When I Was Young in the CountryBy Rosie Amstutz

Dedicated to my mom and dad who had the wisdom to gift me achildhood in the country.

When I was young in the country Mom would teach us how to plant the different types of seeds in the garden. Some seeds were scattered, some seeds were placed carefully one by one.

I sometimes used my small hands to cover the seeds with soil. Or, sometimes, Mom used the hoe to pull the dirt over the carefully planted seeds.

When I was young in the country, Aunts and Uncles would spend Sunday dinner around a table spread with Mom’s homemade chicken pot pie, Mississippi spinach, buttermilk fried chicken, and green beans fresh picked from the garden.

Afterwards, we would play a game of Michigan Rummy while the grown-ups enjoyed lemon meringue pie and drank coffee. We kids ate a bowl of ice cream.

When I was young in the country, Mom and Dad would take us mushroom hunting in the nearby woods. We would search for hours. Dad would teach us about the different types of trees in the woods. He liked the Redbud best. One time, he dug a small one up and we took it home and planted it in our yard.

When we got home from mushroom hunting, Mom would fry up whatever mushrooms we found in butter. Dad and Mom would offer us some and we would decline. Mom and Dad savored every bite, though.

When I was young in the country, we spent the summers harvesting vegetables from the garden. I would spend evenings with Mom picking peas and green beans or plucking potatoes from their roots as mom dug the hills.

Some of my summer days were spent podding peas or stringing green beans. When Mom got home from work, she taught me how to can them. We canned French style and cut green beans, peas, and corn. Mom taught me how to use hot water to take the skin off tomatoes before canning them or making tomato juice. We also canned my favorite—bread and butter pickles.

When I was young in the country, snow would come each winter and cover the long gravel lane. The wind would howl and blow snow across the fields leaving huge snow drifts blocking our path. At times our cars could not get through the deep snow.

One time, a man in a backhoe had to come and dig us out. It was nice to have country folk who could help when we needed it.

When I was young in the country, I laid in my bed at night and listened to the crickets chirp and awoke to the sounds of grasshoppers buzzing.

Sometimes, the crickets would get inside my room and I would chase them around until I captured them in a jar. I would take them outside and put them in the garden so they could sing their chirpety-chirp to me when I went to sleep that night.

When I was young in the country, I sat on the porch swing swaying back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes I memorized the rainbow or colors in the flower bed that surrounded me.

Maybe, I picked a daisy and played “he loves me, he loves me not” or maybe I picked a dandelion that had gone into seed and made wishes for a friend to come to the country and play with me.

Sometimes, I sat on the swing and watched a storm blow in late in the evenings. Other times, I sat and stared off into the colorful sunsets until the stars began to twinkle in the night sky.

When I was young in the country, I always enjoyed the open spaces, the peaceful solitude and the rainbow of nature’s bounty.

When I was young in the country, I never thought about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because the rainbow of the country was enough for me.