Where I grew up in Maryland, we use to go down to the woods and catch frogs, turtles, and such. At the age of 6, 7, and up, you learned quickly the difference between a poisonous and nonpoisonous snake, snappers, poison ivy/oak, things like that.
Had woods two blocks from home that had a creek running through it and spotted snakes, turtles, frogs, and of course captured tadpoles to take home.
My cohort of about nine boys played army on those woods. Even dug foxes with the surplus army e-tools which every dad seemed to have at least two. One time we tied up two of us as prisoners of war and put them in the foxhole, went off else where shooting clods of dirt at each other. Went home for dinner and remembered we left our friends tied up in the hole. Couple of meals taken standing “seared that memory” for us. ;>)
When I was about 8 or 9 a big storm line was being installed at the edge of the woods, the equipment being left over the weekend. Well we crawled through the drain pipes and all over the equipment including what we called a steam shovel even though it wasn’t. What did we know. So there we were in the cab making engines noises, trying to tug on the levers, when one of us pulled out a knob that started the engine. We couldn’t figure out how to shut it down and cigured we’d better scoot quickly. Talk about a fear laden week end, thought for sure we’d be discovered and get punished beyond our most horrible imaginings. Of course we ztayed as far away from the big machine. Lucked out that it just ran out of fuel before Monday morning without any adults noticing.
You did not mess with adult tools or vehicles, ever. Except when adults weren’t around...sometimes.