Creekside Garden

Long Live Boyhood

I want to remember mornings like this when I am an old woman.

Every morning after a breakfast of fried eggs and pancakes, we make the calf her bottle and walk up the hill to do chores. I call “Ginny! Ginny girl!” carrying Cason on my hip, Ginny bawls with excitement for her breakfast. Penny the little border collie and Tali the cat play tag, darting between bushes and chasing each other for fun. They really are best friends, for being a dog and a cat. Caleb climbs the boulders along the hill, barefoot as usual. Can’t keep his shoes on very long.

We dump the milk into Ginny’s bucket and watch her polish off her breakfast. Soon she is done and both boys are playing in her pen. She runs around bucking and kicking with happiness, chasing the dog and making a pass at the boys. She never touches them though. Tali is up a tree, observing the circus below, like the independent woman she is. Ginny stops behind me, begging for me to scratch her neck. The boys run up to her with excitement. Cason kisses her wet nose, Caleb plays with her tail. Penny gets jealous and wiggles up beside me, pleading for attention. Ginny bounces off again, coming back full of spice and excitement that someone is here to play.

Cason points at the calf asking for a ride, I set him on her warm black shoulders and he squeals with delight. Ginny prances and I pull him off before she runs in a circle again. Caleb wants a turn, this time Ginny backs up and he slides down her neck onto her head. The sunshine is warming the new fall air, and the minutes slip by like precious pearls on a string. Everyone smells like a cow.

Caleb climbs the fence and dives into the bushes. This kid is happiest in thick trees and dense brush, burrowing like a feral animal. A few days ago we went for a hike along some thick pine trees when he ran off into the woods, jumping logs and bouncing around as happy as a clam, begging us to follow him into his “house”. Today, Tali follows, curious to watch this boy in her territory. Eventually he pops out the other side, twigs in his hair, thrilled by his adventure. He runs off down the hill, following horse trails and disappears around the corner.

I take Cason back to the house and grab Caleb’s shoes, we go find Caleb on the ancient yellow bulldozer. The boys love climbing on this dozer. Cason pulls the leavers, Caleb tries to turn it on and is disappointed that it is “broken”. I manage to coax him into his shoes and then we are off again. Caleb started running full speed to the barn down by the creek, across the driveway, past the grain bins and two geldings by the corral. An orange barn kitten stalked sparrows in the sand outside the round pen, Penny saw the kitten and chased her away from the birds and into the little red barn. Two little boys follow close behind, excited to see the “kitty”.

In the barn, two gangly kittens are delighted to have some attention. The orange one appeared to be unbothered after Penny chased her into the barn. Caleb and Cason, always moving, climb the pens in the barn, swinging gates, and chattering excitedly about hay and feeding the kitties. Cason trips on a cow turd and I get anxious to move out of the barn before they break something or get any dirtier than they already were (it’s not our barn). I steer the circus outside where Caleb sees the creek. Before I knew what was happening, he climbed the corral fence and was splashing away in the low running creek. Across the water on the rocky shore, he sits down and takes his shoes off, plays around for a while and then crosses the water barefoot back to the side where Cason and I were waiting for him. Leaving his shoes on the far side.

Not wanting to get wet or leave Cason unattended by the mud with his new shoes, I decide to walk back to the house and get the four wheeler. It was like herding cats. Caleb was distracted by the new cow dog puppies and their cranky mama, Cason wanted to ride the roping dummy, Tali shows up and shadows our footsteps back to the yard, Penny bouncing along ahead. Finally I manage to get the whole party back to the house, onto the four wheeler, and drive all the way around across the bridge to the other side of the creek. Retrieving Caleb’s shoes, I felt a wave of exhaustion. I felt like we had touched every possible thing in the whole barnyard.

Finally we made it back to the house and to my dismay, only two hours had passed.