We visited my grandmother Mema today on her farm, just one town over. This is the farm where my Mom grew up and where my brothers and I had many sleepovers. Walking around today with my little boy, I reminisced about all the fun we used to have playing outside at Mema’s.
Mema’s clothesline was a volleyball net, badminton net, support for forts, and one post was second base in backyard kickball or baseball games.
The hand pumps were where we washed off the precious rocks we found, where we filled tubs used to float the boats we carved out of overgrown zucchini, and where we could wash our dirty feet or hands.
The old outhouse was the perfect hiding place for a game of Hide and Go Seek or for when Mom said it was time to go home.
The swing under the big maple tree provided the perfect rest on a hot busy day, where we sat to wave at the occasional walker, bike riders or cars that went past. Mema and Pa knew all their neighbors back then.
It’s funny to think how the best toys then were a ball, a bucket, or an overgrown zucchini. We could stay busy all day, and summer seemed to last forever. What ordinary items become toys at your house?
Farmer's Daughter 
I love Mema’s house! It brought back some wonderful memories of my grandma’s house – playing hide & seek in the lilac bushes, “annie annie over” the pump house and with the dress-up clothes upstairs. Such sweet memories!
I also spent tons of time with Mema on her sewing machine making dresses for my Barbies. And I used to dress up as a bride using the netting that covered her blueberry bushes 🙂
Abbie,
What a LOVELY tribute to your Grandma/Joshua’s Great-Grandma “Mema!”
I know that you, Jonathan, and Nathaniel have wonderful memories of time spent with Mema and Pa. Mema, especially, gave you all the gift of her time and attention, which is priceless.
How nice that you’re helping Joshua build fond memories with family and I know that Mema absolutely cherished the time we spent there today. I was so happy to share that with you: four generations, which is pretty special.
I can only hope to be the kind of grandma to Josh that Mema has been to you!
Love you both,
Mom/”Me-mom?”
Wow Abby…your childhood sounds like mine…
Of course, that’s because, even though we’re a different generation, I spent many hours doing those very same things in that very same back yard…! I love the photos. Mema is my “Aunt Dotty”….like you, I truely cherish those memories…
Barka~how nice to see you here!
Yes, many of us were so fortunate to share childhood memories on the same farm. As neighbors, your Mom was “Aunt Nancy” to all of us, and still is!
Remember the little forts we had in the woods between your house and mine?
I wonder if our parents knew we were creating such wonderful memories? And I know that you’ve created some of those same memories with your children as well.
We are blessed to have multiple generations to share the joy of childhood with!
Hugs,
Ruth (Abbie’s Mom and Joshua’s Grandmom!!!)
May Joshua have memories there too. Isn’t having multiple generations an incredible blessing?
Thanks – a wonderful tribute to a different time.
Bicycles and hay bales in the barn could take days and days to grow old. Me, I think it was melting snow water that was an enduring fascination, and getting the gravel yard to drain nicely.
There is something magical about a grandparent’s house, I think. I remember playing with snails at my grandmother’s. I would gather them all on to a table and count them. I could spend HOURS doing this. Now I won’t even touch a snail – clearly I’ve gone soft.
I loved this post Abbie. How lucky you all are to have such wonderful memories, and now you can share them with Joshua! It always amazes my brothers and I how many cool things we were able to find and play at our grandparents house, they are truely some of my favorite childhood memories. I wish my grandparents got to meet my children, and more importantly, my children got to meet them, they could have learned so much! My grandmother (the last of my grandparents) past away on the due date of my first born. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss them terribly. Enjoy this time! I have fond memories of your sweet “mema” shopping at the farm, she is a wonderful woman!
Ordinary items that became toys? LOL! I used to pass some time picking up small green apples that had fallen off the tree and throw them as hard as I could up against the cinder block garage wall to see if I could make them smash and shatter. 🙂 What a good old memory I had almost forgotten!