Word of the day: Sunflower (sun flou’ ər) “Any of a genus (Helianthus) of tall plants of the composite family, having large daisylike flowers with yellow, brown, purple, or almost black disks containing edible seeds”
I probably owe you an explanation of why the memoirs of my childhood are called Black Dirt and Sunflowers. The farm house on Willow Brook Road was set on two acres of land. It was a long skinny plot of land with the house and garage on one acre, and the pasture in the back. Our neighbors didn’t have any livestock, so we also had access to their back acres as well, giving us a three acre pasture for the horses and those pesky chickens. The soil was heavy black dirt, from some ancient river bottom. When it rained, the dirt acquired the consistency of heavy clay, sticking to the horses’ hooves like giant black dinner plates. I don’t know how they even managed to slog around the pasture. They also loved to roll in the black mud. They ended up so caked in mud that they looked like some modern version of the terra cotta warriors!
In the summer, we plowed the pastures with Bess’ old International Harvester tractor and scattered rye and alfalfa seed all around. I was entrusted with the tractor at a fairly young age, long before I could drive a car. We never seemed to grow a great crop of pasture grass, but we grew sunflowers like crazy. By August, the pastures were usually covered with six foot tall sunflower plants. The horses made little meandering trails through them seeking out what little grass that had managed to grow.
We had two horse stalls, a feed and hay room, and the infamous chicken coop. One of my weekly chores was scrubbing out the horse trough. It stayed filled with a float valve, but with the well water, the hot weather, and horse slobber, it quickly grew a thick coating of disgusting green algae. At least once a week, sometimes more often, it was my responsibility to scrub it out with a wire brush until it was once again gleamingly clean. My Dad’s usual injunction was that it had to be clean enough for me to drink out of, so after thoroughly scrubbing and refilling the trough, I would typically stick my face in and take a few big gulps just to prove to the world that it was definitely clean enough!
My Dad, despite his tough guy exterior, was really an old softie. In the winter when the cold, damp winds blew ruthlessly across the pasture, he would make up some sort of hot bran, oats, and molasses mash that he fed to the horses, some sort of a horsey oatmeal. I am not sure what all went into the dish, but the two horses seemed to think it was pretty tasty and eagerly awaited his arrival with the goodies. My Dad never ever rode either of the two horses, but he was quite fond of them and viewed them as some sort of giant lapdogs. They reciprocated his affection and looked forward to a variety of treats that he typically carried for them, sugar cubes, carrots, apples, and the all time best treat ever, watermelon rinds. Horses love watermelon and cantaloupe. I can still see them happily munching with watermelon drool dripping out of their mouths, messy but tasty!
One morning as we ate breakfast, we heard the clippity clop of iron horseshoes on the gravel driveway. Without looking up, my Dad said, “Some poor bastard’s horses got out.” This was followed almost immediately by another loud expletive and “Those are my horses!” The wayward escapees were quickly rounded up and returned to their pasture, while we all very carefully kept a straight face. It would not have gone over well to have laughed at that exchange.
We also had a real playhouse, not some sort of little, snap-together plastic thing from Home Depot. This one was about ten by twelve feet with electricity, screened windows, and a front porch. It had white siding and little red shutters. Inside were a small table and chairs and a set of old bunkbeds, and the ceiling was tall enough for an adult to stand up in. For a cowgirl, this was the bunkhouse, the real deal! The wasps and the bees tended to build their nests under the eaves of the little front porch. My friends and I learned to knock the nests down and then run like you-know-what out of the way of the angry inhabitants. The playhouse was stiflingly hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter, but it was, nonetheless, our special place and sanctuary!
Daddy also built us a small above-the-ground swimming pool. It was about ten feet by eight feet and about two and a half feet deep with poured concrete sides and bottom. It wasn’t quite big enough to really swim in, but we still enjoyed it immensely on hot summer days. Often we kids would be kicked out of the little pool, and our parents and their friends would hang out in the pool with a cooler of beer sitting right beside it. Our flock of ducks, more about them in another blog, also loved the pool and thought Daddy had built it for them. Of course, after the ducks were in for a while, the pool had to be drained and scrubbed before the human participants could use it again. Luckily, cleaning the pool never made my chore list!
©2015, Black Dirt and Sunflowers
Join me next week for “My Modelling Career Commences.”
