Well, this one's for you. I mean YOU. This is for all the little things that arent big enough for their own thread. Post something you think others need to know about.

P.S. I just want to see if anyone will actually use this...

Not a bad idea...

Bite the back end off a honeysuckle blossom and suck out the nectar.

Welcome back to 1965.

Harte

We used to do that with the flowers from fuschia hedges... happy memories

I'll have to try that...

OMG ! I still do that. lmao.

I certainly still do it.

We have a big bunch of honeysuckle just outside our house near our clothesline, and every spring we pull off the ends.
I was told though never to nibble, as it was poisonous?

Was there any basis to this? Or just a mother not wanting her kids to eat plants?

Never bothered me.

Just don't swallow the plant material, I guess.

How about climbing a tree?

Anyone still limber enough to do that?

Harte

We do the honeysuckle thing. We also eat violets. They are high in Vitamin A and taste sweet (the darker the purple, the sweeter).

We build dams in streams in the summer and hunt crayfish.

Used to do that when i was young... all the trees near where I live are really C**ppy though...

I haven't climbed a tree in years! I went for a drive to the small town that I grew up in, and stood next to the tree I always use to climb. It looks small and pitiful now, but back in the day, it was like Mount Everest, lol.

I love poking around for critters in a creek.

Been awhile, though.

Man, I used to climb the oaks in my backyard when I was so small the very top limbs would still hold me.

I swear to you I could stick my head up out of the tops of the trees. At the very top would be my head, like the star on your Christmas tree.

Used to make tree houses in them without using nails. Just lay boards across a likely fork between limbs. Sometimes you'd have to tie a board down.

Dad wouldn't let me nail into the trees.

Harte

aaah... back in the day

we used to spend hours pointlessly damming small streams, falling into them, and occasionaly losing shoes...

Beach-combing was one of the things I always used to do as a child.

Jump the neighbours fence.
I had to do it yesterday, and I realised I hadn't done it in years. I actually didnt think I could do it without breaking my neck, lol.
I used to do it all the time to steal the neighbours macadamia nuts.

I'm still pretty young (won't say just how old though, not comfortable w/ that stuff on the internet) but whenever my Dad takes me up to his old home town I do all this stuff you guys are talking about. I climb trees, build dams, hunt for crayfish, just about everything except for eat flowers...

Something else just popped into my head. I feel kinda deprived. I mean, I'm growing up in a generation that revolves around technology. What fun stuff am I going to be able to do w/ my kids? I'll be stuck with "Back in my time, we didn't have no fancy Halo 19, all we had was Halo 1-3. You youngsters dont know how good you have it"

Grandpa whats Grand theft auto 4?

when I was a kid we had this huge cherry tree butted against the back of our house next to an extended back porch ( a mudd porch some call it , laundry room) . The tree was taller than the house - I mean really huge. During this time of year , standing under it , you could make believe it was snowing as the blossoms started blowing.

we'd spend hours in that tree , picking tons of cherries for my gran to make pies and ate just as many. As a teen I'd use that tree to sneek out or in the house from our bedrooms upstairs ( as did my siblings and we never got caught.)

finally , because of carpenter ants the tree had to come down - sad.

But I could never climb like that again - I'd be like the cat . could get in it and meow to get down !

we also used to build ramps in the alley for jumping bikes. I could never do that again. lol. I now know how unsafe they are. Like playing Russian Roulette when you make them of weathered wood found in your yard and a few cinder blocks.

I grew up with cherry trees in my yard. I remember the blossoms to, it was awesome. We ate our selves sick. However I ate cherries everyday, so now I am sick of them. It was great then though.

yes ! we'd eat ourselves sick. lol. still love em too ! still will eat myself sick if I could ! Everyone should grow up with fruit trees. ( our neighbor had plum and peach trees - we be over run with them. another had blackberries ! we'd congregate as kids , pick and eat until our fingers and mouths were dyed blueish black !!!)

heres to warm summer nights.. a cold cup of lemonade.. rocking chairs...and chasing fireflies by the light of the campfire
*raises cup of lemonade*

Those were the days ...

I agree. Everyone should grow up with fruit trees.



One of my most favorite memories.

Wow, this died out fast...

anon,

Keep doing it as often as you can.

You might not believe me, but in what seems like a couple of days your youth will be over.

Enjoy and bless your heart!

Harte

This I still do, only with my own kids.

H.

Dont worry, I've seen em' die faster

First I LOVE your sign, "God is to big to fit inside one religion" I love it and agree whole heartedly.

I also remember hunting salamanders, frogs and water snakes as a kid. I loved it!

Ripely, I loved your cherry tree story. Very heart warming, and brought back pleasant memories for me. I was reminded of a time I use to pick wild blackberries for my Nana. She would make the best cobbler. Your story also reminded me of another childhood memory of when I use to live in California. My sister and I walked home from school, and always took a short-cut through a plum orchard.

Sometimes we'd get into plum fights and come home covered in 'em. It was so much fun. We always went for the juicy ones too...they made the most mess. Needless to say, our mother didn't find it at all fun or funny, for that matter.

Promethius, cool thread.

Reading about the honeysuckle made me think of a time, as a kid, when I would take a blade of grass, line it up between my thumbs snugly, and blow between them like it was a musical instrument, lol.

