Oh, yes. I remember hearing that phrase now and then. Once it was said when a neighbor boy and I were found to be using small pine trees to go down a steep hill. We had discovered that if you climbed about 10 feet up a fifteen foot pine, it would bend over very nicely. With a bit of practice, we could climb the first tree and then ride the bend to the top of another tree, ride that one down to the next tree and so on, until we ended up at the bottom of the slope. We picked up lots of scrapes while learning which trees would bend properly into the next tree, but neither of us broke anything -- except for one tree that was a bit too small for our gymnastics.

I was looking at that hill last summer. It has houses now instead of pine trees. But the slope is such that a 3-storey house had every floor with a ground-level door.

I realized then that I don't have my parents' sanguinity... if I had seen MY dd swaying through the treetops, I probably would have been panicked instead of thinking it was a harmless thing to do.

Between the ages of 3 and 6 we lived on a hay and cattle ranch near Newport Washington. We had a long lane from the house to the county road. A really long walk. When I went back there in 2004 was I surprised to see that lane was not more than 75 ft. long. Seems like time changes everything. Steve in Baltimore County.

Gandle, what a lovely memory.
You and Mary must have kept your dad and step mom on their toes.

Do you have pictures of you and Mary as children?

Meldy, I've done the climb the tree til it bends and swing
into the next and so on. It was almost as much fun as
swinging on a grape vine.

I remember the old apple tree in the back of the house I'd lived in when I was five. I broke my nose for the first time when dangling upside down by the crooks of my knees and gravity prevailed. I was going to join the circus when I grew up and could be found getting in some practise anytime an adult wasn't watching. My first preference was to be an aerialist and swing the trapeeze, but was caught by my aunt when I strung a clothesline up between two kitchen chairs and tried to walk it. Same year I put the hook end of a clothes hanger completely through my cheek playing cowboys and Indians, when I pulled the hanger hook like a bow and it sprang back into my mouth and completely through the skin and protruded to the outside. My God, I survived that year, but what really surprises me is my parents did. LOL.

Got into a discussion last winter with the fellow who was helping us renovate our kitchen. Our house appears to have been built in two stages and we were trying to decide which side of the house was built first. It is ell shaped and the floors to each ell are actually on a different level, and the ceilings a different height. Cellar under one ell, and not the other. Fellow says he thinks the ell I think is newest is the oldest because it faces the road. I had to remind him that in 1832, there wasn't a road. LOL. I have also had the same discussion with power linemen limbing up trees and complaining about people who plant them under the lines. I had to remind him those two eighty foot pine trees were there before rural electrification was even a dream.

Wonderful memories.

Steve - the same thing happened to me when I returned to find our first home, built by my parents after the war. I was one of those new-fangled suburban developments built for the G.I.'s returning from the war and starting familiies.

I remember the house being of a small but reasonable size, the yard was absolutely huge!! Lots of open grass to practice being a cowgirl, riding my imaginary horse. When I returned and found the house I was shocked. It was literally a tiny crackerbox that could almost fit in my present family room. And the huge yard is actually just a postage stamp. How in the heck did my parents manage 4 kids in that space? I do remember the weekend that my dad and grandpa tore the roof off to add a second story. That was necessary because grandpa was coming to live with us. Ohhhhh....that's another story entirely - no senior assisted living facilities, or even nursing homes for that matter.

And how the heck did we get through our childhoods without a helmet. It's amazing. One of our favorite activities was to build rafts and attempt to float to the Mississippi, ala Tom Sawyer. It was a little difficult since our river was a tiny, tiny stream that was more muck and mud than water.

One thing we had no shortage of was imagination.

What a wonderful memory, Gandle. Although our memories differ by a few decades, they are so alike in many ways. I guess that's how farm life is...no matter what generation you're from, some things will forever be alike.

I didn't have a quarter mile lane, though. Our house was right off the road. However, my great Uncle lived a mile away, just up the road, make a right at Steve's corner. Steve and Anna were brother and sister who lived on their ancestral farm until both were pushing 100, and their farm was at the cross road which was the half mile marker between our farm and my Uncle's farm. Since that cross road divided Steve and Anna's farm, it was forever known as "Steve's corner".

After church on Sunday, while the grown-up's had their social hour, my cousins and I would make our plans for the day. We'd set a time, usually right after Sunday dinner (which was always served at 12 noon promptly), to meet at Steve's corner. In the summer, we'd slip around to the back of Steve and Anna's and drink from their pump. In the fall, we'd grab an apple off their apple tree. When Steve became too old to farm and rented out his barn and fields, we'd sneak into his fields and feed the horses. After exploring the world, my cousins and I would walk back to Steve's corner and say our good-byes.

The walk to Steve's corner was uphill from our farm, but on level ground from my Uncle's. I never minded that walk one bit. A few years ago when I went home, I made that walk for old time's sake and, while the road seemed to have gotten narrower, that uphill walk seemed like 10 miles!

The farm house was always small, it only had 4 rooms...a kitchen, a living room, and 2 bedrooms. Growing up, I had to share a bed with my Grandmother, and as I grew, the house seemed to have gotten smaller. I moved into the house briefly when I returned from Europe back in the 80's, and I realized what a perfect size that house was for 1 person. Especially when all that person did was eat and sleep inside it, as my Grandmother did. She worked in the fields during the day, when she came home in the evening she'd wash up and go out to the gardens. It took me all these years to understand why. It was her therapy, just as my gardens are my therapy.

Such wonderful memories...

Great stories all around.