spring fever - memoirs of an extinct childhood

Winter is a rough time for a kid who's growing up on a farm. After spending the spring, summer and fall playing outdoors, having all kinds of adventures, to be forced inside for a few months is tortuous.

Oh sure, you can still go out and enjoy the winter sports, but cold is cold, whether you're having fun in it or not - and sooner or later, the cold wins out!

I remember just longing for spring to arrive. We'd start heading outdoors and trying to force spring. If it was a sunny day, we'd "suntan" in the wheelbarrow, with snow on the ground all around. As soon as the snow started to melt and the water was running, we'd be out in the yard, wading around in our rubber boots, building damns and troughs for the spring melt.

We'd dare ourselves to go wading barefoot through ice cold water and mud.

The lower part of our property would flood in the spring. Sure as anything, we'd be out there paddling around on the flood in a canoe - and as often as not, getting soaked to the skin wading around in the water.

More "prudent" parents would have scolded us and warned us of pneumonia or the cold. Ours knew better, knew that kids will be kids, and let us play. Although I'm sure Mom groaned more than once seeing our dirty, wet clothes coming in to be cleaned!

The bikes were out as soon as possible - or more often before. We'd be peddling around, getting stuck in snowbanks, and sliding off of the narrow paths through the snow that we were trying to bike on. If it really was too early to be biking outside, we'd attempt it in the house or the barn, peddling carefully from one room to another. Although in the house, of course, it was hard to get away with.

We just could not wait for summer. It took felt like it took forever to get there, and we were coaxing it along the whole way!

Then summer would arrive and we'd move on to building forts, exploring, and swimming in cold lakes and rivers. We'd have a tent set up in the yard just as soon as it was dry enough, just so we could sleep outside. We'd build roads and towns in the dirt for our toy cars. We'd wade the creeks, chasing minnows. We'd build hay forts and tree forts. We'd spend the summer outside, romping, exploring and experiencing.

Until eventually fall and winter would come once more, and we'd be forced inside to wait for spring...

the barn

When I was a kid, we had this old gun we used to play with. We'd take it out around the barnyard or the rest of the farm, or we'd play with it in the barn, which was where we originally found it.

We had the greatest barn any kid could ask for. It used to be our house, but even my memories of that are very vague (something about a doll and swings in the livingroom and visiting cousins). My clearer memories are from it being a barn.

We found all kinds of treasures in that barn. There was the cow bell, the gun, the kid carseats and the magazines. And that was just the beginning! It must have been junk left after we moved into the new house, but it was unfamiliar to us and incredibly exciting! We'd play in that barn for hours, exploring, playing games and just climbing up and down. We had a place at each end where we could climb up the side, via a window or fence. There were always the stairs, but I guess that was just too damn easy!

In the winter the bottom was often filled with hay, and we'd nudge bales around so we had tunnels and forts in the hay. What great adventures we had! Our cousins did the same thing at their place, and we'd all show then our forts and they'd show us theirs.

Our barn had lots of cats and chickens. Most of the cats were wild - would hide from us, and were a challenge to catch. For that matter, the chickens weren't exactly tame either, although there was a mean rooster or two over the course of time. Also during the winter we'd find frozen eggs, that were cracked, and we'd break them up into little bits and feed them to the chickens - until we indirectly got in trouble when our parents started wondering why the chickens were eating the eggs in the nest! I guess they developed a taste for them...

Then there were the times when "Pastor Denver" would preach a lofty sermon from the top floor, preaching to my sister and I, or just the barnyard animals. Oh to be able to listen in on those sermons now! I'm sure it would be beyond entertaining.

I still dream about that barn, and interestingly enough, the dreams are not good, are in fact often disturbing. I'll go to climb the stairs and they are gone, or I'll be stuck up in the top with no stairs, and unable to climb down the end. I'll spend the entire dream climbing over fences and trying to avoid the electric wires. I'll vie for space with disagreeable or downright threatening horses and other creatures. Or I'll be running or hiding from a bear. Rather curious. My memories of the barn seem to be positive, yet the dreams almost always have at least an underlying panic or fear. Something to ponder...

All in all, I have good memories of that barn. Hunting cats or other creatures, finding treasures or preaching to the barnyard, we knew how to have fun without a tv or video games, that's for sure!