Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Farm, sweet home

When Matt and I moved to downtown Hoberg in spring 2004, a house on the way caught my eye.
“I want to live there some day,” I prophetically told Matt.
But inside my head, the statement equated to nothing more than a dream.
The place was not fancy. It was old. Very old, in fact. And it needed lots of work and updating. But it had my two musts: lilac bushes and a porch swing.
Since the land we were renting was neighbor to my “dream place,” Matt eventually became friends with its owners, Kenneth and Faye.
He was a World War II veteran and the couple had raised their four kids (coincidentally two boys and two girls) on the farm.
We became fast friends with the couple, and Matt spent many hours soaking in the wisdom of the gentle veteran.
When Faye’s health began to fade, Kenneth devoted himself to her care, and after her death, he gave us the surprise of our lives.
“Matt, you can have my place,” Kenneth said.
A chance of a lifetime.
Over the next few months, Matt and I devoted hours and hours to making that chance into our reality.
We had nothing worth anything (at least from a banker’s perspective). I was pregnant with our third child. The chance for success was bleak.
But circumstances cannot stand in the way of fate.
Toward the end of my pregnancy, all the pieces began falling into place and we signed the mortgage papers seven days before Bella Rose was born.
Another child and three years later, it still baffles me that we actually live here.
Despite all the problems associated with owning an old home, it’s heaven on earth for me. I love it here.
It is so easy to feel close to God on a farm. Step outside. Take a deep breath. Gaze into the blue skies. Feel the cool breeze on your face. Get swallowed up in the vastness.
Our farm is the perfect distance from town. Far enough away Matt is comfortable and close enough for me to feel “connected.”
We have a big garden and lots of space for the kids (and the chickens and cows and dogs and cats and ducks) to roam.
I love the summer evenings on the porch swing shucking peas.
Large cups of cut lilacs scenting the wind blowing through the old windows.
Clothes flapping dry on the line.
Washing the kids off in the spigot after they played for hours in a mud hole by the well house.
The sound of calves weaning in the pen outside our bedroom window. (Not really a love of mine, but a reality I have to accept.)
Picking blackberries and apples straight from our backyard with the kids.
Watching Matt shoo cows out of our hay lot.
The sounds of the kids running (some sliding) down the stairs in the morning.
When we are here, it feels like home. I know walls don’t make a home. People do. Love does.
It all boils down to memories. Our history we are making today.
Life on this farm has given our children opportunities to see and feel and experience life.
And there’s not much more I could ask for in a house. In a home.

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