Gift from a cousin and dear friend

[milkman]

Last summer while the garden was in full abundance, we had a distant cousin and her husband over for a visit and lunch. Afterward we took a trip to the garden and visited the house where I grew up, she took some pictures and learned that I had a picture that was made before the barn was taken down. She was captivated with the old well rock and the grindstone along with the old blacksmith forge and anvil and all the tools that dad used to work with in the shop. She took several pictures and when they left she asked if she could borrow the picture with the barn and house and do a painting for me, said it was just something she had to paint. They left with a camera full of photos, the photo of the homeplace and a carload of veggies, and in return I got a 16X20 water color that brings tears to my eyes and I will treasure forever. There are so many memories that this painting evokes that when I set and look at it, they just come rushing back and I remember the things that used to be there when I was a kid, like the meat house, the chicken house, the old outhouse and the cherry trees, peach trees and all the apple trees, chickens in the yard, too many things to mention here, all of it good. What a gift, THANK YOU PEGGY G.

 

[MossRoad]

That was a very nice thing for her to do. Both of my folks were artists and my sisters and I all have some of their work. A few of the works are of things we remember growing up. Very special stuff. You are lucky to have such a cousin.

 

[RoyJackson]

That's a very very nice painting!

 

[milkman]

When I was a kid, there was no underpinning and there was lots of room to play under the front of the house, nice dry dirt to play in, spent hours under there with a toy truck.

 

[LBrown59]

*When I was a kid, there was no underpinning and there was lots of room to play under the front of the house, nice dry dirt to play in, spent hours under there with a toy truck.
2*I got a 16X20 water color that brings tears to my eyes and I will treasure forever.
3* I remember the things that used to be there when I was a kid, like the meat house, the chicken house, the old outhouse and the cherry trees, peach trees and all the apple trees, chickens in the yard, too many things to mention here,

*Me and my brother would play under the house we grew up in when we were kids.
We'd make roads in the dirt with toy dozers to run our toy cars and trucks on.
We would spend hours under there some days.
2*Something like that is priceless.
My brother died last April and I was given a copy of a pencil sketch his second oldest daughter drew of him back in 1998.
I used to sit at my brothers kitchen table and admire this sketch hanging on the wall.
I was always intrigued by the quality and realism of that sketch.
It almost looked more like him than he did.
3*I remember these from there,my old home place.
a=The rabbit pins and the baby bunnies.
b=We had a chicken coop and chickens too.
What I detested about chickens in the yard was the hazard of going barefoot.
My grandmother loved to tell this one on me the time I was a barefoot little boy and went crying to my Mom yelling mommy mommy I stepped in chickey chit. Grandma would never let me live it down.
Oh the feeling of it oozing and squishing between your bare toes.
And yes who could forget the Outhouse with the countless times you sat there with the sweat rolling down your belly in the scorching hot summer and freezing your bare fanny off in the winter.

== L B ==

 

[milkman]

LB, you're really stirring up the memories, our chicken house was roofed with shingles and the backside of the roof was only about four feet off the ground.
Well to start over, we had a dinner bell, and back then it was to not only signal time to eat at lunch time, but at any other time of the day, if it rang, it was the 911 warning system.I just loved the sound of that bell and it just happened to be on a pole right at the front of the chicken house, but the rope was too short for me to reach from the ground. I found out that I could manage to climb up on the back of the chicken house roof and crawl to the front and reach out and get hold of the rope and make that sweet sound that I just loved. It would make about three loud clangs and mom would come flying out the back door and when I got down off the roof, she'd set my butt on fire. For some reason, wouldn't be long till I'd think I could get away with it this time and I'd be on the roof of the chicken house. OUCH again.