I want to be a small town southern girl that lives on a farm with a huge vegetable garden, a barn with a couple horses, a cow, some chickens, a rooster, maybe a pig to fatten up, a few goats, one or two big dogs that will follow me wherever I go and a slew of barn cats to keep the mice away. Not to mention beautiful fields of wildflowers that adorn my property and an herb garden that you would see at the botanical gardens. I don't want to deal with any winters and when I walk outside I want to sit on my huge front porch looking at my big red barn and my neighbors so far away that the only thing I see is their corn fields edging my property. I want to auction off my pigs and cows each year to other farmers. I want to meet at the local restaurant in town to gab about what feed is the best and if I am going to be attending the Smiths pig roast and what dish I am going to bring to the church's Sunday potluck. I would home school my children and the best learning tools would be them working on the farm. I want to bake breads, make pies, have a cellar full of canned goods and a freezer full of beef, pork and chicken. I want to "work" along side the love of my life and admire him as he tends to the farms needs. I want to listen to my husband play country music on his guitar out by the fire while I am smoking a beef brisket for later. I want to walk down the country roads, kickin up dust from my boots with no where to go and no place I'd rather be. I want our family to live in the same town and do the same stuff and know the same people. That's not asking too much is it?
Seems that the older I get the farther away from any type of city life I want to be. I wouldn't be sad if I rarely saw a highway with bumper to bumper traffic heading into the city. I would of course like to visit those places but not live there. I honestly don't know how some people raise their families in the city. Nope, that life's not for me.
I have some friends who live on a farm and some friends and family who live in the South and oh how I admire them. I know it's a lot of work to run a farm like that but at the same time there is a sort of simplicity to living that life. No rat-race to worry about and our bosses, the animals, would always be grateful for time spent with them and providing food, water and shelter. For giving a little, we gain a lot! Maybe all the time spent on Kelleys Island, living the island life there, has given me a tiny peak into what living in a small town is like...and I love it.
I'm not saying that I am unhappy in the life I lead now, not one bit. I am truly blessed in every way. In some aspects I have the best of both worlds. I don't think a person ever stops growing but for me I feel that I have grown so much in so many different ways in say...the last 5 or so years. I know some of it's age I suppose. I really don't know how to describe it, maybe it just plain pure happiness. Doing what we want, when we want to do it, however it is we want to do it and with whomever we want to do it with, not caring so much what other people think. Making choices that are best for my family and praising God for what we are so blessed with. We all get one go at this life, why not make it the best it can be. Experiencing it how it was supposed to be experienced with people who brighten your world.
I don't know, maybe one day, you'll find that me and my family have packed up and headed for the life I described, maybe a little modified...we have been know to make a few spontaneous decisions, so it very well could happen? Kinda goes along with one of my favorite quotes, "If you wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, you shall never begin" Ivan Turgenev. Better late than never, right?