It sounded a little like a kazoo.

Lol that's so true, my sister and I went back to the home we grew up in recently and had a spy around. It was a real spinout and kind of horribly disconcerting - our memories were so different to the reality. We felt everything was so small. The great exception was this massive huge gum that we used to climb. 20 years later, it was just as massive as we remembered.



That is so cute he he!

I used to make little 'fairy potions" from squeezing all the honseysuckle juice into little coloured bottles - took me hours!

I used to keep snails cause my Mum would not allow us a dog (our yard was too small) one night they escaped out their shoe box and went everywhere! Needless to say I was not allowed to keep them anymore after that...

Ah the good days when you could steal a few plums or peaches off the neighbours tree without fearing a lawsuit...

Or what about candy apples! I haven't had one of those in ages!

Man the White Stripes are great!

It's really a shame that their first two albums ('The White Stripes' and 'De Stijl') aren't very well known, particularly 'The White Stripes' as I can imagine it having a rather large appeal to AC/DC, Stooges and MC5 fans, great lo-fi rock.

heres to the firsts of winter....... first gentle snowfall... first footprint in an unmarred sheet of white..first icestorm coating the world in an irridescent sheen....first bittersweet snowball fight.. and the first cozy fire warming the soul.
*raises cup of coco*

Aww, I'll drink to that...Sleigh riding in the city with the streets blocked off from cars so we could have it all to ourselves. Walking to school in the snow, freezing our butts off, but to young to feel it...Waiting for the lake to freeze over and catch the bus with the big green circle on it, telling us it was safe to skate.. Then going into the little hut at the end of the lake where a wood burning stove would be flaming and hot chocolate waiting...Sigh...those were the good times

LOL, I love the snail story 'Star_girl'!!!! When I was around 6 or so I found a praying mantis egg and I removed everything from my top dresser drawer, then put in the egg nestled in one of my socks.
One day I came home and it had hatched, all over my room. Baby praying mantises (about an inch long each) in my drawers, under, on, and in my bed. On my curtains, etc. Me and my Mom spent a couple hours or so catching baby praying mantises in a couple a mason jars and taking them out to our garden.

I also remember my Dad flooding the front porch one day with the house. He wanted to kill the ants. I went out and sat on the porch with a spoon and scooped up ant and put them in the flower bed so they wouldnt drown.

wow, so many fond memories and they arent even mine j/k hehe i remember doing a lot of those things myself, jumping bikes, climbing trees, catching.....well anything that moved lol, It has been so long since i thought of those things. Thank you all for helping me to remember

I remember once me and some friends were catching crawdads in a stream when i spied a huge one! i swore then it had to be a lobster, but thinking back, it couldn't have been much bigger than 6-8 inches or so. until then i was barefoot and was only wet up to my shins but by the end of the hunt i was diving underwater to get him i never did cath him, and i got in so much trouble for coming home all wet HAHAHA wooo, good times

I remember jumping bikes on the hills behind the Fred and Meyer store (we called them the dirt hills) when I was 12 - 13.



I remember catching water snakes, lizards, frogs and salamanders while growing up.
I remember one time when I was about 10 my brothers and I caught some salamanders and brought them home for pets. We kept them in tanks out side. One went missing. About 5 or 6 days later a friend of mine called me (she lived about 4 or 5 blocks away in an apartment complex. She lived in a basement apartment and had a small inclosed patio) She said she found a "weird slimy lizard thing with a big head" on that patio, and would I come help her. (She Knew I loved all animals) I got there and it was a salamander and I swear it had to be the one we lost.

UK ? you could send me a crate of bramble apples. mmmmmmmm ! none here that I can find ! same with a good gammon cut. steak and kidney pudding or a good byriani. oh and no flakes !

not near me anyway !

how many went bumper hitching as a kid in winter ???

lol pretty dangerous .

Aww Lt. that bought back some city memories. Kids used to do that all the time when the streets had snow and ice on them..Dangerous yes, one boy got severely hurt when a car stopped and he went under it. That's when it was banned and city streets were shut down to cars so we could safely ride our sleds...

Hold it right there.

Everybody look, and everybody thank Slave2fate for using the proper nomenclature.

Crawdads they are, not "crawfish," not "crayfish," not "mudbugs."

These things are crawdads by God and if you didn't know that, then you need to hang out with me and Slave here more often.
Our vast knowledge of all things natural will rub off on you, or something.



Slave,
If that thing was 6-8 inches, it was definitely worth diving in for.

That is one nice-sized crawdad.

You ever eat them things?

Harte

They're crawdads in the south, right? Crayfish in the north. At least in my family.

I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, but my parents both came from down south, so I always heard of them as crawdads even now saying crayfish sounds weird to me lol

which reminds me, every time i would make an extended visit to my relatives in the south and then return home, my friends would say I was talking funny. Like the southern drawl was rubbing off on me or something

All this talk of good memories and natural stuff reminds of my favorite part of living in Florida...fireflies! I don't know why, I just think the way they flash is almost magical in a way. Anyone with me on this one?

Ive never been to Florida, however I agree with the magicalness (is that even a word?) of fireflies.

I'm still catching these little beauties. But now it's with my own children!

Harte

There are a lot of fireflies up in the mountains and they are brighter and vary more in colors as I recall.