Tag: Farm

Old Yeller

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Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

I was about ten when I read Old Yeller written in 1956 by Fred Gipson.

I only have a memory that it was set in the southern area of America, maybe texas. There’s a boy who is helping run a farm and he takes in a stray dog which he calls old Yeller because it’s yellow coloured. I think they had adventures, a bit like Lassie. But eventually the dog was bitten by something that had rabies and was infected. The boy had to decide what to do and I can see in my mind that the dog has to be tied to a tree so it can’t bite anyone. Eventually it has to be shot. I can’t remember what happened next, but I do know it really upset me. I guess that’s why it’s stuck in my memory. I think Disney made a film of it, but I don’t remember seeing it. I do think the book cover had a yellow dog, like a labrador on it.

I enjoyed other books, Nancy Drew, The Hardy boys, and books on myths and legends, but Old Yeller really stuck.

Farming remembered

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My hubby was brought up on farms and remembers the byres and barns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His childhood was spent between going to school and working on farms in the summer holidays. When he was old enough he would even drive tractors. His father was a farm labourer and went from farm to farm following the seasonal work. Sometimes hubby fed cattle, other times he helped plough or harvest crops. They even raised day old chick’s in the attic of their house.

It sounds like a hard life, but an interesting one. He did this drawing of a tractor a few years ago. There are ducks, lambs and yes that’s meant to be a cow. X

Hanging basket

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A few weeks ago, we had so many plants in the boot of the car we had to fit a hanging basket on the back seat. They are all doing well but it’s rained so much since that I haven’t been able to set them up as I would like. I also pulled a shoulder muscle picking them up so I can’t lift my left arm up above my head. It’s frustrating me. It meant my hubby had to reach up to pick the cherry crop while I pulled the branches down. I’m  hoping we get some breaks in the weather. Then I can get the stepladders out. Even if I don’t climb them, I can direct where they should go.

The baskets are beautiful, I was told about a farm a few years ago that do baskets for half the price of garden centres. You order in advance and they make up whatever size you want. I chose colourful plants. Sometimes they last into the winter. I even have fushia plants that have over wintered in the yard and are growing again now. And are in full flower! I think our small back yard must have its own microclimate. I have courgette flowers growing there at the moment.

X

Gallop

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I remember a children’s programme I used to watch when I was a child. The theme song included the line “on white horses”, but I have very little memory about the show or the rest of the music. sketch-1546645322237.png

There were many programmes with horses then. Including the Lone Ranger. A children’s TV show called Follyfoot I think, and another called the adventures of Black Beauty based on the story by Anna Sewell.

I remember always drawing horses. My favourites were dappled grey ones. It’s not as frequent an obsession now, and as there are fewer horses and ponies on TV, I don’t get the chance to look at them very often….. Other memories include going on holiday to Dorset as a child and seeing a white horse carved into the hillside, and hearing that a rough sea with white topped waves was said to have “white horses” on it.

Life does seem to move at the gallop now. So many things change as you get older. I suppose we are living in the most technologically rapidly changing times in human history. Not long ago horses were used on farms to haul plows. Dray horses to pull brewery carts, and even to work down mines and pull canal barges. How times change