I Am From the Country

I am from the country. It wasn’t until I went to college and, for the first time, no one knew the small town where I came from, that I realized that a lot of people don’t really know what that means. When I say I am from the country, I don’t mean from a suburb, or even a suburb of a suburb where houses have bigger front and side lawns. I mean Im from a place that the houses aren’t at an equal distance from the road, there aren’t little square plots for each house and nothing is manicured.

My town doesn’t have a sidewalk. I remember when I was really little, mom would take us down the road to the old school so we could play on the playground. It was there that I learned how to ride my bike and rollerskate on the only pavement in town that wasn’t a road. The school wasn’t in use anymore so the long driveway and humble parking lot was perfect for kids wobbling on new wheels. On our walk there, we learned to walk in the dirt/stones along the road. There wasn’t a side walk until we got close to the school. I would always ask to cross the street so I could walk on the sidewalk. This sidewalk was probably four squares long and started from the road but ended in grass. It was a half of a sidewalk that didn’t go anywhere really… but it was so cool because hey… it was a sidewalk.

I grew up outside. When I didn’t have my nose buried in a book, I was living in trees, under trees (in forts built by the low branches), in creeks and in the woods. I was constantly up to something. There are two huge pine trees in our front yard, and the low lying branches interweaved to make the perfect fort. Outsiders couldn’t see in, and the people inside couldn’t see out. I brewed all sorts of things in that fort. Stews, mud pies and little mud cakes were my specialties. I read Little House of the Prairie front to back at least 15 times, so I was convinced that I could make a dye and color my clothes. My mom graciously supplied old white socks (that weren’t very white at that point) so I could soak them in big white buckets full of berries and flower pollen. Let’s just say that the off white socks usually just turned a nasty brown. No matter how long I let them soak, when I would haul my socks down to the creek to rinse them all, all of the “dye” floated away… leaving me with a stretched out, brown sock that smells funny.

When my friends came over to play, we spent hours in the fort. Kirsten was so much fun because out of all of my friends she loved being outside as much as I did, read the same books as I did and most importantly… was good at climbing trees. She always climbed higher than I did. Always. I had hammered a board across some branches up in the pine tree facing the road. We would sit on the little platform, swinging our legs and “spying” on the neighbors. We made elaborate meals out of leaves, mud, flowers, and berries. We would find big flat stones in the creek to make plates. When we actually decided to have an edible meal, we would steal from the garden. We poached green beans, cherry tomatoes, and lettuce. All warm from basking in the sun. Carrots were the best. They are a million times better than the store bought kind, and always tasted better when the dirt was scrubbed off of them in creek, instead of the sink instead. We would feast on our veggies, sitting on our homemade Sit-Upons, with the spoils of our garden raid spread across an overturned crate. The floor was always swept with pine branches to make a clean, hard dirt floor and there was always a cup with wild flowers in the middle of our “table”. Life was simpler then in-between those two big pine trees.

Weekends were for hikes outback. When I was little, I loved them! As I got older, they were more tedious. Exploring, finding thing and digging everywhere. Look at me and my little bucket… who knows what I was gathering:

We used to have picnics out back too. We would load up the tractor and head back to the swing and eat lunch. I still love picnics and am at a loss when people claim not to like to like dining outdoors. I guess it is hot in Texas… so I will give them that!

 

Life in the country wasn’t all play. My parents were hard-core country folk, which meant we worked too. Not hard labor, like growing up on the farm, but a lot of path clearing, garden planting, apple picking, berry picking and wood hauling work. See how early I was put to work? This is May 1991… I had just turned 2.

 

I haven’t had to help get wood in for years. We have a really cool wood burning soapstone stove in the living room. It is amazing to have a fireplace in the winter!! Well this stove needs wood to do its job. It’s a chore to get wood in. If you haven’t ever cut down a tree and hauled wood out through the brush, you have no idea what it entails. Yesterday and today I have hauled wood. Yesterday was two trees, today was an easy 1. Yesterday the trees were far back into the brush, so not only was I carrying logs 20 or so yards to the cart, I was walking through brush; over logs, and under branches. The first tree was in a wild rose bush. Those things are evil. I was bleeding by the time we were done getting that tree out. I had fallen on my butt, got my hair stuck in the wild rose bush, and squished two slugs by the time I had lugged everything out. (yes all me. Dad was driving the tractor) I was covered from head to toe in mud (mom said it was dry out there) and my black shirt was tan from sawdust. This is what I was walking through to get to the tree:

 

The second tree was heavy wood. Heavy wood and farther away from the path. I couldn’t see the roots and uneven ground under my feet, so I stumbled through the brush, groaning from the weight of the wood. The thing is… I got to move each piece of wood 3-4 times.

·         Get the piece out of the brush and in a pile to load into cart (the path was muddy so dad took small loads out of the brush more often than usual, while I dug all of the logs out of the weeds)

·         Get piece into cart

·         Get piece out of cart (we couldn’t go across the creek with it in the cart)

·         Put piece back in cart to get it to the barn

·         Get piece out of cart and stacked in barn

By the time I was done yesterday I was covered in mud and sawdust. I had almost been run over by the cart, (it was slipping backward into the creek from the weight of the wood… so I grabbed onto the front and pulled. Dad got the thing in drive and the entire machine jumped forward while I dived out of the way. Then he couldn’t get up the hill so I had to push the stupid thing), was bleeding from thorns and my fingers hurt from grasping the wood. Today I just smashed my pinky toe, dropped the board that we use to get the tractor across the creek on my big toe, and fell into the creek. I don’t know why Crossfit exists when one can just go outside and move wood around for free! Here is the product of our labor:

 

More stories to come…

 

This photo was from yesterday. Its my favorite... my dad's headband and his pants really makes the photo.