WOW! Another week gone!

Well here it is Friday again! I can't believe how fast the time goes. All the more reason not to let it go to waste, I guess.
Remember when we were kids and summer lasted for ... oh.... about a year..?? Now I blink and summer is over! How does that work??
I remember summers being so much fun. We didn't come in unless we had to eat! We were either out riding our bikes, hiking a mountain, climbing a tree, playing some kind of game with a stick or some rocks or drawing on the road with chunks of drywall! Or possibly down the back building a pond to swim in with the geese or riding one of the cows with a piece of binder twine around her nose! The boys liked to ride the pigs around the pen until she'd dump them off in the muddy manure pit in the corner!! lol..
Then there was the time they built the tee pee in the back field behind the house! I don't quite remember who built it but Tom and Craig spent that summer in the tee pee I think. If I remember correctly, it was about 15 feet tall at the top of the sticks! They had so much fun with that thing. They had a little friend named Jason whose Mom was really prim and proper. Looking back I kinda wonder what she thought of all of that!?! LOLOL That was also the summer that the two of them had chicken pox. They were covered in them. It was summer (summers were so hot in Burton!!) so all they wore was their shorts (Unless we were going somewhere) and their little bellies were covered in pox!
I remember one summer my friend Darla and I must have been about 8. We crawled under the barn and found some old goose eggs, they were so old they were solid and completely green inside..... Well.... we had the GREATEST time smashing all those eggs! They made the coolest splattering, squishy noise! We threw them at the front of the old school bus down at the back of the property. When we finished we headed up to the house. Actually I think Mom called us for lunch. Well we didn't get much further than the front door before Mom started gagging!! I guess we had little splatters of rotten, green egg all over us and did we stink!!! She headed us off to the bathroom real quick. The clothes stunk so bad, she opened the window and out they went! I think we found that quite amusing. Then into the bath we went.
Something else Darla and I liked to do together was ride horses. One day we took our horses down to the gymkhana grounds. We were riding bareback for some reason. We liked to race our horses around the track. So off we went.
Darla also had a dog named Rex. Rex liked to chase things, amongst those things he like to chase were, cars....... and horses. So there I am way out in front of Darla with Rex hot on my heels. My horse Misty is not liking Rex biting at her heels, so she starts kicking her back feet out at him, with each stride of her gallop. Well one thing happens to the rider when one's horse starts to kick up her heels!! You guessed it! With each kick I bounced up her neck. Bounce-bounce-bounce-up her neck I went and down-down-down-went her head .... eventually she couldn't hold me up anymore and she dropped her head and over I went!! She was a very good and gentle horse. She jumped right over me without so much as touching me.... and off she went with Rex in close pursuit...... Next thing I see is Darla's horse's feet flying over me. She is stunned and pulls her horse to a stop to see if I'm okay. I was fine and told her to go catch my horse. I guess there were some younger kids playing there at the grounds. I could hear them coming, they were looking for me, so I quickly crawled into the tall grass in the centre of the track. They hunted all over for me. I could hear them talking.... "Where is she, where is she??? She must be dead!!!! Oh how I laughed. I laughed so hard (silently!) I was laying there in the tall grass shaking. Eventually they gave up and left me for dead.. :) After awhile Darla came back with my horse, I hopped back on and off we went to find some other adventure..... such as taking our horses swimming... but that will have to be for another time of 'Darla stories'.
Probably close to the same time I remember having the most memorable birthday party. It was the party of dreams!!! Mom set up a treasure hunt all over the property with clues and real, full size chocolate bars!!! One at each clue!!! Well that was a huge treat... chocolate bars were something that were few and far between! I'm not sure what was more exciting..... the chocolate... or the treasure hunt......?
Darla and I used to get ourselves into all kinds of things....we especially liked to bug my brothers... I think possibly Robbie the best.... cuz he would get really mad and chase us!! :)) One time I remember we were bugging and taunting him while he was chopping wood (yeah, yeah, I know... REAL smart). Well he kept telling us to get lost and of course that meant bug him more! Well he'd finally had all he was gonna take.....He flung that axe down and we were off! We flew across the road, jumped the ditch and into the park we ran. I'm not sure now whether we ran faster scared than he did mad.. but he didn't catch us. I think quite possibly, my running skills were very well developed. ;)
One scorching hot summer day, Danny, Paul and Robbie were laying out on the front deck.... actually I think all of us kids were there. Danny says " ooooh it's sooo hot..... It would be sooo nice to have a pitcher of cold water dumped on me right now!" WELLLLL HOW is one to pass up such an opportunity??? Here I could help out my brother. So I nonchalantly strolled into the kitchen and filled a jug with water. I very carefully and quietly opened the kitchen window.... lo and behold my brother, Danny happens to be laying right below. Now is my chance to help him out. Well I let go with the water and you should have heard the holler!! He was after me in a flash.... I took off like a bolt of lightning....and having my mind more on the danger behind me than on where I was going, I rammed my knee into the old kitchen sink (reno-ing the kitchen that spring/summer) on my way by, as I ran through the garage,. Well I wasn't doing very well in this race, so headed for my room. I dove onto my bed with Danny about a dozen steps behind me. Well when I hit the bed I realized that there was blood streaming down my leg from my run-in with the sink.. WELL what a stroke of luck this was! So I started to screach!! (not that my knee actually hurt) I guess when he saw the blood he took pity on me, because he didn't touch me!! Once more I got away!! I think I did alot of teasing my brothers, but didn't get many beatings from them for it.... somehow I managed to get away with it. Looking back I wonder about those times I got away.... why didn't' they get me later when I came back....? I think I musta had pretty nice brothers!! (well still have!!)
