Clearing Land

I’ve been cleaning the lot beside our house the last few days. Most every muscle in my body is knotted and sore from swinging an axe, sickle, and mattock. The work’s been hard but fun, and knocking around there reminded my past.
In one spot fencing and barbed wire are gnarled with vines and ground. It’s the location of the old pig sty. Mother and Daddy kept hogs in that spot before Jim and I were born. Twice a day, she would tote a five gallon bucket filled with water to the pin that was located about three hundred feet up an incline. She also carried food to them.
Mother used to take our older brother Dal with her on the chores. On one occasion, she was busy about her chores and couldn’t find him when she turned back around. In a panic Mother looked for him, and her fears that he’d gotten in with the pigs had her almost hysterical, something that just didn’t happen. She finally discovered him in another area of the woods where Dal had wandered off to play.
It was on this lot that some of the biggest adventures Jim and I shared took place. I remember having our toy guns and rifles and crawling through the woods there as we escaped German soldiers in make believe games of war. That was when such play wasn’t considered inappropriate or harmful to a child’s psyche. We also built a lean-to from pine limbs. It served as teepee where we took turns as either cowboys or Indians, a game that today would be called cowboys and Native Americans.
It was in that general area that Dal tormented Jim and me. He was the babysitter when our parents were at work or school and demand that we do what he wanted. When we refused, Dal walked out the back door with news that he was running away. He left the two of us, probably no older than six or seven and scared to death wailing for him. Our older brother stood at the edge of the woods for a few minutes before returning. Jim and I gladly made his lunch and poured his drinks.
In the fall when we played there, one of us would feel the slap of a limb across an eye as we navigated the underbrush just before sundown. We’d go home whining about how much the affected eye hurt. Mother would be at the stove fixing supper, and she had little patience for such complaining. Her advice was to get a wash cloth, put it on our the scratched eye, and go lie down in a dark room. We did so, and the discomfort subsided. When we awoke the next morning, the eye problem was gone, just a Mother had promised.
My neighbor Mr. Nelson used to burn brush on that lot. He taught me the best way to perform the job was to wait for a snowfall. Then he poured kerosene on the pile and when the fire started, he used a leaf blower to stoke the flames until the blaze resembled a blast furnace. I still use that same method when I burn.
This lot needed some attention to clear its blemished surface. It didn’t take long for the memories to flood back, and feeling young for a while made the soreness of my muscles a bit easier to take.