Family Tree—Canon Powershot S410

Branches of a family tree. Another entry for Self-Portrait Tuesday. This portrait was taken in the living room of our home back in Gisborne, New Zealand and is of me with four of my five siblings. Portraiture was expensive even back then, but my mother had them done anyway even when we couldn’t afford it—clever lady! My father was a farm labourer by trade and was contracted out mostly for his fencing. When one of my brothers got kicked out of school he went and worked with my father. Sometimes we didn’t see them for days or weeks because they would be working in remote locations. In some ways my brother reminds me of Little Britches, the story by Ralph Moody. He learned to ride and break in horses and was pretty awesome on top a horse. I remember riding one of the horses on the station and vividly remember how something frightened it and how it took off for a good mile while I hung there for my life clinging to its mane only to come to an abrupt stop in front of my brother who was working in the cow shed milking. The abrupt stop sent me flying over the horse’s head of course and I remember crying and not wanting to get back on because I was scared, but my brother plopped me straight back on. I thought he was the meanest big brother anyone could ever have. He persuaded me that if I wanted to ride a horse again (I wanted to be a show horse jumper), I had to get back on and show the horse who was boss. So I hopped back on, but we all knew who was boss and it wasn’t the one with two legs.