gave up on me, recognizing that I needed help. She let the milk start streaming out all by itself. Also shelled corn and gathered eggs from the henhouse, although our hens weren’t as forgiving as the cows were. Present when an animal gave birth? Er, no. I must have been the dumbest child in our rural county. When Mama informed Daddy that she’d seen one of the cows and the bull “cutting up,” I remember thinking she meant the animals were frolicking happily through the field. Or something. Flunked at gardening when I hoed up all the bell paper plants one year. (“But they look like weeds!”) I was destined to leave the farm and marry a city boy. Nevertheless, I still feel lucky to have grown up in a rural area, where the ‘60s didn’t arrive until much later. Among many other things, there’s nothing like going to sleep in the cool breeze of an open window and listening to the frogs peeping in the creek at night.
[Post edited by Mama Goose at 06/26/2020 8:46PM]