Favorite Things to Play With That Weren't Toys?

We all played with cardboard boxes and laundry baskets as kids. What else? I included lawn darts in nearly every game (which are technically toys, but NOT FOR KIDS!) I lived RIGHT NEXT to railroad tracks and we squished EVERYTHING on them. The trains were full of sugar beets and we used to throw rocks at the cars trying to knock off beets to eat! We had a sideways tree that was a ramp for every kind of game (and we had a tree house in it). We'd explore old mine shafts, catch turtles, hunt gophers and ride our bikes everywhere. What about you? What did you play with that wasn't a toy?

Here are the answers people gave in a survey:

Tomato wire cages

Hay bales

Ear cleaners and feminine hygiene devices for squirt guns

Hair clips

Sticks

Blue sticky tack (for bulletin boards) for modeling clay

Colanders and steamers

Pinecones

Damming creeks

Broken radio antennas