A Wholesome Day

It's not news that our kids have lost the knack to have good, clean, old-fashioned fun. They are too busy with their noses in their video games, internet, iPods and everything else impersonal that needs to get plugged in or turned off at the end of the day.

I remember being a kid. I remember climbing the big maple tree & seeing the whole neighborhood & singing, "I'm on top of the world...". I remember catching snakes, frogs, crickets, pollywogs, fireflies & baby birds. Well, the birds were more because they fell out of the nest & we'd save them from becoming lunch for a neighborhood cat. The catching of the other critters was simply for the fun of it.

During my elementary years, we lived on a dirt road. In the winter it would become a sheet of ice. We'd throw on our ice skates, make due with the bumpy ice and play hockey. In the summer we'd ride our bikes & play 'ghost in the graveyard' for as long as possible, until our parents called us in for the night.

There was a time when kids would lay in the shade of a towering tree and gaze at the sky to discover clouds that resembled bunnies & clowns. Ahhhh, the good ol' days of summer.

Being a parent, I admit my guilt of allowing my kids to be lazy in front of the tv or computer.

At some point, we've been conditioned that we must always be busy. I find myself being busy most of the day getting things done around the house. Sure, the house is clean but what quality time did I spend with my kids? What quality time did the kids spend exploring and learning about their world? What golden nugget did they walk away with at the end of the day?

I am working very hard this summer to not allow myself to get bogged down with the unimportant busyness of the daily mundane tasks of life. Better yet, I'm learning to incorporate the mundane into the fun. My youngest wants to be outside a good share of the day. It's inborn in a kid to want to be outside when it's nice out. I'm learning to take my work outside. I'll save all my wash & take it out at one time, giving my son more time to play while I hang laundry on the line. Our reward is to play ball & swing the bat for awhile or for my son to ride his bike or scooter. Walking to the community park is always a treat. I'm also learning to be a morning person and get most household work done before his full energy kicks in for the day. It's a reward for me too. When the essential work is done, we have the day to play & be free.

We had one of these days today. I got the morning chores done while he was still sleeping and/or just waking up. Then we got ourselves ready to go play all day. We went to my friend's house, who lives in the country & has 5 acres of heaven outside her backdoor.

Naturally, the kids want to play with toys inside for a little while. Once they started getting testy with one another, it was easy to transition them to the great outdoors. What a beautiful summer day this was. It was sunny, breezy and in the 80's. Perfect.

It had stormed last night so there was a large puddle in their yard by the tree line. Probably 10 feet in diameter. As if it were a large magnet, they went straight to that puddle & splashed, stomped, jumped & slid on their bellies. Oh, what fun! They were covered from head to toe in mud and grass.

When they got bored with that, they chased the chickens around the yard. They got to spy on a bird nest with hungry babies peeking out of it. They even chased butterflies around the yard.

We didn't need to prompt or encourage the kids to play & explore their world today. It's a natural part of being a child.

My friend and I were also recipients of God's blessings today. While the kids were being kids, we got to sit & relax, catch up on what's going on in each other's lives and watch in awe as those kids played and played, never seeming to get bored. Had we allowed them to stay in the house, worse yet, stay in front of the tv, they would have missed out on all the beauty and fun that this summer day had to offer. They would have missed out on all of God's wonderous blessings. What a wholesome day!

Visiting the Country Was NOT My Idea of Fun...Until...

Since my blog title is in the form of a question, I decided that my first post would be to answer this question: who put the country in this girl?
When I was a little girl, my two brothers and I had to go visit Grandma and Grandpa for a couple of weeks every year during summer break. In a nutshell, they were not the warm, fuzzy kind of grandparents that some children have had the honor of being kin to and simply put, we were city kids. There were too many rules and very little to do on 50 acres with a single-wide mobile home. I'll make mention that both brothers were diagnosed with A.D.D. We couldn't play in the woods on account of poison ivy, rattle snakes and badgers. We could play hide & seek in the corn field. This was fun the first few times. However, like everything else to a kid, it got boring pretty quick. Throwing pebbles into the stream to scare the frogs was fun until my brothers started killing the frogs by throwing the pebbles at them too hard. Mom found out and was hopping mad so we never were allowed to play in the stream again. Year after year, Grandma kept promising an in-ground pool and a tree swing. The spot she chose for the pool still sits as a patch of grass. The country was hot, dry, too quiet and BORING. With these memories to go by, one would wonder how I fell in love with the country life.
During one of our summertime visits, Grandma introduced us to the kids up the road who were relatively the same age as us, all three were girls. Let me tell you, they were full fledged, true blue farmgirls! Their daddy was a farmer. Farmer John was his name. I don't recall what exactly his specialty was. Didn't care. All I cared about was from that summer on, life was good in the country!
We'd walk the dry, dusty dirt road about a quarter mile up to their house. The last part of the trek was a giant hill in the road that we had to conquer. Their farm house sat at the top of this hill.
They had everything! Chickens, pigs, cows, lots and lots of barn cats, a hay loft and yes, even a swimming pool! I thought we were in Paradise!
We'd climb into the hay loft & lay around up on the bales of hay. There was almost always a mama cat up there who'd had her kittens in a pile of loose hay. It was always a treat to play with the new babies.
We'd tease the pigs by sticking our feet into the fence. Just as they'd come to chomp on our toes, we'd pull 'em out.
The chickens were free range & ran all over the yard. We'd chase after them just for fun.
The cow pasture holds the best memories for me. It had several apple trees in it. Not like the apples you can buy in the store. We called them farm apples because we'd only find them on the farm. They were green and very tart. We'd climb those trees, sit in the branches and eat them-as many as we wanted, despite the farmer's wife. She'd always warn us that if we ate them, we'd have digestive issues later (keeping it clean here). I don't recall ever having any issues. Maybe she just didn't like the idea of 6 kids climbing the trees and eating all her apples!
There was a low area that was always wet & very muddy. We'd muck around in it with bare feet & let ourselves sink until the mud was up to our knees. Then we'd go to the stream that ran through the pasture and wash off. The water was so clear and cold that we couldn't resist scooping it up in our cupped hands and drinking it too.
We'd chase the cows. Looking back, I think about how stupid this was. I don't even know if there was a bull in that herd. We felt like we were invincible by chasing away this herd of beasts. We never did cow tip.
When we got bored, which didn't seem to happen often, we'd head across the street to Farmer Jack's farm. We'd steal the sunflower seeds from the top-heavy flowers and play with his dogs and cats. Farmer Jack was a crop farmer so he didn't have any livestock. I suppose this fact kept us out of trouble.
The girls had bikes. We'd take the bikes out to the road and take turns gliding down the big hill, forgetting that we had to walk the bike back up the hill on account it was too steep to ride up it. Still, it was fun.
Oh, those were the days...the lazy, hazy days of summer on the farm. These were the magical times that kept me wanting to move out to the country. These days, I'm not 'out' in the country per say. I live in a very small rural town. The country is walking distance from my front door. Until I can have a piece of it, I'll keep loving it from a distance and from a distant memory.