What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[Mel (& Paul)]

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the

>

>1930's 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and Early-ish 80's !!

>

>First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while

>they carried us.

>

>They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't

>get tested for diabetes.

>

>Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored

>lead-based paints.

>

>We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and

>when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we

>took hitchhiking.

>

>As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

>

>Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special

>treat.

>

>We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

>

>We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE

>actually died from this.

>

>We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with

>sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because

>

>WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

>

>We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were

>back when the streetlights came on.

>

>No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

>

>We would spend hours building our go-carts out of s"Ooops, word censored!"s and then ride

>down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into

>the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

>

>We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at

>all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound,

>no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat

>rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

>

>We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no

>lawsuits from these accidents.

>

>We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in

>us forever.

>

>We were given cowboy guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with

>sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we

>did not put out very many eyes.

>

>We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or

>rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

>

>The town football club had tryout for the junior team and not everyone

>made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with

>disappointment. Imagine that!!

>

>The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.

>They actually sided with the law!

>

>This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem

>solvers and inventors ever!

>

>The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

>

>We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

>

>HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

>

>And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

>

>You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow

>up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives

>for our own good.

>

>and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how

>brave their parents were.

>

>Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't

>it?

[Mrs Frugal]

I've seen that before Mel and it fills me with a lovely warm feeling!!

 

Ahhh, childhood memories!! I used to go on a go-cart with my brother that Dad made out of my old pram wheels and some dodgy wood. It didn't have brakes and we used to pull it up onto the overpass near our house and jump on and shoot down the hill. We crashed into the brick wall on countless occasions and came away bruised and battered but laughed, pulled the go-cart back up the hill and did it all over again!! We had a local loony who used to stand on the bridge over the carriageway shouting at the cars so if he was around, we'd choose another bridge to whizz down. We also had a play area with concrete on the floor all round the climbing frame, swings and slide. I remember spending the evening in casualty when my brother fell off the climbing frame on his head and got concussion!

 

Drinking from the hosepipe or worse, the paddling pool saved a trip indoors!

 

We used to sleep in a tent in the garden in the summer holidays while Mum and Dad left the back door unlocked in case we needed to nip in to the loo in the night!

 

I nearly broke my arm vaulting off Grandad's saw horse into a handstand on the old cot mattress! We climbed trees, roller skated without a helmet, knee and elbow pads and went for bike rides without telling Mum where we were going.

 

My neighbour broke my front tooth with a pea shooter when it snowed one Easter!

 

We used to share drinks with our friends and swap chewing gum.

 

We all had cap guns and used to play war games and cowboys. We also had an old washing line which we tied to the lamp-post on one side of the road and skipped in pairs and threes while someone turned the rope at the other side of the street. It was a case of drop the rope quickly when a car came!

 

Oh my goodness - aren't our children missing out!!

[Mel (& Paul)]

Its sad isnt it. We didnt realise how good we had it!

[Popcorn]

Oh gosh - what a brilliant posting!

 

The thing that sticks out in my mind, was the small amount of cars in the 70's. My brother and i used to play 'Gutters' with a ball out the back of our house. There's no chance of that now - its gutter to gutter with cars.

 

We also used to swop chewing gum, and play with empty washing-up liquid bottles filled with water for hours and hours. Pieces of elastic tied round lamp-posts was great to play games with, and all the kids on our estate would get together in the summer holdiays and play outside or down the field, everyday. Our parents all knew each other and would think nothing of walking in the back door for a cuppa.

 

They were all my Aunties and Uncles!

[motherhen]

We used to disappear into the woods for hours at a time with no one sending out search parties. We'd play, build tree houses, dam the stream and have a fantastic time.

 

In winter, when the main road was blocked with snow (we used to get proper winters back then) we'd pinch all the metal tea trays, smear lard on the base, and sledge down the hill on them. I only broke a coller bone once

 

Life was sweet

[Popcorn]

You know what Jane, I remembered the Winters (and Summers) as you describe them, and then thought I was maybe seeing things through rose tinted glasses a little. But you are right. The Summer hols were always sunny, and the Winters always left our milkman in a real fix! My Dad used to bring meat trays home from work and we had hours of fun sledging in them.

[Mel (& Paul)]

I'm so pleased that this has brought back so many happy memories as a child of the 70's / 80's I think I had it quite good - I remember the snow of 76 being so deep it went over my wellies (mind you I was pretty short back then - not much more now ) and sledging on a metal tea tray and coming off and hitting a tree stump - nothing a good dose of dettol (!) didnt fix!! and climbing trees in the woods at our school, even though we were meant to be young ladies (yeah right!) and playing in the road with all the neighbourhood kids! and eating loads of sweets, but it didnt matter because we used to run all the way to the sweet shop and back again and then play outside;. And my dad keeping chickens in our back garden (that's where I get it from!!) - ahh the good old days

[Guest]

I remember the heavy snow in 1976 - my brothers and I argued over who would have to go outside for coal, as the trip was up a rather treacherous, slidy path into the back garden! We also spent many a happy hour 'sledging' down the street on the coal sacks. Even my dad had a go as he couldn't get the car started to get to work!

