I love orchards...I used to live on one....
It's times like this that remind me of growing up...I lived with my Grandparents until I was 10 yrs old....in an old weatherbooard house with a huge verandah...with an apple orchard out the back and my cousins living up the back in another house. I have only a few memories at that house as we moved into town about the time I started school.
I remember not having a TV...in fact we didn't have one until I was 10 - and even then it was a tiny black & white one...
Lesson Learnt - If you don't have an apple orchard as a backyard...then get a TV...
I remember telling my sister, Alison, that the electric fence wasn't on and it was ok for her to pat the cow...and then peeing my pants laughing when she got an electric shock...to this day I still feel that temptation when I'm at my dad's place with my own kids...but I restrain myself...or have so far...
Lesson learnt - Simple - don't listen to a word I say!
I remember always thinking that my sister Alison had a cow lick in her fringe because our cow a licked her in that exact spot...hmm...
Lesson Learnt - don't let a cow lick you...you're hair will never be the same again.
I remember thinking that I caught the chicken pox from my older sister, Ember because I touched her 'contaminated' pencil case
Lesson Learnt - Don't touch your sister's stuff or you'll get germs!
I remember while my sisters and I had the chicken pox my Grandma bathing us and towel drying us on the open verandah and my sisters and I standing there NAKED as one of my older male cousins walked by and waved to us...OH THE SHAME!!! I remember feeling embarrassed - not sure if I showed it...but the feeling was ACUTE!...mind you I must have only been about 4 (as I hadn't started school yet)...which in itself is strange to me since my almost 4 yr old girl has NO SHAME in running around naked!
Lesson learnt - just don't stand on the verandah naked, the ending is never good...I don't care how old you are!
I also remember watching my two cousins chopping wood, wearing thongs (aka: flip flops for all you americans/canadians) and one of them chopping the other one's big toe off...yeah...nice memory -thanks for that Steve & Craig! I just stood by watching as I think my sister Ember washed the bloody thong...I don't really remember being that distraught...just thinking...I wonder if he will be able to wear thongs again??...
Lesson learnt -don't chop wood wearing thongs...not that I chop wood anymore...I live in the city...but if I had to...I still couldn't do it without thinking about Craig's toe...or was it Steve's toe???
And lets not forget my cousin Ashley talking me into going for a walk down to the river (without permission I might add...because why would you ask when you know they'll say NO right?)...We took the shortcut...meaning straight down..rock faces and trees (NOT merrily walking down the nicely grated road - because that would be just too logical now wouldn't it)...in the middle of summer...when all the lovely venomous red belly black snakes are out and about...and of course coming across one...we didn't really see it until we were quite close and by that time it was already in striking position...it went for my cousin and he made a dive for it...right down and over the rock face - me....I just stood there watching the snake slither off into the bush all the while thinking that Ashley was surely, seriously hurt on the rocks below...but Ashley was a man...at the ripe old age of 7 or whatever he was... He soon climbed back up the rock face...(because I certainly wasn't coming to get him...I was standing in that exact spot...I wasn't moving...I was going to pretend to be a tree because somehow that would fix everything!)
After he finished describing to me what happened - at the time I thought he must have thought I was like his blind cousin or something, but now, with the wisdom of age, I know it's just something a man feels a need to do even if you were RIGHT THERE! - he then, in all his wisdom, told me we should probably head back to the house for dinner....but deep down inside I knew he was SCARED OUT OF HIS PANTS!!!
Lesson learnt -Don't let Ashley talk you into anything!
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8 comments:
Hi Sal,
Touching of the electric fence brought back some memories for me. I did a very similar thing to Annette. When we lived in Tasmania, Annette and I went down the road to get our older sister Karen. She was off horse riding. There were electric fences everywhere. I told Annette to touch the fence ... and told her it wasn't on ... it was! We still talk about that incident today.
Great stories, Sally. We used to go apple picking in Missouri. Yummy! The University had an apple orchard. One of the Bishops was a prof. studying bugs. So come September, all the Mormons decended on this Orchard with buckets, baskets, and bags. We filled up our trunk. (boot?) I don't know which brit. words transfer to Australian. I saw fringe, though! Maybe I'll write a post about our recent strawberry picking.
hee, i love electric fences. one time ben was climbing over our electric fence and caught his flip flop-- thong :)-- on the line and got shocked big time. maggie just so happened to have a camera on her and got a photo of him wallowing on the ground after the shock.
then there was the time when we had goats... we had a nasty smelly billy goat that liked to do awful things to the point that i always carried a big stick around to smack him off with when i had to go into the goat/cow/dog lot. i remember that somehow it got tangled in the fence and i had to fight every urge to let him stay tangled up and get shocked some more, but alas, he bleated so pitifully, i had to release him. it didn't change his attitude, though. nasty goat.
you're lucky, my sisters and i never trusted each other enough to believe it when we said the fence was off. :)
Love this entry! Especially the part about the electric fence! Very funny!
You crack me up, i look on your blog almost every day anticipating another funny entry!
So much to learn about you Sally....
You did well on your apple picking Sals, there was hardly anything left at the orchard we went to the other week. Love your words of wisdom too:)!
sally you need to start writing a book on your childhood memories. Atleast for your children. My mother has been working on that for all long time now. We haven't read it yet but I still to this day discover new things about her childhood. I love it and I loved reading about yours. Just Yesterday she shared with me snippets and it is just so hearwarming to hear. I am sure you could start a photographic memory album of all the places you played and electified your friends and sisters!!! Ha ha.
Ah! There's the "snygg rumpa" finally! for real,.
If you kept any letters being o'er ten yrs ago and all; check the handwriting on Roge's and mine and see how sometimes mine looks like Roge and the other way around. I just had to tell you. That was a blast. Haaaaa
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