Back at the Farm

My sister is the Queen of Significant Events. She can find something memorable and significant about almost everything in her life, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when she called me up the other day, and announced, “This year, it is 20 years since I moved away from the farm, where I lived for 20 years.”

We marked the event with a photo shoot of her kids.

This was my first time doing a photo shoot with someone other than my own little family, and it was quite different! Because my girls are still pretty small, posing them isn’t too hard – just tell them to hold hands or wrap their arms around each other, and everything’s cute and ready to go.

But taking pictures of a teenager is a new experience! Holding hands and running off into the sunset was not an option.

Fortunately, they were such good sports, and were very patient as we figured out some other options than hand-holding.:)

After an hour of pictures, it was time to get my girls home to bed, but I was able to get one last shot of my parents’ farm while I was driving away…

Perfect ending!

A Farm Girl At Heart

I love getting muddy.

I love rides on the tractor. (Even better, on the combine.)

I love the smell of stubble burning. (I know it’s bad for the environment, and all that, but when I smell stubble burning in the fall, it smells like home.)

I love fresh, green fields spreading out in every direction.

I love golden fields in fall.

I love lying on the ground, looking up and being surrounded by sky.

I love prairie sunsets.

I love seeing my little girls learning to love those things, too.

Deep down, I’ll always be a farm girl.

I Love Spring

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!'” -Robin Williams

I really, really love spring. I love the smell in the air, I love the mud, I love the puddles.

Although I grew up on a farm, it would be a fairly inaccurate description to call me a “farm girl” at heart. My sisters were out on the tractors and combines, but I just wasn’t into that.

But I still loved growing up on the farm. I loved being outside, and living in the country. Whatever “farmish-ness” was not passed on to me from my dad, he definitely made up for in teaching me how to appreciate nature.

I feel like spring is the season that brings out all things natural in me. It makes me feel like those years spent growing up on the farm are not very long ago. We would explore every puddle, flood every boot, dirty every article of clothing.

And my favorite part? I don’t remember my mom ever saying one negative word about it. She kept a very clean house, but I never felt like getting dirty was looked down on. And my dad downright encouraged it.

I want my girls to experience spring in that environment. It is time to party. It’s time to get dirty. Oh, the sights, the sounds, the smells! Everything is new and fresh and exciting!

Have fun getting dirty!