The Farm

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. 

~John Muir

This time when I awaken in the middle of the night, it is to the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves of the gigantic maples trees outside my bedroom window. In this moment, I know that I am safe. As I peacefully drift back to sleep, I am comforted by the thought that in a few hours I will awaken to the sound of my grandparents in the bedroom right below me. I will hear grandpa’s big bare feet walking across the old hardwood floors and I will recognize the distinct sound of his limp: that discernible pause as his right foot takes longer to hit the floor then his left.

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Not long after moving to 56 Park Street, my grandparents; my fathers parents, came back into our lives. This miracle changed our lives for the better for evermore.

Grandma and Grandpa were dairy farmers and they were extremely proud to say so. They loved farming more than anything else in the world. I am not sure which one of them loved it more, but I do know that you could never separate my grandfather from farming. It was where he began and where he ended, and there was no question about that.

I loved Grandpa the moment I set eyes on him. He was a good man and a decent man, the kind of man that one rarely finds these days. He knew what was important. He knew the freedom that comes from having no debt and from not trying to be someone you are not. He stood strong, took pride in a job well done, and he loved us deeply. He had a way of looking at me and talking to me that made me feel like the most important person on earth.  When he hugged me, I felt his warmth and strength surround me.

Grandpa knew how to make the most dull activity or task fun…. and he knew how to do it without spending a dime.  He was a jovial man with his bald head and big belly. He was the best and funniest story teller and he would captivate our attention for hours. Most of the time he was wearing blue jean overalls and they often had big patches on the legs.  In the winter he wore a flannel shirt and in the summer he wore short sleeved, button down, cotton shirt… often washed so many times that the material was very thin and worn..  Grandpa had two pairs of shoes, work boots and church shoes. Both were brown.  When he went outside, he wore a hat.  He looked best in his straw hat, but he also wore a baseball cap…. and for church he wore a dress hat…..it was brown too and it had a small feather in the band. His hands were large and strong and showed the signs of aging and a life of working the farm.  But they were also gentle and kind.  A gold tooth shined in the corner of his smile….I thought it was the shiniest thing I had ever seen. He smelled like a mixture of sweat, hay, grain and the old barn.

Grandpa seemed to love everything about the farm; the open clean air; the way the hay smelled on a hot day just after it had been bundled into bails; the freshly churned butter; the raw milk; the smells and sounds of bacon and eggs sizzling in the cast-iron frying pan on those crisp fall mornings; the scent of the cow barn; the way the brook sounded in spring as the ice melted into it; the way the snow crunched under his feet as he mended fences; and the soft westerly summer breeze that swarmed him on a hot day. But mostly, I believe, it was the freedom of it all: the freedom to wake up each day and do what he chose to do, to walk on his own land and have no desire to be anywhere else but there on his farm. He could stand strong and confident, knowing what he had built there, knowing it like the back of his hand, knowing it throughout his entire body. And never once did he have to doubt who he was.

Grandma was plump and when she hugged me I felt like I was being hugged by a big fluffy cozy cloud.  She had the most beautiful smile I had ever seen.  Her front tooth crossed ever so slightly over her other front tooth in the prettiest way…. And her lips were perfectly full. She was a farm girl through and through. She dressed in simple farm clothes, mostly cotton shirts and cotton shorts in the summer… usually a soft blue or a dark blue… very light wore cotton which she probable bought at the local salvation army.  She was not one to buy anything new and she loved hand me downs… from anyone…. and she often wore a bandanna in her hair, which I loved and in the summer she always wore flip flops. She would wear a straw hat in the garden sometimes and she loved the sun.  After a long morning of working she would get a cold drink and sit out in the sun….. “awe” she would say….”That sun feels so good.”  Her skin was a perfect deep olive color and it would darken up beautifully in the sun.  Her skin was absolutely gorgeous and soft as baby’s hair.  The wrinkled lines around her eyes revealed a life of hard work and dedication, laughter and sorrow.  Her laugh was deep and joyful and she and Grandpa were rarely short on laughter.

Grandma was the best cook I knew….and she spent a good amount of her time in the kitchen preparing food for all of us. She cooked just about everything in her iron frying pans. Breakfast was usually eggs cooked “warwicks” style in the iron frying pan; egg cracked in melted sizzling butter with a piece of homemade whole grain bread placed on top and once the egg was cooked she would flip the bread and egg over so the bread would brown up nice in the butter. There would always be bacon or sausage from the pig they raised on the farm.  In the morning the whole house would smell of sizzling sausage and bacon.  Grandma’s meals were made from everything that had been grown or raised on the farm. Supper was mostly fresh vegetables from the garden such as summer squash, zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn… these veggies were always served with lots of butter melted on top. Usually homemade corn bread on the side with some pork loin browned in the iron pan with butter.  Always a homemade dessert: blueberry cake or chocolate cake…  A glass pitcher was always on the table full of whole raw milk, fresh from the cow.. and it would be refilled several times throughout the meal.  Food was in abundance on the farm, all cooked in the farm house kitchen….. always delicious!!

There were so many things about “the farm” that made it the best place on earth. But it was Grandpa’s humor, storytelling, appreciation for nature and animals, grandma’s cooking and their deep love for us that made it an experience of a lifetime.

 

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