Week 79: Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop

Farmhouse with Birch repeat pattern © Karen Thiessen 2014

I spent my first eight years living in this ramshackle rented house. The driveway was a long walk for short legs to the main road, but the trek was well worth the effort. At the road was a ditch where my brother and I would collect tadpoles in glass peanut butter jars (and ruin our shoes in the mud, much to our mom's dismay). The yard surrounding the house was large. In one corner stood an overgrown common lilac bush into which I could wriggle to its core and hide, a natural fortress. My brother would climb up into the pear tree and pretend that it was a combine. I would sit under the elevated Fina oil tank and eat the ants. The fence along the driveway was electric (to keep the neighbours' animals contained) and for fun my brother and I would dare each other to touch it. We didn't need amusement parks or playgrounds – we created our own excitement ... and survived it.