Where it all started.

I remember the first time I ever went to the old family farm. I was about 4 years old I was gazing out the window when our car slowed to turn into a driveway of the big two story farm house. It was beautiful. It had white ginger bread type scrolling around the porch and a black rod iron fence enclosing the front yard. I stepped out of the car and took a deep breath. I could smell a variety of things all very foreign to me. I could smell dirt, cows, and sweet apple pie baking in the kitchen.

Over the years the farm was home to a variety of people as well as livestock. I love to look at the photos that were taken generations ago. The farm is still in our family and rich with family history.

Though my visits to the farm has been sparse, this place made an impression on me. The apple trees in the back yard where we were fussed at for climbing are still there. The cellar was a dark scary place, that you only went into because of a dare. The old Bull enclosure still stands, where my cousin and brother once tied me to the fence! I will never forget this place.

This was the first place that we (kids) were able to completely run free. We played. We were fussed at. We were fed and we were loved. Life on the farm was exactly like reliving my ancestors life.

As years go by, each time I return to the old farm house, as I take my first step onto the soil, I am reminded that my grandmother and grandmother before her walked on this same soil. They found love in this place. They lost love in this place. Forever will this be the place that for over a century my family has walked, bled, cried and prayed.

Though, I do not live close to the farm now, I intend to give my children the same farm life, the same freedoms, the same love. Now that we embark on our own homestead journey I know that one day my children will have those memories and freedoms.

As time goes by in a continuously changing world, I can only hope that each generation will return to the old family farm to leave their footprints in the dirt just as their ancestors left over a century before.