Summer of 1960 When I Was 7.... chapter 14.... We have pink bunnies and a pole barn!
Every day we’d be outside with either a puppy or a bunny in our laps. The puppies were growing as big as the bunnies. All three of them were brown with a white spot somewhere. One had a spot over the eye, I named him Bandit. Another had a white paw, he was Boots. And one had a spot on his tummy. She was my favorite. Her name was Penny. I loved to rub her milk- filled puppy tummy. She’d suck on my fingers leaving them smelling like puppy breath which I loved. Nothing quite smells like puppy breath.
One day as I was finishing my Frosted Flakes
and digging in the bottom of the box for a toy surprise, Momma got out the food
color and announced, “It’s time to color the bunnies so we can sell them.” She dyed the pretty, white bunnies pink,
yellow, and green. I got to help make
Pinky a pretty pink! And Marshmallow became bright yellow!
“Pretty!” exclaimed Patty.
“Oh, I love them,” I said. “Can we
paint the puppies, too?”
“The bunnies are old enough now; I’m
going to take them into town to try to sell them.”
“No!” I cried.
“You all stay with Irene,” Momma
said as she gathered all eight beautiful colored bunnies into a box to take
into town. I spent the afternoon holding
Penny, the puppy, to soothe my hurt.
She came back with six bunnies. “I could only sell two of them. I wish I thought of this at Easter time, I
bet they would’ve sold better then.”
“We can keep all the rest now,” I
said as I grabbed the box.
“Don’t get too attached,” Momma said
as she helped me put the remaining six bunnies in the cage. I gave Pinky and
Marshmallow an extra hug. The Momma bunny just licked all those bunnies taking
the color right off.
I would play outside all
day. Often my sister and I would play in the pole barn where the rabbit cage was.
It was a nice big shed with an open area with a roof to give us shade. Our father had built the pole barn the year
before out of cypress trees cut from the middle of Lake Lewis. He put a tin roof on it and we loved to sit
in the shade among all Daddy’s tools and equipment and play all day under its
shade in the dirt and we even climbed on top of it. We were allowed to because we helped build
it. It was on a day last summer and we
all had to go because Irene wasn’t able to watch us and Daddy said he needed
our mother’s help getting the wood. Daddy
had borrowed a boat and trailer and we drove out to Lake Lewis.
“I want to ride in the boat,” whined
Patty. We all wanted to.
“You can when we get to the lake,”
assured Daddy.
“Can we feed Ole’ Sam?” I asked.
“Not today. We’ve got a lot to do,”
answered Daddy. After we got to the
lake, Daddy put all three of us girls in the little fishing boat with him and
Momma backed the car into the water.
After we were floating, Momma parked the car and waded into the water
and climbed into the boat. Daddy sat in
the back and drove the boat across the big lake, the little engine whining
loudly. We squinted our eyes and giggled
when the water would spray on our faces, the giggles disappearing in the wind
that blew our hair out behind us. The
boat slowed down when we got back to the middle of the lake where the cypress
trees grew together. Standing in the dark water like sentries guarding the
underworld, the trees towered above our little boat. The air was thick but it was cool inside the
grove. Almost reaching down into the
boat, the Spanish moss hung in deep gray masses over all the trees threatening
to strangle everything it touched.
Daddy took out his saw and cut down five trees
that were about the size of a can of vegetables around and longer than the
boat. Momma helped him hold the trees
while he cut them down, tied them together and floated them behind the boat so
they could be dragged to shore.
“These will be perfect. Straight and tall for the corners with one
for a center post. That’ll hold the roof.” Daddy said.
“Keep tight hold of Patty.” Momma kept
telling Moonrose. Even though Patty was
only 3 at the time, she sat pretty still. Moonrose kept promising her that we’d
go fast in the boat again soon.
“Marilyn it’s your job to watch the trees
in case a snake falls in the boat.” My
head snapped back and I stared into the Spanish moss that drooped toward
me. We spent a long afternoon while Daddy
sawed down the trees so he could build his big shed. I didn’t take my eyes off the trees the rest
of the time we were there. Surely, Daddy
just said that to keep us still and quiet.
There weren’t really any snakes in the moss, was there?
My dad built that pole barn last
summer with all of our help. He placed one
of the cypress trees in each of the four corners with one in the middle to hold
up the center. He put on a tin roof and
built a shed on the far end to keep tools and the lawnmower. The trees made the roof tall enough that a
car could fit under it. My parents let
all three of us girls climb on that roof and pound nails as much as we wanted. The noise from our hammering of nails on the
tin roof could be heard for days. When we got tired, we had picnics in the
shade underneath while my father worked in the heat overhead. He said that barn would last a lifetime
because cypress trees were naturally decay resistant. I wonder if it’s still there.
to be continued.....
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