 

I also remember the summer of 1975, and it was just the most glorious heat wave. Every day from morning till bedtime was spent outside playing, and the baker down the road would provide us with lunch every day and would charge our parents on a Sunday when they went for the morning rolls. "Ooops, word censored!"ody ever haggled over what had been eaten, the baker had done this for years, and there was a basic trust that just doesn't exist today. Try getting your local shop to give stuff to the kids today with the promise of payment on Sunday, and see what they say!

 

And I remember going to a farm with the school when I was in P3, and getting to drink milk straight from the cow - no pasturisation, nothing! It was still warm and was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. Incidently, that was the first time I came face to face with a chicken, and I fell absolutely head over heels in love with it. And here I am now.....................!

[Louise]

I remember that summer and the following winter too I wasn't far from you I lived in Cowdenbeath at the time. I have photos of me and my brother playing in a paddling pool in the garden - in Scotland almost unheard of back then and only a few months later a huge amount of snow. Walking to school in my moon boots

[Anna 1]

We never had snow in NZ, where I grew up, but I remember holidays in the winter time (May and August for us!) playing in our old colonial-style house. We lived on a farm and played outside in most weathers, but on really wet and cold days we'd play inside - sometimes 'Sardines' hiding all over the house in all the cosy and peculiar nooks and crannies that old houses have, or making vast and intricate 'towns' with every single building block, toy train and farm animal we owned. We'd take up the whole of the dining room under the huge dining table, using all the chair legs as trees and the basis of towers and castles. In the summer we were outdoors all the time, roaming who knows where all over the farm. We'd be gone all day sometimes, taking food with us and lighting 'campfires' (!) to cook our lunch on, and fishing for mini crayfish (yabbies, we called them) in the stream and the dam. We climbed trees, we built huts, we made dams, we went on major explorations - one remarkable day we discovered a mudslide after rain that slippery with clay and spent all afternooon sliding down it and wearing out the backs of our jeans. At school in the summer months we went swimming every day, and when our only teacher of the tiny country school I went to, fell asleep at lunch time, we'd have a two-hour lunch break sledging on cardboard boxes down the slippery grass banks in the paddock behind the school, playing a complicated 'army raid' game that only we knew the rules to, and leaping off the old water tower on an improvised flying fox that shot us into the macrocapa tree where there was a massive wasps nest. Very few rules and regulations, and a complete lack of 'risk assessments'!

[Mel (& Paul)]

I remember that summer and the following winter too I wasn't far from you I lived in Cowdenbeath at the time. I have photos of me and my brother playing in a paddling pool in the garden - in Scotland almost unheard of back then and only a few months later a huge amount of snow. Walking to school in my moon boots

 

and I think those photos should be posted right now!!!!

[Louise]

Hey come on there are already pics of me as a baby in the album besides I don't have a scanner

[Mel (& Paul)]

Hey come on there are already pics of me as a baby in the album besides I don't have a scanner

 

 

oh excuses excuses!! - must dash - need to look at some bonny baby pictures!!!

[Anna 1]

Perhaps we should start a new gallery - Eglu owners when they were kids?

[Cate in NZ]

Great idea, but after last time I'm not trying to identify anyone from their baby photo's

[Anna 1]

Me neither - did we ever find out the results?

[Popcorn]

I wonder - if like Dogs - you can identify chicken owners by their chickens

[Mel (& Paul)]

I wonder - if like Dogs - you can identify chicken owners by their chickens

 

I hope you cant ID me from mine - I've a whippet cross (definitely dont have his waistline) and staffy / patterdale cross (dont have her big chest) and a shih-tzu (dont even go there!!!)

[Lesley]

I wonder - if like Dogs - you can identify chicken owners by their chickens

 

You could probably tell me by the chickens that own me!

 

At the moment they are scruffy, grubby and sometimes have an attitude problem They grab all the treats as soon as they see them and then forget that they have eaten them and demand some more

[Popcorn]

at shih-tzu....

 

You might have the relaxed temperament of the whippet though

[Mel (& Paul)]

[Popcorn]

They grab all the treats as soon as they see them and then forget that they have eaten them and demand some more [/color]

 

I wondered where I was going wrong on my diet Lesley - I just keep forgetting I've already had a bar of chocolate