Life in the Country

Living on the farm was a wonderful way to live. Back then family and neighbors were very important.  We had time to visit with family and friends and they with us. And we all did too, a lot!!!!
We used to have peanut boilings, when the old black cast iron wash pot was filled with water and peanuts with a lot of salt and a fire built underneath, heated to a good steady boil. It took a good long while for the peanuts to get done and ready to eat.
But before they could be boiled, they had to be pulled up out of the ground in the field, then hand picked off and the dirt washed off, (no one wants gritty sand in their mouth). After all the work was done and the peanuts boiling, the grown-ups would sit around outside around the fire and talk while the children ran around playing what ever games they could come up with. Ball games, hide and seek, or the boys chasing the girls and scaring them to hear them scream. Sometimes it was a pretty rambunctious time and a lot of racket.  You would hear a Mother or Daddy say quieten down!  Quit running in the dark before you get hurt! I said quit making so much noise!! I mean it!!
One night we were all running around, cousins, neighbor kids,etc. One or more of the boys had a BB gun and was shooting it in the dark. Well, I was hit by a BB on the inside one of my wrists!!!  It scared me half to death and the boy too!!!! I screamed and hollered like I was kilt!! Well, I guess you know the grown-ups stopped the BB shooting right then!! I have no idea who was doing the shooting, but we really had a good time at those peanut boilings!!!! I guess there were probably 6 or 8 or even more families there and with no telling how many kids, but it was a gang of us!!!!
We always had lots of cousins to play with and we always were visiting back and forth. If we spent the night, at our house or theirs, made no difference, we cousins would sleep on mattresses on the floor 3-4-5 or more to the bed, so many we had to sleep crossways in order for us all to sleep on the same bed. Sometimes we had to have more that one bed. Talk about giggling and tussling!!!! Momma hollering "y'all get quiet in there and go to sleep now. I mean it!"  we would quieten down for a little then one would giggle and then we all would get started again.  But, gracious me, it was a lot of fun!!! The more kids, the more fun! You think "sleep-overs" today are something, you should have been to one of those cousin ones!!!!!
More next time......
Y'all come back, now, ya hear!