When I was a kid in 29 Palms it didn't take much to entertain us. An old tire, a swing set, and a little bucket to shovel dirt into. (Hey there IS a car in the picture).
Somewhere I have a pic of me and my sister at 5-6ish yo taken in the Joshua Tree area at my grandparent's backyard, wearing faux Indian headdresses in front of a tepee that my grandfather made with paint tarps and poles. My grandfather was 1/2 Cherokee from Oklahoma. No computer BS for us!
A lot has changed in 29 "Stumps" from when I worked for the county in the late '70's. Then there was only a flashing red light 4 way stop at the intersection of Amboy Rd. and SR 62. And no stop lights between I-10 and Amboy Rd. Lots of artsy types from the city have settled there since.
Story is i was allways happy to sit in the Oldsmobile or wash the cars. Summer vacations walk through the foreshore grounds to see what the city folk were doing. A day out was collect firewood in the bush and on the way home stop at foxes hangout.
^^ "they were such a friendly family, none of us neighbors would have never suspected the horror going on behind closed doors" ^^ Just teasing !!! Coyotes maybe ? ...
That's a bunch of dead foxes. My Dad did the same thing on the farm we had (South Australia). It's supposed to keep other foxes from moving in, but I don't think the foxes are that clever, they kept coming back and joining their mates for a little hang-out. I had a photo of all the family on the back of Gramp's 25-is Chevy truck, in the early 60's. That truck bed was our taxi, playpen, mobile workshop and above-ground playground.
The only coyotes down here are of the V8 Ford variety.... Foxes were brought to Australia from England and released in about 1870 for the purpose of having traditional "fox hunts". Wild populations grew so fast that they were declared a pest by the 1890s. The rabbits were brought here for the same reason, but were released about ten years earlier. You can imagine how quickly that got out of hand. You would think they would have known better when someone came up with the bright idea of foxes.....
Probably related to the dumb sh*ts that introduced ****ooses to Hawaii to eat the cane rats. Didn't have any effect on the rat population but decimated the local exotic birds by eating their eggs.
Red fox was introduced where I live by the oil man EW Marland . He imported them for his buddies so they could have English fox hunts . The escapees multiplied. The coyote hunters around here hang their kills from fence posts. Fisherman stick the heads of big catfish on fence posts also .
I spent many an hour sitting in this swing with my grandpa"Highpockets" There's a Henry J in the barn.
The Jalopy Journal
