I grew up on a farm in central Washington from the time I was 3 to when I was 12 and my earliest memories are living there. My next older brother is almost 3 years older than I and my next younger one is almost 4 years younger. I played a lot by myself, and with those brothers. Because we lived out in the country, I saw my friends mostly at school and did not have them come to my house to play very much.
There were two houses on the property and I remember living in both of them. The one I remember first was one story and L shaped. There weren’t any trees close by, but I remember we planted a big branch (maybe 4 or 5 inches in diameter) off the weeping willow tree that grew near the other house.
There were mountains to the south called saddle mountains, and I remember spending hours out in the yard studying them through the binoculars, especially where the dip was that gave them their name. I would prop the binoculars on an old frame for a baby swing to keep them steady. I had heard stories from older brothers who had hiked up those mountains, but I had never been there. It was desert country, so they were mostly bare, with only a few patches of scrawny trees here and there.
The house I liked the most was the two story house. We moved into it after my twin brother and sister were born. I was probably 10 at the time. I got the bedroom that looked out into the huge old weeping willow tree. Some of the branches nearly touched my window. There was a platform fully covered with an old double mattress about 8 or 10 feet up, where the tree split into several large branches.
I had so much fun under and in that willow tree. The branches hung down and I could swing on them. I spent many hours lying on the mattress reading books. There were also several smaller platforms higher up in the tree that I could climb to. I used an old piece of woven wire to create the walls of a round house and played with my baby dolls in there. I had the furniture drawn on the ground and I would sweep the floor and make everything tidy. I took good care of my babies.
My father raised cattle and hay. The first cutting of hay was ready before school was over and I remember my older brothers and sister going out to buck bales before going to school. I liked to help with feeding the calves. There were big 5 gallon containers that hung below the cows that were being milked with a machine. The milk was then poured into buckets to be carried to the calf pens.
If there wasn’t enough fresh milk for all the calves, we would mix dry milk powder with water and whisk it with baling wire bent to be like the wire whisk used in our kitchen. Some of the calves were old enough to drink from a bucket, but many needed to be bottle fed. I learned how to hold the bottle and hang on to the nipple so they didn’t pull it off the bottle in their exuberance.
We also had rabbits (which I loved to cuddle), pigs, chickens and at least one horse. I have so many happy memories from my childhood on the farm! It was a good place to grow up! There were lots of opportunities to explore new things and play outside. I was so happy to also be able to raise my children out in the country. They learned about the woods rather than the desert, but had the same opportunities for being outside in nature and exploring the world around them.