My father used to say, “One boy is a boy, two boys is half a boy, and three boys is no boy at all.” The fact that he used that phrase regarding getting work done left me a bit confused — until my two oldest grandsons and a couple of their friends started joining me in the heavy barn work. Dad was right. Seems like I am finding out my parents were always right.

We got through stacking a load of hay, shoveling out stalls and putting down fresh straw, which we call “changing the sheets.” Horseplay was somewhat minimal. The chicken coop cleanout wasn’t quite so tidy with the wheelbarrow recklessness. The bushel basket of leftover pumpkins and gourds still needed to be split open so younger chickens could peck at them.

I believed these 10- to 11-year-olds would rather enjoy my instructions. Throw the pumpkins onto the concrete, and then hand them over to the chickens. They had one job: Bust and toss. Approximately five pumpkins hit the concrete. Apparently, it was too simple and void of competition.

Coming out of the chicken coop, I saw pumpkins hurled at the barn, over the barn, toward one another. Dad was right. The four became no boy at all. With my scolding, they begrudgingly went back to throwing the pumpkins down on the concrete. You would have thought I just benched them from the final seconds of a championship game.

More fun than work

I reminded them that the kayak they left by the water needed storing in the shed until spring. Only one-fourth of the boy heard me. He ran off like a rabbit so he could be the one to paddle it across the pond. By the time I got there along with the other three-fourths of a boy, the kayak was put away. The one-fourth boy looked like he had just come out of a mud-wrestling ring. Covered from head to toe in slimy pond filth, he calmly remarked, “That was just like quicksand.”

It didn’t deter him one bit. He joined the others who were going to the wooded creek. By the time four “no boys” came looking to fill their rumbling bellies, they were cold, wet, muddy and extremely happy. Once washed and changed into clean clothes, they slurped down milk and crammed in peanut butter sandwiches. The work was done. Suddenly, four individual boys came into focus.