Well my best friend Donna sent me another beautiful picture and again my mind went wandering down the paths of my youth. Donna got the picture from her friend and I got a picture of the picture from her. LOL ah how things pass between friends eh?

When I was a young girl we lived on a farm on the 7th concession in Guelph-Ontario-Canada. I remember listening to the windmill squeal in a storm and creak on a normal summers eve when there was a breeze. As I lay in my bed I had all these visions of a monster coming to get me with each squeak of that old windmill. Funny how ominous things sound to a child of 4 or 5 at night.

We had a big old barn full of interesting corners for a young child to discover or hide in. There is nothing nicer then a nap in the hay mow on a hot summers afternoon. The wonderful smell of fresh hay torn from a nicely tied bale and strewn all over the loft of the barn. You lie in that hay and listen to the bees droning around the outside the barn and the birds calling to one another from a nearby birch tree. You hear distant voices from the fields as farmers cut their hay or dig in their gardens and call back and forth amongst themselves. It gives you a lazy, hazy feeling to go along with the wonderful smells that a barn has. You can smell the heat from the cattle and horses and listen to the chickens clucking from a run a few feet from the barn. You hear piglets squealing in play and slowly and gently you drift off into a land where only a little girl can go.
We had  a pond behind that barn and I used to love listening to the frogs croaking their wonderful songs from within the reeds and bulrushes and pussy willows.

A big old barn is such a wonderful place to hide out when you have stolen raspberries off the bush that you are not supposed to touch. Your secret is quite safe in the haymow . At least until you come out and the red stains around your lips gives you away. (hehehehe) Ah those were the days.

Ah how I long for one of those warm hazy summer days of my childhood every now and then when I wish to get away from the world just for a little while. When things get tough or I feel crowded because I can not seem to find 5 minutes just for me I would give anything to climb up that old ladder in my parents barn and hide away in the fresh smelling hay. Munching on a bowl of raspberries that I did not have to share with anyone as I savor each and every one all by myself.
After you are done hiding away in the barn you can wander out behind by the river and lean against a wonderful strong birch tree.

Birch trees are such an amazing thing you know. You can climb way up high in the branches and watch everyone looking for you below. You can also peel the bark off a tree and if you have a dull pencil you can write on the bark. That was one of my favorite things to do. The birch bark has a wonderful smell to it and the trees are so graceful in all their glory reaching up into the heavens. They have an elegance of superiority in their straightness. Like the rigid back of an old school marm they stand and look out over the countryside.

You can lie under the closest birch tree and watch the little dragon flies fly over the water, dipping and diving to see what delicious tidbit they can snatch from the water for their lunch. If you really listen you will hear the whispers, amongst the long grasses along the river bank, of little butterfly wings and buzzing insects. You can watch the fluff from dandelions float and twirl in the gentle breezes coming through the branches of the birch trees.

You are at home but you are not really because you are in a different world surrounded by the trees and water and the little creatures of the land. Maybe a little girl is the only one who would feel this way but you know even at my age I can still close my eyes and remember how wonderful it was back then. When all the chores were done and your time was your own for a wee while to do with as you please-I would disappear down behind the barn to the water to dream little girl dreams of what it would like to be all grown up someday.

Now I am a grandma and I am having grandma dreams of what it was like to be a little girl. *sigh* the sweet loss of our youth is once again revisited in the places only the memory can visit.

Until next time, God Bless
Misker 
August 26/99