Small Boy and Farm Life

When you were young on
the farm - remember that?

The world was big
time soooo slow

Dusty roads and cotton
Chickens under the steps

Great big ugly blue toads
and little cute green frogs

Cows itching on the fence
Horse flicking flies off their friends

A long and two shorts - who's that?
"Line's busy" (who's listening)

creaking lines and flapping sheets
a cloud of dust - another truck

Bare feet, hot days and cold cowpies
"Yuk!" you say - you haven't lived!

Root beer hanging in the well
Dirt, old leaves and sweat

Spooooky swamps, beaver grass
water and twisted mean willows

Big blue sky
Big mountains

Secret trails
Tied grass huts and mom

Hanging out on the stoop
fresh buttermilk - amazing

Blueberry patches, burnt pine trees
peeling birches, rattling poplar leaves

and bears...
and scary noises on dark trails

Cut June hay and great big horses
Buckrakes and dad and a steel throne

a stick, a line, a hook
a great brown river

Eating wild leeks picked like grass
and sweet clear ice cold springs

Tree frogs singing and crickets
and house creaking to sleep

Moonlight peaking around the blinds
Barking dog

Time was soooo slow
The world so big

I grew up on a farm in northern BC. These verses are from my earliest memories when everything was so big, so wonderful, and everything seemed to go on forever. Back then we had work horses. This changed soon after when we were able to buy first an old Studebacher truck and then a tractor. When I was really small I rode on old Prince, one of the two horses, and when I was a little older, I rode on the buckrake to put the rake down after Dad tripped it with a piece of galvanized telephone wire he had running to the window of the truck. Mom used to make grass huts for me to hide in by tying together the long grass in the field behind our house.

© David H. (Dave) Cottrell