Another thing I remember when I was quite little, at about 31/2, was Mom bringing this sweet little baby home for us!! I remember Tom's little mini crib being at the end of the hallway... I can still picture it. I had my own live doll to play with!! When he was a bit older probably around 2 and potty trained, we (Winona and I) would put him in diapers and get a bottle to pretend he was our baby! None of my friends were lucky enough to have a real live baby to play house with. :) I think Tom enjoyed it as much as I did. :)) I don't think he was a whole lot smaller than I was at this point... I think he was at that cute and chubby stage by then!! :))
I also remember being kinda mean to Craig. I feel bad looking back on it now. I don't know why I did it......? kids.....can be so mean sometimes......He used to follow me down the road... I was probably taking off to Darla's without asking and didn't want to get caught!! I'd call back to him to go home and stop following me. I don't remember if I did that all the time or not but he was such a cute little guy.... Tom and Craig were the best of friends... they did everything together...... I remember people asking if they were twins...I'm not sure how they could have been, seeing as they're 21 months apart! I guess they look a lot alike.
We liked to play kick the can at night after dark. We'd play that over at the Scott's house most of the time. We weren't aloud to go in their house, but we could play outside. So we'd play that game for hours until we'd hear Mom calling us home. If we happened to get tired of playing that game we'd divert to 'Nicky Nicky Nine Doors'. We'd always ring the doorbell of a certain Mr.... hmmm i forget his name right now, but he lived across from Dale's. He'd be madder than a wet hen! He'd come out the door hollering and yelling and once or twice with a gun!!! I'm not sure if it was a pellet gun or a '22. Of course we could never tell our parents on him, because that meant we'd get in trouble!! I seem to remember little Craigy being the last kid over that squeaky fence into the park!! But the man never came across the road. It seems to me Andrew and Darla Kineshanko were usually in on these escapades!
We had friends in Burton who owned the Burton General Store. One day most of us kids and probably a bunch of neighbour kids, were playing there.... or probably just stopped in there on our way past on our bikes....Two or three of the older boys had some money and bought a creamsicle. They headed outside to lay on the grass in the hot sun and enjoy their treat. Well a couple minutes later out comes little Craig with a creamsicle in his hand and a smile on his face. Well there was a big uproar as we all tried to figure out who payed for Craig's creamsicle!?!?! I don't remember what he said, but he was too young to realize that you had to pay for a creamsicle. I think Mom ended up coming back and paying for it later.
When Paul was little he used to find all kinds of injured animals and bring them home and nurse them back to health. One time he brought home a robin. I remember watching him hold it while Mom pulled a worm out of it's skin...uugghhh... sounds disgusting, but he had a real soft spot for animals especially if they were hurt! Well he had the bird well on it's way back to health when I (unfortunately) decided to be helpful and feed it. I gave it a bunch of bread crumbs from Mom's nice home made bread. Well I guess I killed it with love....... Paul was so upset... I think I felt pretty bad about it too!
Another time Paul and Andrew climbed up somewhere and pulled two baby crows out of their nest. They took them home and raised them. Paul called his.... ummmm Ringo... I think it was.....Ringo made Dad's fuel tank his roost. It didn't take too long before it was painted white down the front of it. He stuck around for quite a long time but eventually disappeared. I don't remember what the other animals were but I think there were several different ones.
When I look back I think 'man we had alot of fun'. Our poor kids.... their lives are SO boring compared to ours! We used to make up games that involved throwing a stick down the road and everyone running... i don't remember the details at all, but we were creative with our play... I don't ever remember being bored.... well unless you count the times we had to do some weeding in the garden....;) Not that I often did that.... somehow I managed to get Darla to do that for me so we could go swimming!!!Well hope you enjoyed reminiscing with me (or reading as I do) as much as I enjoyed writing it down. Have a wonderful day!!
ta ta