Summers on the farm

I think some of my favorite childhood memories were spent on the farm with my my Grandparents, Fred & Margaret Carlisle, and of course my very first friend my brother Sammy.  We would spend long warm days with berry buckets in hand scouting the land.  Among our adventures we found and named lakes, the first and most popular was the Youmans Lake. It always amazed me to see the hundreds of tadpols swimming in the shallow part! The next lake we discovered was the Carlisle Lake. Funny thing we never did swim in either!! We would challenge each other to see who could climb the highest mountains, which actually weren't mountains at all but stripper pits, but they were mountains to us, and of course me not to be outdone by anyone especially a boy, would push my limit!! WE would explore for what seemed like miles picking berries along the way!!  Oftentimes we probably ate more than what ended up in the bucket, when we finally made it back to the house while we got cleaned up Grandma would make us a cobbler with those berries!!  there was no electric, running water or modern facilities on the farm but that was OK we didn't need any TV, or computers everyday was a new adventure for us.  We would build go carts, then haul them up the hill from the house and ride them down the lane leading to the farm!!  it always felt like forever pulling that thing back up the hill for just a minute of fun!  On top of that hill we found a bit of a plateu before going down into the woods, Sammy learned all sorts of outdoor skills being in the boy scouts, and he taught me how to make a lean to,that site was to be our Indian village, we even had a counsel rock.
 Our Grandparents found themselves on the farm after a fire burnt down their home in Kittaning. Grandad built a small little house that they stayed in while building the larger house, on rainy days me and Sam would spend hours playing board games like Monopoly, Life, and countless others. Life was so simple then.
One day Sam and I found a pile of wood not far from the house, which of course we made it our own, we called it the Showboat, and we would sing and dance and do little skits, we would take the boards and make walk ways to other parts of the showboat! lol
Whenever we went into town it was an all day ordeal which we always looked forward to, Grandma would always take a can of sardines in mustard she would eat along the way!! Not the best smell in the heat of the summer. Often times we would stop at peoples houses and visit.
there are so many more stories I could write about the farm but this is just the beginning.
Written by Sandra Youmans Meyers