Flashback Friday: You know you're an Idaho Redneck when....

When the swimming pools are makeshift. 
I was thinking about what we used to swim in-- I had two memories and then the rest came flooding back (heh, heh.  pun intended) 
Our number one swimming venue was the ditch by our house.  We would bathe in Indian soap and collect tadpoles.  It drove my dad crazy because we weren't careful and would break down the sides of the ditches, either flooding the field in the wrong place or the road.  We would also play in the sprinklers-- not the field sprinklers, though sometimes spontaneity amidst the slavery would occur.  We had this silly game where we were in a Flintstone's car.  Mark was Bam Bam and I was Pebbles.  I don't remember who Nels was.  We would sit on one side of an oscillating fan sprinkler and be totally surprised when the water would hit us in the face.
Once Dad put a tarp in the bed of our truck and filled it up with ice cold well water.  We donned our life vests (clearly needed for the 2 feet of contained water we were in) and jumped in.  I remember that first breathtaking gasp as we jumped from the wheel wells into that frigid water, but it was a hot summer day and it felt so good.
Nels and I improvised a swimming pool.  We filled a big plastic garbage can full of water, dragged a ladder over to it and took turns jumping in.  Yee haw! 
Nels and I also had a great adventure in the big trench that was dug when the 'new' house was getting remodelled.  It went from the well to the house and would eventually contain the main waterline to the house.  The trench was way deeper than our heads and the water was chest deep (I was 10 and Nels was 8, so take that as you will).  The sides were covered in kosha weed.  We pretended like we were explorers taking on the Amazon River.  Until we found the large garden spider and it's web.  Then we found a can of bug spray and became mighty hunters.
Probably once a summer we would dust off the old raft, patch the holes and don our life vests-- a task that included lots of duct tape and bailing twine-- and head down to the Snake River.  Dad would paddle us down to an old dock in Weiser where the naked hippies used to hang out during Fiddle Week.  We never did get to see any naked hippies.  We did, however, get to stop off at the fascinating Seagull Island.  If you've never been to an island solely inhabited by seagulls, don't bother!  It's very stinky and you really have to watch where you step.
Then there was our swimming hole.  It started out as a silage pit in our backyard.  What?  You didn't have a silage pit in your backyard?  It sloped down to a deep end and had a mountain of dirt.  After it did its duty as a holder for fermented, molassesed corn husks, it was lined with  plastic and filled with water.  Oh, the joy!  We would come home from working in the fields in the heat of the day and play in our very own pool.  The little kids could play on the slope.  We could play in the deep end and slide down the plastic that went from the top of the hill down into the pool.  Awesome.  We had this particular pool for a long time.  It gradually got wider and less deep.  The hill became covered in kosha weed.  It didn't have a drain, so the water rarely got pumped out and would get filthy.  I think somebody even ended up finding a tadpole in their swimming suit.  I have a great picture of my Dad getting ready to leap into the pool seconds before we left to take me to the MTC.  At first glance you think he is wearing a white tshirt.  Then it hits you.  That's a real farmer's farmer tan.  Nice!
There were a couple of real pools thrown in there.  That's how we learned to make a vortex, which is always good fun provided you have enough people that can move quickly and not get trampled. 
In the past, when my kids go to Grammy and Papa's my Dad waters the lawn by flooding it.  I guess we used to do that too.  My Dad once paid me $5 to sit underneath the pipe where the water came pouring out for 5 minutes.  The end would be plugged and the opening at the top would spew water out in a fountain.  That day I learned that there is not a lot of air underneath a torrent of water.  Not sure it was worth $5. 
My parents are putting in a sprinkler system this spring.  No more flooding the yard.  The kids don't know that they could swim in ditches (and make mud pies).  The yard is filled with clover and bees, so the kids don't like to swim in the little pools that get set up-- too many stung bare feet.  There is a pool in Weiser and we've taken them there.  My kids are growing up not knowing what it is to play in water where they can find it/make it.  My kids don't know how to be Idaho Rednecks.  I think I need to stock up on bailing twine, duct tape and large trash bins.