Father had a "green thumb". He was quite a florist and gardener. He planted the first lawn at Moccasin. He also planted Japanese Lilac and a snowball bush on the lawn. He planted a birch tree and other lilacs and roses. My mother said their little home and surroundings became a little paradise, Climbing roses covered the east and north sides of the front porch.
My parents and we children were a close knit family. Mother said there never was a happier home and their lives were full. Eight children were born to them. Mother also said the ranch was ideal for children with its flowers, lawns, vegetable gardens, orchards, farm and animals. To them even haying was a delight. They would ride down the lane to walk back. Papa would catch them a little rabbit which they would try to raise as a pet. Usually it would escape or suffer a worse fate. Mother told of the wild donkey my father brought us children. Old Bird was one of our choice kid horses. We also caught wild fawn on the Kaibab Mountain and raised them for the Government.
The surrounding mountains became a part of us and our lives, with trips on the hills to the south and the magnificent view it gave us of Moccasin with its neat patchwork of farms, gardens, and homes in their summer green. The mountains contained various trails which lead to distant places, but also meant a return to Moccasin. The hills were made up of these trails, the canyons, the little hollow, the hollow, the peaks, the lower and upper flat rocks, the money rocks, grandma and grandpa pine trees, the gum trees, and to cap it off, the red field hills where the corn and dry land farm set at the base of these great, red hills.
The various springs were an important part that made Moccasin. The Sand Spring being the biggest and most important. The water boiled up through cracks in the sand rock, causing sand to be moving all the time. This spring provided water for the round reservoir, the gardens, the tank where the big water fights took place, and for culinary water. The long reservoir spring also had its own distinction - the long tunnel with its even temperature both winter and summer. This is where shelves were placed within the tunnel and each family had a place to keep their milk, creamy and butter, etc. Then there was the upper spring in the canyon which later became the culinary water. There were little springs along the little hill, the main one they called the dipping pen. It was above where Uncle Chris lived.
Other memories of Moccasin:
- Easter meant the whole community going off in wagons and horseback to the canyon, hollow, Blue Knolls, Chris' Spring, or other places of interest for fun and picnics. Easter time also meant apple trees loaded with beautiful blossoms.
- Our April fool joke on our teacher Dave Rust turned out to be a joke on us before the day was over. We had locked him out of the school house and later he hiked us over the south hill to Pipe Valley. After reaching the floor of the valley, Rust went west to visit a rancher friend named Raoul. We students made our way to Pipe Springs where we rode back to Moccasin with Uncle Jesse Palmer. We were all exhausted from the hike.
- The parties we created at the various homes were also a part of Moccasin along with trapper Gilkey's great candy pulls as he stretched the candy from a big hook in Grandma's kitchen all the way across the room.
- Gilkey had wanted to take the wolf alive and after the Indian named Merrycats had shot the wolf in his trap. Gilkey said, "If I catch Merry-cats, I'll turn him into a wild cat."
- The melon busts, hay rides, trips to Kanab in a wagon to see a circus.
- Piling hay for my father with a group of youth in the moonlight when my father was ill.
- Going on the desert with my father and learning the cattle business.
- Going for a ride in Grandpa's new car for the first time.
- Separating milk at the company separator.
- The old outdoor privy and its freezing temperatures in the winter hasn't been forgotten.
- The horse races up the lane, the use of teams for all the farm work and for all means of transportation and the breaking of colts to ride.
- The winters of the deep snows and the problems we had with the livestock.
- Injuries that all or most of us sustained on the farm or riding horses and many times were taken care of at home.
- My first sense and taste of death when Aunt Nonie died. It was in May and the lilacs were in bloom. It had snowed and the bushes were all weighed down. Her death was a great shock to the community.
All in all, Moccasin was a good place for a boy to grow up.
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