I've always been a country girl at heart.
When we moved out of the city, my heart longed for land but knew it had to settle for a large lot in the suburbs. The need to leave the city, find a new home before our fourth child was born, to land close to family and church all superseded the need for land.
So we looked for the largest lot on a cul-de-sac. The home we found was on the back side of a golf-course neighborhood and was bordered by one of the original farms of our area. Our backyard of nearly an acre snugged up to a farmhouse and barn built in 1907 and eighty acres of corn and woods.
It's been delightful to look out our back windows and see the old barn and chicken coop and pretend it is mine, watch the tractors and other farm equipment drive by as they work the farm. In the middle of the night, during planting and harvest you can hear the rumble of the giant machines that cultivate the ground or pull in the bounty - see their headlights as they work in the otherwise still, sleepy night.
Additional blessings came with the realization that the farmer knows some of my family, worked as a volunteer firefighter with my uncle for years and my dad worked with his son years ago at a lumber mill. It filled me with a sense of security.
Over the few years we've lived here, we've spent hours chatting over the rusty farm fence. I could talk with him all day as he shares memories of a time long past. And let me tell you, he has some wonderful stories.
This past winter his brother died in the farmhouse.
He's retired from active farming.
The farm equipment is being auctioned off.
The house is being torn down.
There's a quiet sadness about our farmer now. His era is coming to a close.
We talk a lot more than before.
But with the end of the old, there's been wonderful new. For us anyway. And I like to think it's been good for him too.
He's taken Noah under his wing and taught him how to drive one of the tractors.
Noah mows his property immediately surrounding the farm house and barnyard, just up to the woods. He's allowing us to use his chicken coop for our chickens.
He gives me tips about my poor garden.
I'm still longing for land of my own. And horses. I really hope for that before I'm too old to enjoy it. But for now, I'm content where God has me and happy he's giving me this little taste of country right here in the suburbs.