The Bee Tree

When I was twelve my parents moved to a small ranch of three acres. I call this the money pit house because it needed so much work. I now ask myself what were they thinking! Even though dad was a construction worker and carpenter working full time that house was about as close to a night mare as I’d seen in my young life.

We had to take out two big old trees that were rotten in the center when we The locals were horrified that we were cutting down “all” the trees. But we did not want them blowing over in the wind on the house.
I was helping split wood with a sledge hammer and splitting maul, can you tell we were loggers from a logging community? Insert tool time grunt here! Argh argh argh ~ Yea right; I knocked off half of my front tooth splitting that bee tree that was no longer “free” wood after the dentist bill crown for the cap to regain on my smile.

We got bees and I used to help dad with the bees and was only stung once.
That was the same year they built a chicken house and we raise chickens. We would get 50-100 at time if memory serves me right keep them warm in the wood shed until they were pullets and put them out in the pen the chicken house became a necessity because a big hawk took up residence in the big tall pines on the neighboring property. We butchered out chickens with our grandparents on Sat. for Sunday dinners through out the year. Rosemary and roast chicken and dumplings were one of my favorite meals! Yum!

The neighbors down the road had small fancy breed of chickens and their rooster was always getting out I caught it for him one time and just tackled it he had this coat hanger he was going to use. I earned a box of candy for the holidays that year for catching his chicken, he later became a relative seems we moved between dear hubbies relatives, so we tell this chicken catching story at family reunions now.
[Sh-h don’t tell] Farm boy that I married had to be instructed on the finer points of cutting up a chicken I always thought I’d be getting lessons on that not giving them! LOL! I guess he only learned how to cut up beef.

After I graduated high school they got pigs my sis got in on that.