Mama Kat Thursdays: Backwoods Indiana Memories

As kids, my sisters and I grew up in Indiana, way out in the country. Our home occupied one cleared corner of 22 acres of heavily forested property that included a valley with a creek rocky creek at the bottom.
If I recall right, the land once belong to a company who lumbered all the Black Walnut trees some time prior to our parents purchasing the land, but left behind a fabulously wide and well established trail through the woods and down the hills to the creek.
That creek was our play place and if we had nothing better to do at the house, up would come a chorus of "Let's go down to the creek!" and off we'd go!

It was a lovely shaded creek, surround on both sides by tall trees and full of rocks ranging from large boulders to tiny pebbles of granite, mica, quartz, limestone and more---a rock hound heaven!
The rocks were pretty, too, ranging in colors: tan, brown, gray and pinkish.  

The water itself was full of fascinating life: tadpoles and minnows would swim nervously away to hide as we walked along the rocky banks and adult frogs would make a loud "plunk" sound leaping into the water. Insects called Water Striders skimmed along the surface of the water wherever it was pooled and still, like little ice-skaters.

We'd often take all our Barbie's there and build them "spas" in the burbling water, creating around pools encircled with flat-shaped stones so Barbie and Ken could sit on the edge, basking in the dappled sunlight coming through the canopy of trees above.

 The creek was wide and curvy and full of turns and switch-backs, the water threading it's way between dry banks of rocks and sand. In some places it was more shallow, gurgling along over stones, but it formed deeper pools at it's curves and elbows where, during rain storms it had carved away earth from under massive oaks and sycamores, leaving their thick, tangled roots hanging exposed.
Such deep corner pools were easily 8 to 12 inches deep---deep enough to splash around in when we were small! I remember Mother made us home-made swimsuits and on warm summer days, we'd run down to the creek to "swim." 

Wild Phlox

We knew those woods like the back of our hands. living in the rhythm of their seasons, like little wood fairies. We knew the names for all the trees and what flowers were in season.
One of particularly nice flowers that grew all over the creek valley bottom yearly was a beautiful purple flower called Wild Phlox. They were the sweetest smelling things and tall enough to pick easily and drag big handfuls of them back home to Mother, who always graciously thanked us and put them in a vase.

I think one of my favorite seasons was fall. My sisters and I came up with this idea called, "Leaf Races."  We'd go down to the creek in autumn and walk a good ways upstream. We would each select a fallen leaf with a suitable "boat-like" curve to it, then each locate a stick we could use for "guiding" our little leaf boats if they got stuck.

Then we'd put the leaf-boats in the water and let the water carry them away, while we followed along, walking along the stony banks, using our sticks to keep our "leaf-boats" moving along.

We, of course, had cards and board games and dolls and books and television back at the house, but it's the times we made our own fun I remember most fondly.

Thanks for Visiting!