Rural Route 1

Woke up at 4 this morning, I know big surprise. Except this morning I blame my issue on eating too much Whiskey BBQ chicken last night, but I still think it's worth it.

I was dreaming before I woke up about the house I grew up in, or rather the land not the house. I dreamt I was driving a jeep through the field and through some holes to get to a picnic area. Which not sure why a picnic area since we never 'picnicked' in our field but that might have interjected because of the picnic in the book I read last night. In any case, when I woke at 4 I immediately remembered all the times we actually did go for a drive through our back acreage. We had 10 acres total, the front one or so was where the house was and the lawn we mowed but behind the house was a small hilled acreage, a field of natural grasses, at one point a garden or two in different locations, our burning barrel (you do that in the country), horse pasture, and our wood pile.

We had a lots of trees on our property, old ones and of course we also planted new ones. But every year we would trim our trees and it was our duty as kids to help haul the branches, which I think I might have talked about once before. We also had my dad's small pickup truck and trailer, which we would occasionally fill full of twigs and branches and drive to the back of the acreage to unload the wood onto the very big, ever growing pile of brush. The ride was so bumpy, you'd bounce up and down, side to side, and enjoyed every minute of it. I always thought we would get stuck or something, but we never did, I should have known better since my dad was driving.

Working with my dad never felt like a chore I don't know why, I guess because he never made it seem like work, he never yelled, he always instructed. What we didn't know or understand he explained with patience. Guess that is why I always have such fond memories of living on our little hobby farm, it was a happy place. I think as a kid I never thought I would live anywhere else but there, my life would be on that farm and I would be happy forever. Of course when I was 19 we moved and I was so sad when we left, I still find myself sad at moments when I relive those memories and yet happy to have had them.

That house was home, it will always be home in my mind. My play mates were my siblings and my pets, not that I didn't have friends but living rural is different then city living. I remember fondly my grass green carpet in my bedroom that I shared for a while with my sister. I remember the original velvet curtains in the living room when we first moved there, or the mouse population in the house before remodel. I remember all the work my dad did to fix up the house and all the work my mom did to take care of the inside of the house and the gardening. They worked hard at that place, but I also know with it came a sense of ownership and pride. Those were also the days when us kids found ways to entertain ourselves outside, creating journeys, building forts, shooting black and yellow spiders, endless ways to occupy our time that I can't even recall right now but I know we very seldom, if ever, used the word board, because if nothing else we mowed.

As I lay awake this morning wishing I could go back to sleep I was also happy to have such fond memories. How lucky I was to grow up like that. How lucky I was to be a kid and be creative. How lucky I was to have parents that instructed not demanded. They say home is where the heart is, and even though we move on in life and live in our own house with our own things and day to day living, there will always be a piece of my heart that will forever remain at Rural Route 1 Box 105.