse. These newly arrived relatives stayed with the Loewens until they were able to find employment. Abraham dispatched some to the west to work on roads, however, they quickly found work on other farms, and consequently, the overcrowding issue was brief.

     With the onset of the Depression years, farming became even more challenging. Not being able to afford to hire a truck (1932) to haul cattle to Calgary, Abe and Henry, and on some occasions, Daniel, herded them to market. Abe drove the wagon ahead of the herd and Henry followed on foot. It was a two-day job, stopping for night on a farmer’s place outside Calgary City limits, and then resuming the drive the next morning. The closer they came to the slaughterhouse, the larger the herd became as other farmers joined the drive with their cattle. They drove their 26 head of cattle down Centre Street to 16th Avenue, and then east to Edmonton Trail, past the General Hospital to the Burns Plant. At that time, the best price for cattle was 4 cents per pound; the Loewen cattle averaged about 2.5 cents per pound.