Once I went to college, I never really returned home. Oh sure, I would come home during the summer break and holidays, but I never really "returned" home.
Upon graduation, I went straight to work -- not in my chosen field, mind you -- but still a job. I majored in education and planned to be a teacher. No jobs were available in my area of business that first year out of college. I moved into a furnished, one-bedroom apartment by myself and waited a whole year to begin my search again for a teaching job while I worked in a real estate office.
My second try was much more productive, and I was lucky to find a position in Northern Kentucky only an hour from home. I liked to visit, but I never again planned to live on a farm, have livestock, or raise tobacco!
Never say never!
The years have passed quickly. I'm married with two children. We live in a nice subdivision with a big yard by city standards. I plant tomatoes, peppers, and a few other vegetables around my house every year. I was frustrated, however, with the low yield because the subdivision dirt is hard, lifeless, and not really even brown.
One spring, Dad and my husband built me a raised bed and filled it with composted country soil (cow poop). It is the darkest, softest dirt you ever want to dig in! My tomatoes were awesome that year! I started feeling a twinge.
Although we have a big, fenced-in backyard, my girls always liked to play in the front when they were little. Being a somewhat overprotective mom, they never went outside alone. Yet when we would visit Mammaw and Pappaw, the girls would come in and out the back door a zillion times a day without me batting an eyelash about whether or not they were safe on their own. Another twinge.
My girls were missing out on the freedom, fresh air, and lack of cable in the country! At home they had small jobs to do like keeping their room clean and helping with the dishes, but what real chores did they have? They didn't have a field of tobacco that needed the weeds hoed out of it. They didn't have a garden full of vegetables that needed to be planted, watered, harvested, and then put up for the winter. The TV was constantly on at our house but was never touched at Mammaw and Pappaw's.
Growing up on a farm, I thought I was missing out on so much by not being close to a city; but raising children in a city proved to me that the country life has so much more to offer in terms of what really counts -- family, values, work ethic, and space!
Although we still live in our subdivision, we now own a 57-acre farm only one mile from the grandparents. The farmhouse was old, had no insulation, needed new electric, new windows, and a new bathroom; but it also had original wood floors, wood moldings that have never been painted, two original fireplace surrounds, and an original wood staircase! Definitely lots of potential!
We bought the place in 2007 and have slowly been doing things and are constantly in the planning stage of doing more things. I am now a retired teacher, operate a lavender farm with my Mom, and the girls are in college.
This blog is my journey back to the good life -- home!