Another walk, a different road.

Most of the best memories I have are weekends at my grandmothers house with the cousins.  There was another place we would occasionally spend the a Saturday and Saturday night.  My uncle Clydes.  Uncle Clyde and Aunt Bea lived on Crystal lake in Haverhill Mass.  They very rarely ventured to my grandmothers house. So occasionally everyone would meet at their house. 
Uncle Clyde and Aunt Bea had 6 kids, Robert, Billy, Carol, Anne, Grace and George.  Grace was my age as Anne was the same age as my sister Rena. 
Robert went off to the military when we were young, Carol and Billy lived at home for awhile.  The house was not as large as my grandmothers but us kids were rarely inside unless it was dark.  There was always something to do, we would fish on the shore of the lake.  Run up to the little store that someone ran out of their cellar.  There would be cookouts during the day and if we were lucky a fish fry at night.  That was if the uncles spent the early evening hornpouting. 
My uncle had a boat, as far as I could remember it never saw water.  It was always parked by his garage.  All of us kids would get into the boat and pretend to play Gilligans Island or we would just sit and shoot the crap.  I think that boat saw more water in our imaginations than it did in real life. 
At night was the usual card game.  Uncle Chuck and Aunt Rose would be there along with Charlie and Kathleen. 
There were always the usual games of hide and seek, tag and of course that boat.  Later in the evening we would gather round the tv and watch Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom.   Once again to find a comfortable spot to fall asleep in until the parents decided it was time to go home.

Memory Lane

I was thinking driving to work one day, wow, you have a blog.  You should really do something with that.  Then I thought what could I write. Well they say you should write what you know.  Being 50, I'd like to think that I know quite a bit.  But I know that's not true.  Being 50 I also like to linger at times in my memories.  They say that at least one child in a family is the historian.  I think that's me.  I have memories that go back as far as when I was 3.  Of course I can't remember every little event.  But I remember some of the major ones.
They say your cousins are your first friends. I think they, whoever they are, are very right.  We spent weekend after weekend at my grandmothers house in Kingston.  It actually was the house I was born in, but that's a whole other story.

There seemed to be endless summer weekends at my grandmothers house.  I remember it was white with green trim, a big oak tree at the corner of the drive.  A large weeping willow near the house along with a group of lilacs.  In the front yard off to the left was the chicken coop.

Many of my cousins lived there at different times.  I remember Uncle Carlton and Aunt Joyce and their boys living on the second floor.   There was Carlton jr.  Chucky, Danny and Matthew.  My Aunt Charlotte lived with Gram and Frank on the first floor.  Now Frank was my Grandmothers live in.  Quite progressive for the 50s and 60s, but we never gave it a thought.  My Aunt Charlotte had 4 boys and a girl.  Clyde, Forrest, Ed, James and Colleen.   Colleen actually fell in between the two sets of boys.   

Everyone seemed to come to Grams on the weekend.  Even Grampa Everette would show up every now and then before he passed of cancer.  There was Uncle Chuck and Aunt Rose, with their two kids, Chuck and Kathleen.  Aunt Marthy would show up with her ward Russel.  ( I wonder what happened to Russel?).
A thin stick of a kid, always well dressed.    

The grown ups would cook and play cards, us kids would all be outside.  You have to remember, this was before computers, cell phones, video games and the such.  Outside was our video game.  We would all be out back by the big rock or to the side of the house playing baseball.   We'd play games such as hide n' seek, (which at night is really fun). Cops and robbers, or sometimes just wrestle around with each other.  When it was rainy or snowy or just too dark to play, we'd go inside and play monopoly or shutes and ladders. Or sometimes just sit around and talk as kids do.

At blueberry season sometimes my dad would make his buttermilk biscuits with blueberries.  We all loved those days.  My Grandmother had apple trees, blueberry bushes raspberry bushes and a wizened ol' pear tree.   My grandmother canned alot , actually she did a little of everything.  She could crotchet, sew quilts and just about anything else.  She would sit there at times making braided rugs.  All lost arts now.  I remember sitting watching her thinking she could do just about anything.  Even from a wheelchair.

I remember the summer the uncles and the boys built the new deck and wheel chair ramp on the house.  The deck was quickly to become the gathering place for the teenagers and their friends.  My brother Pete and my cousin Clyde always seemed to be the cool kids.  This was before Pete went off to Vietnam.   I always remember the girls hanging around them.  There was Wayne Braily and Gary Hartford, they always seemed to be around at some point.   My farther used to hire some of them in the summer to give him a hand when he would get jobs roofing and siding.  There seemed to be always someone living with us at some point.  Eventually each one of them would match up and get married.  Change is the thing you can always count on.

There were always my favorites, Aunt Rose would never deny you a sit on her lap when she was playing cards.  Gram would tell stories in between hands or when she had dropped out.  One story was about the time she met the devil in a bar room.  She swore it was the devil, because he had the coldest hands when he touched her.  She'd tell us about our history and how us kids were the 9th generation to be born in New Hampshire.  How 3 brothers settled around Deerfield and how 2 were murdered by indians and how only one survived.  It was always interesting.   Most of the nights ended up with us kids asleep on any spot we were comfortable until the adults were finished.

Well I hope you like my walk down memory lane.  Hopefully I can get some more of them down in print. 

My, my, my, my.... it has been a long winter.  I know it's been quite a while since I've posted here.  Let me catch you up.
The garden came out even better than I expected.  I have hopes for even a better garden this year.  We had potatoes and pumpkins, sweet potatoes and beans.  Winter squash and summer squash, not to forget the tomatoes.  The corn and the carrots just didn't make it.  This year we'll plant a little sooner.

Fall came in and soon it was apple picking time.  Joshua loved spending the afternoon walking around picking apples and going on the hay ride.  

 

 Right before Thanksgiving we lost our little friend Goofy.  His medical problems were too great for him and we had to make a hard decision.  We still miss him.

I harvested my first turkey this year.  A 32lb tom.  We had Scott's family over for Thanksgiving.  Between the food and the family we had plenty to be thankful for.

Christmas came and went, celebrated with both family and friends.  The house was full of warmth, laughter and food.  This house was built for family and friends.                                                                                 
This winter proved to be a long one.  Snow and cold.  We rearranged the dinning room and the family room to keep everyone warmer.
Spring is finally here with all the promise of new beginnings.  We're still waiting for the forsythia to bloom, but in the meantime, the barn has been cleaned and organized along with the breezeway.  Today is the day to start rototilling the garden to get that ready.   We welcomed two new chicks a couple weeks ago, we have a few more hopefully that will hatch in the incubator.  So once again, Spring promises new beginnings.

I'll try to be better at posting.  This year I'd like to raise and harvest some broiler for the freezer.  I've got my eye on two pigs, and if we can maybe a goat?  We'll see.