Water Trough

With summer coming to an end, I can't help but thinking of all the days spent outside, with friends.  Some of my favorite summer memories involve the same group of friends... just about all the people my age in a 5 mile radius.  One summer, we were so desperate for a swimming pool (which we had no access to in Smut Eye), that we developed a plan.  The Finlaysons had cows, so that meant they had cow watering troughs, which were shaped very much like a swimming pool...if you squint and turn your head sideways :)
The time between Mrs. Patty giving the go ahead for the seven or so teens and kids to use the trough as a pool and us jumping in it (well, as much as you can "jump" into a 2 1/2 ft. pool) was not very long!

I am not sure how many consecutive days we spent each afternoon in the "pool", but there were many!  And I am pretty sure our parents finally took pity on us, because the next summer they had made arrangements for the two families to use an older community member's pool, in exchange for taking care of it.  We had just as much fun in the real pool as we had in the cow pool!  To this day, I cannot look at a round metal cow trough, without seeing it first as a swimming pool.  One thing you learn, living in the middle of nowhere, is that you make do with what you have.  I learned more about using my imagination through situations like using a trough as a pool, than I did most anywhere else.  Don't get me wrong, any kid can learn to use their imagination in any setting, but where else can you say you spent a whole summer "swimming" in a cow trough?