Growing up O'Doyle, you learn a lot of survival-type skills. Like, child care (there were 6 of us and numerous 'move-ins' and visitors), wound care, how to make a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from a major vein, and how to identify head trauma. Okay, I admit, I never mastered the last one. There were situations that may have gone misdiagnosed, and a few of usth may have sthuffered "drain-bammage" asth a resthult. ;-p
Most of these skills were learned "out-in-the-field" and since there wasn't formal training and it was pretty much "baptism by fire" there were a lot of bumps along the way.
We O'Doyles didn't have a T.V. some of the time and NEVER had cable. We didn't have a lot (or any, really) of supervision. We ran wild. We lived out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road.
Sometimes our creative juices weren't very well thought out plans.
I once helped my older brother, Jay, administer CPR to a wounded robin. Mind you, he and his buddy had shot the poor bird with a BB-gun, which had wounded it. But then we all cried like little school-girls when it 'didn't make it'.
(Wait, I was a little school-girl?)
I mean, who can say they've administered CPR to a bird...? Hmm? Who?!?
(besides my Bird-Luvin' husband {wink})
Life skills, people. Life skills.
One thing is for sure, we all learned the value of hard labor, because we were always put to work! (ya know, before child-labor laws were in place)
For instance: Gardening
Every year, Father ODoyle had this grand-master plan to plant a huuuuuge (totally unmanageable) garden.
A Plantation, really.
This would consist of O'Doyle children:
tilling
planting
weeding
tilling
mowing
weeding
picking
bottling
canning
more picking
freezing
weeding
blanching
blending
more bottling
Did I mention weeding? Uggg..
When I was little and even into my early adulthood, I swore to my mom, "I will NEVER have a garden. I will just go and buy vegetables at the store!!"
And somehow, that all changed....
Josh and I plant a garden every year. Nothing is better than delicious, juicy garden vegetables. Nothing.
I have to toot my own horn and tell you that this girl <----- tilled this.
Yeah, I felt pretty hardcore.
Josh isn't the only "tiller" around here.
Since, it seems, we're competing for some kind of national record for number of times you can go camping in a year (and not be homeless), we decided to keep it simple with just a few plants.
I'm already looking forward to fresh, garden veggies. Can't wait!
Let's just hope we have a better turn-out than last year. :-/
