Unlike today's children, we were definitely "free-range" children. The Ranch is sixteen miles from the nearest tiny town, and, when we were children, the road to travel those sixteen miles varied from gravel to dirt track with grass growing in the middle of the two tire tracks. It was safe from any stranger-danger, and we were taught what not to get into. Other things were self-teaching, like nettles and thistles. A child walks through those only once!
Back to little Carol and little Marcia....since we were pretty much "free-range," our moms decided to put little bells on our shoes so that they could hear us as we wandered about. It was a great idea, however, we discovered that shoes were quite like boats and could be floated down the creek, giving us lots of little-girl giggles. We didn't, however, bring them home after we got tired of floating them. We just pattered home barefoot and told our moms what great fun we had had! They were not happy. Shoes cost money and money was often in short supply.
We each were the recipients of little red wagons that were just the right size for us to pull along with miscellaneous treasures in them. One fine sunny day, we towed our little wagons down the road toward the aforementioned creek and, since it was such a fine warm day, we took all of our clothes off and put them in the wagons and roamed about stark naked for the next few hours until our moms discovered their little nudists. They were somewhat pleased, though, that we hadn't floated the clothes down the creek to join the shoes!!
We also were found in our birthday suits down by the creek on another warm day. This happened after looking through a National Geographic magazine and being wondrously awed at a photo essay that included little black children in Africa. We grew up in an almost totally Caucasian world, but, fortunately, with no negatives regarding other races. Carol, Tom and I stripped everything off and plastered ourselves with dark mountain mud so that we could be like the kids in the magazine. The moms were not happy, though they did giggle a bit, when we trotted our little naked muddy selves into one of the house to show off our new selves. We got hosed off with very cold water in short order.
Our little wagons came in handy on another occasion when one or the other of the moms asked us to go to the garden and get a cabbage and bring it back. We trundled to the big vegetable garden and twisted a cabbage loose and put it in one of the wagons....and found that it was great fun to twist the cabbage head loose from its root. And we found it even more fun to twist many cabbage heads off and load them into our wagons. Our moms were not happy that we decimated about half of the cabbages in the garden, and they had to promptly get busy making sauerkraut so that the cabbages would not be wasted. Not something they were planning for that day!!
Another favorite joy was to pick wildflowers and take back big "bouquets" to our moms. Of course, the stems were all different lengths and the bouquets often had flowers that were upside down, but the moms loved them just the same.
Wildflowers abound at the Ranch with different beauties blooming at different times of the spring and summer. The blooming season is only approximately three months long beginning in late May or early June with the wild iris (also called flags), daisies, creamy white chokecherry, white service berry, and, of course, dandelions, huge, beautiful dandelions. The wild sunflowers start in June and bloom copiously, depending upon water supply, through the summer. The blue columbine is prevalent and gorgeous in late June and early July. Favorite picking flowers were the larkspur and the lupine and in the fall, Indian paintbrush. We didn't pick the prickly wild mountain roses, though we carefully sniffed their sweet fragrance.
As Carol and I grew, another baby joined the Ranch clan, my brother, Tom, and as time passed he became a great pal and co-conspirator, especially to Carol, since they were both very adventurous and mischievous. As I grew older, I became a "house mouse" (a nickname) and enjoyed cooking and sewing and baby tending. All three of us "big" kids, though, participated in many of the adventures to still come in this blog.
Carol and I are still very good friends, almost sisters, and keep in regular touch via email and text. Carol has primary lateral sclerosis which has robbed her of her speech and much of her mobility. She contributes memories to this blog via email and text, a very laborious process, but well done, nonetheless.
What a great photo of Uncle Frank, Tom, you and me! Uncle Frank was such a kind, elegant gentleman.
ReplyDeleteShoes...I think, as a child, I rather preferred going bare-footed rather than put on a pair of socks and shoes... Shoes were an unnecessary annoyance to me; especially because I loved wading in the creek on hot summer days... Ahhh... Gazing into the the clear water, listening to the sweet sounds the water made as it flowed past and trying to catch water skippers in a pool of water.
Marcia and I played many summer days in and around that creek.... I remember Marcia and I making ' mud pies or perhaps cakes' and of course, we had to get a fresh egg from the chicken's nest for our desserts! After all, we knew eggs were a necessary part of any culinary delight, especially desserts.
The wonderful flowers and their sweet fragrances...every month of the summer was filled with sweet aromas from the spring scents of wild iris 'flags', larkspur and lupines, to the mid summer columbines, wild roses and sunflowers and finally late summer the air was filled with the scent of wild yarrow and golden rod.
Marcia and I had so many wonderful experiences living at the ranch ....enjoying the sweet innocence of being young girls surrounded by the boundless beauty of our Grandfather's ranch..... Marcia and I are so lucky to have these experiences and memories ........