What little kids do, well maybe more like what kids from the country do.

I recently experienced one of those you couldn't make this up little kids events.  We had a baby turkey die due to a small child dropping it which was sad and I had made a mistake in allowing the children to see the babies without supervision.  We had thrown the little body in the trash and had thought nothing of it.  Sadly a lesson learned.  The next day the little ones were all playing out in the back yard and much to my amazement there one of the little girls was swinging with what appeared to be a toy.  I couldn't quite make out the toy she had so stepped forward to see what she had.  As I walked closer to her visions of rubber chickens registered in my mind.  You know the ones comedians used to use to slap people with on old variety hours.  There to my horror was the lovely little girl (I am protecting her future dignity by not telling you which of the little girls it was) swing away on the swing, in one hand she had a baby turkey by the neck.  It flopped to an from as she swung back and forth, its little neck seemed to have stretched out and it wobble about.  I asked her what she had, and where she got it, she smiled with delight "a baby turkey" and proudly held it up for me to see.  I aghast walked over and retrieved it from her.  All the while old comedy routines bounced around in my head, I walked away toward the trash hoping to keep my laughter of the lunacy of it to myself.  Mokie, who is much more irreverent than me, was laughing uncontrollably.  I told the little darling she need to go wash her hands as the baby turkey was dirt and she need to wash, and use soap, away she ran as happy as a clam.  We soon found out how the turkey had gotten out of the trash can, Boy admitted he had tipped it over and gotten it out so that the girls could see it and play with it.  Sadly a tragically true event, it still brings a naughty smile to my face, not because of the morbidness of a dead turkey, but because of the little lovely swinging away with an apparent rubber chicken in her hand singing with joy and laughter as she shared her day with her new friend.  Okay so you had to be there but kids do the darnedest things.

I remember fondly such events from my childhood, no, no dead turkeys but other outrageous things little ones can and do do.  I remember, one of my earliest memories, I was around 3 being in a strangers house, I was playing with a jack in the box, it intrigued me.  I also remember my mother coming to the door with a strange man apologizing for having to look in his home for her lost child.  Apparently I had snuck into his house while he was out and I had wondered away from ours, there I was happily playing with his jacking the box,  all around the vinegar jug the monkey chased the weasel, the weasel stopped to scratch his head pop goes the weasel....  Another day a while later, in a new home, my mom had had to clean out the freezer, it had stopped working in the summer time and all the meat was ruined.  She put it in the wheel barrow so she could take it out of the house then discard it.  It was out back when she had to go take care of the baby, Little brother.  My two older, younger brothers, and I took the wheel barrow over the rise in the field and decided to play cooks.  We made burgers, maybe a better name would be mud burgers as we did pat them up on the dirty ground.  We all ate a good portion of our burgers before we got bored and left the meat and the wheelbarrow there in the field.  I was so sick later and to this day can eat a steak that still moo's as long as it is warm but I like my burgers cooked no pink of any sort please.  A few weeks after this we were in the garden helping my mom weed the garden,  Sister was playing with the pitch fork, she was in the tomatoes as she liked to take a bite out of each and then pick another one.  She began screaming, there she stood one pitch fork tine in each foot clear threw to the ground.  The same summer my mom took us all out to see the  sheep, she told the boys to run over and pet them.  The ram saw them coming and must have perceived them as a threat he meant them half way across the field and flatten Red to the ground, knocked him out cold.  My mom was scared and shooed the ram away as she helped the boys up and out of the pasture, a week later the same ram killed a young ram by head butting him the same way, scared my mom even worse.  I went to school shortly there after that, in the fall, well kindredgarten, the nice lady across the field and the highway ran a small one for the neighborhood kids.  I remember having to walk across the highway and then go across the field to come home, it was quicker than the road.  I was walking across the field, but the barbwire fence scared me, so I decided that if I closed my eyes and ducked I could manage it without fear.  Well I came up too soon and slice my left eye lid open.  I went the rest of the way across the field sobbing, mom doctored it when I got home, no back then you didn't run them to the er.  I still have a big scar to this day.

We aged and moved to Idaho and a few years later we were playing in the barn, mom and her friends were tired of us tattling so they told us not to come back in the house for any reason.  Well, we had this rope in the barn and we were playing at swing in the barn, Red has braver than the rest of us and was standing in the rope swing away when he slipped,  he was hanging by his foot from the rope in the middle of the barn.  He couldn't reach the ground and couldn't get back up, none of us could help him down or up and he was turning blue.  I was volunteered to go for help, I wasn't looking forward to the in troubleness I would be in for being there telling again or for Red being hanging in the barn.  I walked in the house and my mom said I was so white and scared looking they knew something was wrong immediately.  I didn't get in trouble for telling but we all got in trouble for playing with a rope in the barn. We moved around again after that and eventually landing at upper Lynch creek in Plains,  we lived in the woods in a newly cut subdivision.  My mother was having a frustrating day, which happen alot with 8 kids and being pregnant.  She was upset with my brother, that was adopted and was adopted from us later by my aunt and uncle,  she told him to go jump in the creek, she wasn't serious and none of us were paying all that much attention to him.  He being 5 took her literally.  He came wondering into the house a while later wet from head to toe and blood running down his face from a big gash in his head.  The creek wasn't deep and he had jumped in head first.  Not long after that my brothers, Red of the barn rope incident was leading the way, they were climbing to the top of small bull pine trees and their weight would bend the tree over and they would swing toward earth much like a bungee jumper.  I was not playing only observing their antics but soon got bored and left.  The three boys continued to play at their game, well soon Silver left Little brother and Red to it.  A short while later here comes Little brother dragging Red toward the house, Red had actually hit the ground and was knocked out so Little Brother was dragging him home to mom.  Little Brother was scared to dead and crying he thought Red was dead.

Being the oldest I caught a lot of trouble for being the leader, not sure I lead all that much or all the time, but I got the blame.  I did finally learn to use that to my advantage as I aged and when I could.  I was in middle school or maybe early high school when my mom left the house saying that she would give me 5 dollar if  the kitchen was clean when she got home, an enormous amount of money.  I being a thinker knew she didn't say I had to actually do the work it just had to be done.  I told Sister that if she cleaned the kitchen I would give her a dollar.  Needless to say it was years before she figured out that she deserved more than the dollar she earned.  I am thinking maybe the turkey incident is minuscule in the broader scope of my life experience with children, and now you know why it is funny to me, because at no time were any children in any danger with the baby turkey,  I do wonder how in retrospect I survived my childhood or may how my mom survived all of our childhoods........ tomorrow.