I Am Full Moon by Lily Hoy Price

Author:Lily Hoy Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926972-08-4
Publisher: Brindle & Glass
Published: 2011-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

My brothers Benny and Jack did their best to behave themselves at Christmas time.

Hoy Family Collection

Buttercups, Strawberries and Blueberries

Buttercups. When spring arrived in Quesnel, my siblings and I were jubilant. Our energy soared with the sunshine on our shoulders, and the long hours of daylight. We ran through mud puddles, floated paper boats on streams of melting snow, picked pussy willows and stopped bickering and fighting like caged animals.

The hills and valleys turned green and sprouted pockets of blue violets, white field chickweed, pink shooting stars and yellow buttercups. For kids in Quesnel, buttercups meant that spring had officially arrived. Each spring, Pa-pah religiously drove us to see the buttercups in bloom. Each spring was as exciting as the spring before, and the first buttercup sighting always happened on a sunny day.

Six or seven of us would clamber into the car and jostle for a window seat. Along the way we sang in a chorus, “Buttercups, Buttercups,” loud and long. The noise must have driven Pa-pah slightly mad but he cheerfully drove the car along the gravel road to our destination—Two Mile Flat. As we neared the area, we hung out the windows, determined to spot the first buttercup. Flailing hands and fingers pointed towards a sighting.

“There’s one! I saw the first one!”

“No you didn’t! I did!”

When Pa-pah parked the car, we flew like bees into an open field flamboyant in yellow as far as the eye could see. Invigorated by fresh air and beauty, we ran, skipped, twirled and laughed amongst the blooms. “Buttercup, Buttercup, Buttercup,” we shouted to see who could say it the fastest. Our voices reached the sky, the hills, and meadows. We called to one another and to no one.

We pulled up fistfuls of the short-stemmed flowers; their waxed petals glistened in the sunshine like butter. Pa-pah watched us from the outskirts of the field. “Pa-pah!” we yelled, as we raced towards him. We thrust bunches of the uprooted buttercups beneath his chin. If his chin reflected the colour yellow, it meant that he liked butter.

“You like butter,” we chanted and teased.

“No, no,” he laughed. He shook his head and said in broken English, “I no like butter, this the colour of my skin!”

“No,” we protested. “You like butter!”

• • •

Strawberries. I remember Quesnel summers as hot, dry and dusty. We lived downtown on the corner of Barlow Avenue and McLean Street—two gravel roads. Passing vehicles and arid winds churned spirals of dust that settled on our lawn, on the porch and inside the house. Hiding from the heat and dust, we would loll on the cool linoleum floor playing with decks of old cards through a summer afternoon.

The scorching month of July was the perfect time to pick wild strawberries. When Ma-mah announced it was time to pick berries, we groaned and whined. “Aw, do we have to? It’s too hot outside.” She ignored our moans and grunts and handed each of us a three-pound Burns lard pail with a wire handle.

“It’s cool this morning,” she said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.