100 things: 21-30, Childhood memories

I just posted lyrics and the little background gave me inspiration for the next 10 things - things I remember from some of my growing up in a wonderful neighborhood in northern New Hampshire. This was really easy to write! I am going to one of the neighborhood parents 25th anniversary party next weekend and can not wait to see all the old friends.

21. I still remember my blowing my first bubble gum bubble - I was probably about 4 or 5 and I was outside near our garden during the summer. I do not remember who I was with, but one of the Dads was coming on his tractor and I ran to show him because I was that excited about my first bubble!

22. We had an amazing sliding hill behind our house and my parents (i.e. the Dads of the neighborhood) installed a flood light for night sliding. We used to have sliding parties and the Dads (of course) would pull us back up the hill in big sleds attached to snow mobiles.

23. I call "sledding", "sliding". I have no idea why.

24. In addition to sliding parties, our neighbor tapped trees and we would have sugar-on-snow parties. SO GOOD. When they built the sugar shack in the woods, the whole neighborhood would go down. Boiling tree sap down until the maple syrup is really thick, pouring it in little dollops on snow, eating it with a fork along with homemade pickles and donuts. How much more New England can you get?

25. We went back one winter to visit after moving. There was a sliding party and I broke my arm...because one of the dad/son pairs on a sled slid right on to my arm. Unfortunately, I did get a cast because it was right near my elbow and did not go all the way through the bone.

26. I was petrified of the woods around the edge of the bottom of the sliding hill. I thought there were bear and evil things. Talking to my sister now, I think our Mom must have said things to scare us so we would not go past the tree line. Clever.

27. I have plucked the little feathers off chickens when it was the time of year to slaughter the chickens. Did I mention we lived next door to a farm?

28. I also used to collect eggs in the hen house with one of the boys on the farm.

29. Said boy on the farm was older than me and was great with kids! He used to tell me which earwig bugs were "good" and which were "bad" and I would only stomp on the bad ones.

30. I used to collect polliwogs in the pond in the summer with the other kids. They were the black ones that you can not see through. We would bring them home and watch them grow legs or start to lose their tails. We did not know how to feed them, so we always returned them after a couple of days.