With the mild winter that we have been having it seems like there are not as many birds at the feeders as there have been. Nothing has changed in what I have been feeding them so I believe that the weather may have something to do with it. I’ll have to chalk it up to another mystery of nature.
I do remember winters when there was not much snow but then, along came March and we got a whole winter’s worth in just a few days. My mother said that the winter of ’66 was like that. I don’t know much about that, because I was in the service at the time.
In looking back to my childhood, it seems like every winter was snow-filled. I can remember that we built snow forts and had snowball fights most every day after school. There was one time when one of us geniuses (me) produced the idea of constructing an igloo. It actually went pretty smoothly until we got to the very top. We finally figured it out only to have it cave in a few days later. The one thing about snow forts was that they did not last, it was more about the building than the using.
Sledding was another winter activity that we kids really enjoyed. Sledding was not enjoyable unless there was a certain element of danger involved. As kids that little bit of living on the edge is what made us kids. My Uncle Orville Winjum often said about my sons, “they’re all boy and a mile wide”. I eventually figured out what he meant by that.
Getting back to the danger thing, our neighbor kid Roger, who was the oldest in the neighborhood had us kids help him build a sled run. It was quite an elaborate one, we carried buckets of water to get it iced down. It was like a small bobsled run and you could really get flying in a short amount of time. It was all fun and games until one of us kids, Kenny, got hit in the face by another kid’s sled and had to go to the hospital for stitches. I believe that Kenny got 11 stitches in his cheek. That was the end of our bobsled run because the next day we were over at Rogers dismantling our handiwork. The Mom-wardens had spoken and deemed it too dangerous.
After that we were left searching for new ways to get our bumps and bruises. I believe that it involved the slough and searching for a steeper hill. This was all part of growing up and being left to use our own creativity to do what kids were actually meant to do. In those days we had plenty of opportunity to just be kids. There weren’t activities planned out for us to fill our days. We had to manufacture our own fun and, if I do say so myself, we became pretty darned good at it. We learned that bees and hornets do, indeed, sting. That climbing out on a thin branch of a tree can have consequences. We learned that thin ice is not safe ice, and we went home, many times, with a wet pantleg and a boot full of ice water. Most of all, we learned to get along with each other, if there were differences of opinion they were forgotten about by the next day.
Until next time: I do not believe that the ice in our part of the state is totally safe. It may be okay for walking, but I would not drive on it. Further up north the ice is thicker and a little safer, however you should remember that all ice is never 100% safe.
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