Green Acres

This City Slicker has been thinking about farms lately. I have been in a funk ever since the cows outside our housing development vanished...a deeper funk when surveyors were spotted...deepest funk now that the trees are being chopped down and thrown into large piles of trash. I miss the sound of the cows' moo as the sun was setting and the air was still.

My great aunt had a dairy farm in Missouri and I have the best memory of being able to take a pitcher out to the big holding tank for the milk (I am sure this is not the correct farm terminology...but I am not a country girl...you'll just have to forgive my ignorance) It was so fun to take the pitcher scoop, it in and take it back to the breakfast table...it was so cold and had the best taste to it. (I am pretty sure I could never drink it again since I have been drinking skim for 20 years and even 2% tastes like straight cream to me)

Aunt Myrt's farm was so interesting...a very old house (no a/c, horrors) with an attic and we got to sleep up there. This is an adventure for a kid who has never lived in a house with stairs! Late at night, you would hear the hunters and the dogs barking...another adventure, the bang of a gun...This was when I was glad my dad had to sleep in the attic too! (Grandma and Grandpa had the guest room downstairs)

There were trees on the farm with hanging vines for swinging and my younger brother made good use of them. I was a priss so I played spectator.

Coffee was always being consumed by the adults, no matter how hot it was outside or what time of day it was (I think the same could be said for my Aunt Joanne's farm in Iowa...coffee and adults at the kitchen table, all hours of the day)

Aunt Myrt always had lots of pies, lots of chocolate for my dad and the lattice topped cherry pie. I guess you need pie to go with the coffee...

Now I see the beautiful farms with the tilled earth or the grazing livestock being turned into housing developments...There aren't anymore farms in our family and I'm kind of sad my kids are going to miss out on this childhood experience.