You might be a country girl if …
…you ever caught a jar of lightning bugs and wanted to use it for a night light but let them fly free instead.
I sent out a newsletter last week. I always put some Parting Shots at the end that I hope will make readers smile. This time I added some reasons you might be a country girl.
But there are always so many other things to identify us country girls. I invited my newsletter readers to add some of the things they thought and they are coming up with plenty. I haven’t read through all my messages yet. That always takes a while, but I’m enjoying every country girl addition.
One country girl memory mentioned often is about poking holes in jar top and filling up the jar with lightning bugs. I’ve done that plenty of times when I was a kid and then later with my grandkids – one of them very happy with our catch above. Always fun.
Here are a few other readers have shared.
Deb says you might be a country girl if…
…you’ve been lulled to sleep by the welcome sound of rain on the metal roof.
…you’ve laid in bed at night listening to the coyotes howl (and the young ones yip)
Then she adds that she’s not a farmer or rancher these days but still lives in the country. So she pulled out a country girl marker from yesterday morning…
You might be a country girl if you’ve gotten up in the morning to discover the neighborhood bear has knocked your flower planters off the deck railing.
Cathy says you might be a country girl if you’ve ever woken up to find a new calf or maybe a tiny baby pig or two in your house huddled in a blanket by the wood fire so they would get some heat in a frigid Iowa winter.
Robin says you might be a country girl if you can walk across rocks with no shoes on and not flinch.
I used to be able to run across those rocks, but no more. I do remember running through the chicken yard and stepping in the wrong place and feeling chicken poop squirt up between my toes. Yucky. That always slowed me down.
And then here is a Sherry claiming that country girl tag and some of her memories to prove it.
And I’m a fully qualified country girl, too, and wouldn’t change my growing up years for any amount of money. I worked hard, but we all did, so I didn’t feel like I was being punished. Work was good character building (maybe what’s missing with kids today—no cotton to chop, pull, or pick!!) I would be sent into the corn field to chop weeds, and it would be 110 deg inside, so stepping out at the end of the row into 105 deg temp was like an a/c!! Lol. At the end of our endurance, Daddy would take us to the creek where our energy would be revived by jumping into the cold swimming hole and scaring the snakes out.
It was my job to milk two cows before breakfast every day. Carrying the bucket of milk to the house was the hard part—cats and dogs would be my best friends while trying to get at my bucket!
I picked up pecans for two years at 5 cents a pound to buy a bicycle. Then Santa brought me the bicycle (I still have it, 67 years later) and I never knew what happened to the money I was due for all those pecans!! Lol.
In summer and on nice weekends I would milk, then saddle a horse and ride, ride, ride. My brother and I and all the kids of the hired hands had a regular circus of trick riding, racing, parading, etc. This phase of life was when I was 7 to 14, and it was idyllic. I could go on (and on) but suffice to say I wish my kids, grands, and great-grands could experience the same kind of childhood that I was blessed with. The grands have all grown up now, but the great-grands are just little. Hope they have a chance to enjoy the freedom of a country life!!
Thanks, Sherry, for sharing your country girl memories. I agree that growing up on a farm is a character building experience and I’m like Sherry in being glad I grew up that way. I know a girl or guy doesn’t have to grow up in the country to have the greatest childhood ever. City kids have some great memories to share too.
If you didn’t get the newsletter but would like to have a copy, let me know. I’ll forward one to you. If you think you’re on my newsletter list and didn’t get a copy, you might check your Spam folder. Unfortunately sometimes newsletters land there.
As always thanks for reading.
What would you add about being a country girl? Or a city girl either?
Comments 4
While I grew up a city girl, we had fun too. We loved to ride our bikes around the neighborhood, skate up and down our sidewalks, play Superman jumping off fences wearing a cape (an old towel worked), and play “church” by singing hymns and having one of the neighborhood boys “preach”.
Author
Those do sound fun, Suzanne. The advantage many city girls had over us country girls was having other kids to play with. And I used to think how fun it would be to have a sidewalk to rollerskate on while my sister and I went miles around our concrete porch.
Your a country girl if, you’ve gathered eggs from a chicken coop.
Author
I definitely gathered enough eggs when I was a kid to be a country girl. But it was one of the better chores that I didn’t mind as long as no setting hens were on the nests.