Sixth Grade

  Sixth Grade

And now another new adventure...a new home and a new school!!!  Our new home was the "house that Jack built".  For those who have never heard that expression, it means that it is a house that began as a very small place and then rooms were added on as needed in a hodge-podge fashion.  This house began as an one room adobe, supposedly occupied by a famous Indian, Ramona.  Hence, the ranch was called Rancho Ramona.

My brother, Brian and I would usually walk home from the little one room school house that was just over the hill and across the highway.  As I recall, we usually had a ride to school...no doubt because we were running late as usual!

It was fun being in a classroom with grades 1-6 together.  There were probably only about 20 of us kids.  This is where I learned the game "Kick the Can" and "Steal the Bacon".  I also learned  the Mexican Hat dance that we performed for 6th grade graduation.

Our walk home was sometimes a hike up the big hill (not the road) and then a run through brush and weeds down the hill to the house.  Fortunately, it was not summer as we probably would have run into a few rattlesnakes!

We also loved to take our bikes up to the top of the road and ride down to our house.  Boy, did we get them going fast!!!  We would entertain ourselves as well playing cowboys and Indians!  We saved some kind of coupons and sent off for an Indian headband and a few other Indian things.  We had found a mortar and pestle to use for our "cooking"!    Oh, the joys of living in the country and just being kids!!!  We lived on this ranch 2 different times...6th grade and back again for the last couple months of 8th grade and all of 9th grade so some of my memories run together!

Whatever time it was, (6th grade I think) I will never forget the CHICKENS!!!

My parents, for whatever reason, decided to raise 125 chickens to butcher and freeze for future meals.  Here we go again!!!  Feeding chickens!!!  And that dratted water dish that never worked right for me!!  Sure enough, one afternoon, it must have broken apart 2 or 3 times and I was so frustrated!

One more try and maybe this will work...nope!!!!  Just as I got in the door of the hen house, the thing let lose and splat!!!  Water everywhere! When I turned around all in a huff to pick up the pieces, my eyes are drawn straight to the chicken-wire window ledge...and the screaming began!!!!  There was a snake stretched out on the ledge within a foot of me!!!!  Running out of the hen house screaming bloody murder, my poor mother thought something  tragic had happened to me.  Yep, I was scared half to death!!!!  Fortunately, it was a king snake and not dangerous but who cared???  Up close and personal with any snake is not for me!

Now, time passes and it is time to butcher the 125 chickens!!!  My grandparents came to help us.  Well, let's say that they and I did most of the hard work!!!  My grandfather cut off their heads...anybody ever experience a headless chicken flapping around, squirting blood all over?!!  The chicken was then dipped in a barrel of hot water.  My job...pluck off the wet, stinky feathers!! ( I have no idea where Brian was!  He could disappear quickly!).  Following the de-feathering, they were carried to the kitchen and my mother prepared them for freezing.  They did make for good eating!

Sibling rivalry was not too rampart with my brother, Brian and I.  After all, he could always beat me up!  But I got one up on him one day on the ranch.  We had a pellet gun and Brian thought he was Wyatt Earp.  One afternoon we saw an owl sitting on the roof of the big barn down the hill from our house.  He bragged that he could shoot it that far away and kill it.  So he proceeded to show off his budding manhood and got off a good shot. The owl didn't flinch!  So I asked him to let me try.  I proceeded to aim and shoot...dead on shot and the owl bit the dust!!!  I still like to bring up this story.