Ode to the Farm

I grew up on a farm in Barry County, Michigan, specifically in Prairieville. I lived in the home my grandfather was raised in until I moved out in 1993. My mother was given the house. After my mother passed away, my sister bought the house. Over the hill was my grandparent's house that they built. My grandfather cut all the lumber, which I always find amazing.

I just received an email confirming that my grandpa will be signing a sales agreement on the farm in the coming week. I never thought I would have a problem with the idea of him selling. I was always just concerned that he would receive a fair price. I was on the phone with my husband as I read the email. Suddenly I was in tears. Where were they coming from? It dawned on me that I never took my kids out to see the big rocks in the field, boulders really. Probably remnants from the glaciers. They were huge. You could lay on the top and nap on their warm flat surface. There were 3 of them, I think. Margie will probably remember playing back there, making crosses to lay of what we thought were ancient indian burial grounds ;) We had a junk pile close by that my mom would dump our old toys and such. So we would go pull our old toys out of the dump and put them in our boulder play house. See the boulders were buried in some trees. It was kind of secluded from the field. There was old barbed wire around where we set up our play kitchen. We even had a small group of trees that were our bathroom where we would pop a squat. (I peed outside a lot as a kid). Great memories!

Then there is my grandparent's home. Growing up next door, we were there a lot, mainly in the winter. In the summer they were busy on the farm. But my grandma, even in her late 60's, early 70's (I could probably do the math to say for sure but I won't) would take us out sledding on the hills in the field. Or we would rake a huge pile of leaves and jump in. There was always so much to do.

They had barn cats that my grandma would feed. She was so funny. She loved those cats. I remember watching over their house when they were gone on a trip and her wanting to make sure we knew how to feed the cats "correctly". She would take a bowl of cat food and piece by piece, she would smear room temperature bacon grease on each piece. Sure, the cats probably had high cholesterol, but she loved those cats.

My baby sister, Stephanie, held her wedding there in 2002. I can imagine she is going through a lot of the same emotions.

A lot of emotions are hitting me that I just didn't expect to be triggered by the sale of the farm. It is like the farm was an extra family member. My kids never saw the rocks. They never saw the farm alive and working. They didn't get to explore the woods and see if they could find the "quick sand" that I heard about but never saw. They never got to sit in the peace of the hidden field, shielded by 4 sides of forest. What is really sad is that we had the chance to do a lot of those things and we never did. I am tempted to jump in the car and drive out there and take the kids on a tour but with it being deer hunting season, I would be afraid to, as that too was a rule we always followed this time of the year. It just wasn't a time of the year to be out wandering the approximately 400 acre farm.

To the Hermenitt farm, we will miss you!