A small irrigation ditch ran through our barnyard and it was better than any backyard pool, truly a children's paradise.
I always had a healthy fear of the water, as the story was retold multiple times of the occasion when Grandma Speas had to scale a fence and jump into the water to rescue me from drowning as a toddler.
Wading in the ice-cold water was always a thrill, but your feet had to be tough. Sometimes there were rocks or thistles or thorns on the bottom. Usually, though your feet sank into a mushy twist of "sea weed."
Water skippers darted and floated on the surface and there was the occasional rumor of water snakes lurking in the deep.
A section of the ditch ran through a concrete culvert, which was a great course for boat races. When I say boats, I mean twigs, chunks of wood, leaves, cottage cheese cartons, empty pea pods, pieces of straw, basically anything that would float. We would launch them at one end of the culvert and the winner was the first to appear on the other end.
Water fights might have happened a time or two, maybe more.
One year Kevin made a kayak in Boy Scouts of America and floated and tested it in the ditch through the construction phase to make sure it would hold water.
It's not every child who has a water park in the backyard, but we did! Lucky us!
