Forts

I love, Love, LOVE this one from Crystal.  Forts were a big part of growing up Juniper style.  Where else would kids be allowed to exercise such creativity?

From Crystal:

I think we should give mention to the many clubs and clubhouses/forts that accounted for so many of our days.  I particularly remember being a small child and being excluded from the “big” kid’s club house.  Where if I remember right Jami was queen and Aaron was king ….dang they were cool. 

But I do believe that when we became the “big” kids (Doug, Brad, Laura, Jerica, Myself and occasionally the younger boys Jason, Forest and Levi) is when the real fort building took place.  The “old house” or old church farm grain bin was really a carpentry experience training facility.  We were not shy about stealing old slabs of wood and less old buckets of nails and hammers to turn our “old house” into a three story mansion.  

Of course accomplishing this feat did not come without some painful learning experiences.  For example: If you slip while standing on the bar which stretches across the rooms (the only way to reach the third floor area with your hammer) you should make sure to gracefully fall in front of or behind said bar and not take it up the center.  

When building a swing use enough twine.  

When building a floor use enough support boards and nails.

The best feature of our fort was the trampoline swing.  We found the frame of an old one man jumper; you know the kind the little trampolines that are about two feet wide and 8 in off the ground.  The frame had only two legs remaining.  Simply by hanging the legs on the bar that ran through the center of the house we had the best swing man has ever built (we just had to remember not to swing to high or the entire thing would jump of the bars….which happened many a time).  

Second best feature was probably the toilet in the corner …don’t know what that was ….Doug?

Does anyone have a picture of the “old house?”  Remember the lean on that thing?  …haha, and yet we had no qualms about standing on the roof.

The “old house” was not our only fort, just the most popular.  We also had “the valley,” and old pig pen …the one where we lost the hammers and made Dad and Ross not too happy, we had forts in the mountains and forts in the straw stacks (remember picking buckets of carrots, who knew that 10 gallons of carrots was not a feasible lunch for 5 kids).   

P.S.  If any of you do have a pic of said house send it my way and we will get it attached to this post.  jami_c_hurst@hotmail.com

Boys...

Life on the farm is certainly different than city life.  A prerequisite for being a farm kid is a healthy imagination--which leads to activities that may or may not be so healthy... or safe as Joe explains.

From Joe:

There is no logic reason, or limit to what boys can do when they get together. We can’t explain why it is so amusing to build a Catapult with a 2X4, a rock fulcrum, a stray farm cat, and a bail of hay being tossed off the top of the ten wheeler overshot. I can’t tell you why we are curious how much weight a cow eyeball can hold before it explodes, after it is extracted using precision surgical tools like old timer pocket knives and pliers.

We had a common thread of unity because these things made normally boring farm life exciting and new, and we were only limited by our creativity and the school of hard knocks, like not to pee on an oil fire, or blow up toilets with M80s. Yet there are some things which normal people out of respect for the dead would give any creature a proper burial, but to these boys, I won’t name them (Sam, Joe, Steve, Aaron.) When an animal dies not much is sacred, especially when it comes to mean old roosters which would peck your eyes out if given the opportunity.

On one joyous occasion one of the roosters deceased, (I swear it was an accident.) but no one buried this old miserable bird. Instead we suddenly found joy in using the rotting poultry as a genius tool of pranks as long as it was staying together. I think it went hidden in a bucket of grain once, and tied to a entry way to the grain shed, and I may have waited for Sam for some time to plant the rotting bird in his chest, I can’t quite remember the details, but Sam might. I forgot about what I did, and life went on.

Life went on and the chicken got even more rotten. Over the smell of manure and cows I could always smell it when I went to feed my cows. I would smell it, then I would find it. Work that summer was hard for young boys who had ADD, and an imagination, but the cows had to be fed. The stacks were always close to the mangers and Ross would not let us toss the bails off the side of the stack into the manager, we had to peel them off the front and carry them back between the manger and the stack.

To save time I would usually carry two bails back at a time, one bouncing off the front of my right leg, and another bouncing off of my back left leg, then I would shimmy between the stack and the manger to get to feed the cows.

One day I was doing my shimmy on the 3^rd manger and I got all the way to the cow trough and suddenly I could smell something. I had smelled it before. Like something had died and had set out in the sun for several days. The chicken. No sooner had I identified the smell, the mass of feathers, claws beak, and worm infested flesh came crashing down on my head. Sam had made a direct hit from on top of the hay stack. Mission accomplished.

I decided from that point to call a truce because I knew Sam was not scared to see my dead chicken and raise me one dead cow falling from the sky. I think I got over pretty fast considering it felt like that thing hit me at terminal velocity.

As I think back on those days there was nothing in my life I have experienced that has been as pure and as fun or as hard as those days growing up on the farm. People from there never forget where they come from. They work hard, pray hard, and play hard. Brothers, sisters and friends. We all go our different directions in life, yet when we come together after years we just sort of pick up where we left off, and that is priceless.   

Confessions of a Farm Girl

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: For protection of the innocent (cough... oh, excuse me) it is IMPERATIVE that Uncle Ross not be allowed to read the following.  Thank you in advance for your cooperation!

Signed,
The Management


From Jami:

So, being a "girl" in the farm-world is no small thing.  First off, no one thinks I belong (ask Grandpa Hurst) and secondly, no one expects me to be able to keep up and pull my own.  So I am already at a disadvantage and have to prove myself an asset.  I had to put forth 150% effort to be able to hang with the guys.  Up until now, I have been reluctant to concede that I may have gotten a little a tiny bit a smidgen of an iota of special treatment.

Aaron and Jim, you are gonna want to make sure you are sitting for this.

One hot summer day (I believe I was 14 going on 15) Jim, Aaron and I were loading the truck (I wanna say Old Blue, but why were there 3 of us loading Old Blue?).  I may have taken a few bales from the boys (WHAT???  Ross and Dad did it to me!!!)  Fed up, Jim and Aaron united in letting me know "Fine!  If you think you can load the truck by yourself, do it."  They both sat down and folded their arms.  

I'm sure they expected me to get backed up and beg for their help... Ha!  They don't know the determination of a farm girl.  I was loading that truck just fine by myself.  

However...

Not too long after they sat down, Ross happened to drive by to check our progress and found two strapping 16-year-old young men sitting idly with their arms folded while one ultra determined 14-year old girl carried out the work of two grown men.

He wasn't happy.

Like at all...

What was I supposed to say?  I apologized to them after Ross left...

Yeah I didn't.  

I giggled and smirked as the three of us finished loading the truck.  I probably didn't take their bales though...for the rest of that load...who can really remember though?