Must Love Babies: Farm Life

I have this dream of living on a farm. I don't want to be a farmer, per se, but I do want to have a productive garden, fruit trees, animals -- multiple animals, and land. And large pieces of equipment to maintain said land.

From ages 3ish to 8ish I lived on a horse farm. Anyone who is older than 8 knows that these are formative years. This is when you really start to have developed memories of childhood. My memories from this time mainly involve horses (naturally), hay, clover, fields, salt licks, polishing tack, playing in stalls, riding lessons, dirt trails, the creek, and riding my big wheel. And my horses, too. You'll notice these are all outside memories. Sure I have inside memories too, but if I think back to that time in my life, I immediately think of being outside, because I was -- so much.

Me, about 1980

We then moved to a typical suburban neighborhood with, well -- neighbors, lots of them. And asphalt. And mailboxes, and cars, and driveways and parking spaces and a bird's eye view that looked like a maze with lots of dead ends. And it was a nice neighborhood as far as neighborhoods go, but it wasn't the farm.

I have always wanted to get back to the kind of life we had on the farm when I was a kid. I realize I was little, and though I had chores, I sure didn't have the responsibility of the whole of the property. I do remember my mom and dad working pretty hard. But look at the payoff: privacy, peace, quiet, tranquility, happiness. I don't think it is in my or my husband's nature to want to care for a ton of acreage, but 5 or 10 would be welcome, especially if it came with neighbors that were not visible.

Another reason I would love to live in the country is to keep animals. I have this idea that kids need to be around animals. Animals teach compassion, empathy, life cycles, selflessness and responsibility. They are also provide unconditional love, which no child can ever have too much of. Both my girls love animals. When they see anything with fur, Josie says "oohhhh coot (cute)" and Caroline scrunches her nose up more than I knew was physically possible and says "nnnnnnNNN!" They both love all dogs and cats and I know for a fact they would totally get into the animals I want: goats, sheep, alpacas, more dogs, cats, chickens and a miniature horse. One day, I am telling you.

In the meantime, we tested the waters by taking the girls to the Fredericksburg Fair, the oldest running agricultural fair in the country. The first thing we saw when we went in was the petting zoo. You could buy a little bag of carrot chips for a buck and that was well worth the price considering the 20 minutes of steady entertainment and thrills it gave my girls:

Then it was off to have a picnic lunch. Well the girls had a picnic lunch packed from home, Mommy and Daddy had some really decent BBQ from Benjamin's BBQ. We shared.