Bovina Center, NY, the town where I lived from ages eight to fifteen, is too small for most maps. On the rare occasion it did appear, our speck of a dot looked more like the cartographer had simply rested her pencil on our town for a moment.

Established in 1820 by Scottish Presbyterians, the village has just fifty-two houses. They came seeking remote land with the same enveloping beauty as their home country, and they got it, along with the same dismal weather, rocky soil, and stone fences.

At age forty, visiting Northern Ireland and Scotland for the first time was a trip back to my childhood. Swap the sheep for cows, and Northern Ireland was the same place I had grown up.

In Bovina, dairy cattle outnumbered the human population three-to-one: 1,500 cows to 500 people. Predominantly Holstein (white with black spots), with Jersey (golden brown) and Guernsey (reddish brown) cows mixed in for color and the high-fat content of their milk, the cows were the backbone of the town and the backdrop for our adventures.

We were free-range kids, corralled only by the strength of our legs. If it wasn’t pouring rain or deer hunting season, we were outdoors. We only came home to eat, summoned by the noon firehouse whistle or the five o’clock church chimes. We had a brook behind our house and a hilly pasture beyond it, with “Indian Rocks” at the top. While we played hours of kick-the-can, “witchy-poo” (a wild game of playground equipment tag), football, and baseball, the hill behind the house is where my much-loved books came alive.

After reading that Indians would use their horses as screens in battle, sliding down the side with just one leg looped over the top, I’d mimic the effect by running alongside a puzzled cow with my stick bow. Lessons about camouflage must have come in later books. There I was, a blue-jean-clad kid next to a black and white cow on a field of green grass, convinced I was invisible to my imaginary enemy. The game was always short since cows are herd animals. The rest of the tribe would soon amble over, and I’d duck out, aware that I weighed less than a newborn calf.

I’d practice walking “silently,” trying out some heel-toe or toe-heel pattern mentioned in a book. (Are you walking silently if you’re the only one listening?) I’d try to sneak up and surprise my sister, but she knew I was coming every single time. Either I was noisier than I thought, or, more likely, she had some weird big-sister antennae that tracked my every move without needing to turn her head.

We’d play in the brook, wearing last year’s sneakers that scrunched our toes but provided some protection. We’d dam the flow with mossy, slippery rocks to create a swimming hole. Our quiet neighbor would calmly move the stones when we were finished, redeeming the waters for trout fishing. He’d bring my mom his cleaned catch, as he loved to fish but didn’t like the taste. Cast-iron, pan-seared rainbow trout is amazing.

In the winter, we’d sled until we ran out of clothes. The first session was the warmest, with boys’ long underwear under our jeans. When we got wet, we’d go inside to change, swapping the long johns for flannel pajama bottoms. We’d take off the snow-crusted top layer of knit mittens and make the previous inner layer the outer layer with dry mittens underneath. We’d smack our stocking caps against a basement post to get rid of the snow and rotate our scarves, moving the breath-dampened area to the side. Back out we’d go, over the stone fence and barbed wire, holding it down so the other could step over. (The fence was electrified, but not in the winter when the cows were in the barn.) We’d come in again and change into our final layer of thin, summer-weight petal-pusher pajamas, replacing the flannel, with one more mitten realignment.

Although we had Radio-Flyer sleds, the snow was usually too damp and heavy for them to do anything but sink. Instead, we’d use patched combine inner tubes that our Iowa grandfather would save for us. We’d carve a run in the new snow, shoving the inner tube down the hill a few feet at a time. Other kids would bring their mini-toboggans—rolled sheets of plastic with a cutout handle—flying saucers, or flattened cardboard boxes.

As with all endeavors, we shared the equipment. If one of us had gotten something new for a birthday or Christmas, we’d use it by ourselves the first time. After that, it was community property. Once the snow was firmly packed in our run, we’d retrieve the combine inner tube, which carried all of us. We’d make sure the valve was down and flop on, sometimes face up, sometimes face down, but all aligned the same way for that run. Two of us would push the tube to get it started and flop on top of the pack. Nine-tenths of the way down, we’d yell, “Bail, bail, bail!” and roll off before the tube crashed into the stone fence at the bottom. This strategy worked 99% of the time. One time, my sister bailed, landed on a mini-toboggan, and slid into the stone fence, bloodying her knee and knocking down enough of the wall that we needed to rebuild it in the spring.

While the adults in town were reticent toward outsiders, they were fiercely protective of us kids. If we needed a drink or a bathroom and weren’t near our own house, we’d knock and be welcomed in, often leaving with a butterscotch or peppermint candy or two. “Take one for your sister,” they’d say.

We waited for the school bus in Russell’s General Store, greeted each morning with, “Good morning, Debbie and Chellie.” We’d Trick-or-Treat at parent-specified homes, surprised that they knew who we were even when Dad was hiding in the bushes. As the only two girls our age in town, with blue eyes that matched Dad’s—the minister at the only church in town—it shouldn’t have surprised me, but I still hadn’t read the book on camouflage.

There were strict rules of behavior for all indoor spaces: home, church, other people’s homes, stores. We also had high expectations for how we related to adults. Outside, in kid company, we ran our own lives, roaming free of adult input. We set the rules, negotiated disagreements, yelled “L-E-T” to let the younger kids get a base hit or run for a touchdown, realigned teams so the competition was close, knocked each other down, helped each other up, and teased each other, but we defended each other fiercely at our public school, ten miles away in Delhi, the county seat.

We were free-range kids: free to imagine, play, fall, get back up, figure things out, and try new stuff. Such a gift!