Country Girl at Heart

Emma on Great Grandpa's tractor.

I have always felt that I am a country girl at heart, but since I have spent the last 6 weeks in Missouri I am beginning to doubt it. The trees are beautiful, but it is so humid and the roads are so confusing. I think more accurately I am a city with an old country morality/mentality. 
I occasionally like to listen to country music and imagine myself wearing jeans and t-shirts everyday as I go out and tend to my chickens and garden, then grab the kids and hop in my truck off to the river to go swimming then spend the evening on my front porch swing. I still want that porch swing on my new house in suburbia. And I love streets that are on a grid system!

Ethan on the tractor.

But reality is ... reality. My grandparents have 160 acres and I used to spend time there in the summers. I would run off to the fields and woods and streams and spend the whole day out there. Now I look out at those same feilds and think about all the bugs and snakes. This last weekend we went to visit my grandparents (my grandpa is 90, by the way) and I still love it out there, but it is not the same. The barn is in shambles and the old farm house has been added to and repaired too many times to count. It actually sets on rocks for the foundation and has for over 60 years. It is very hodgepodge, but it is still a refuge for me. A place of love.

My dear sweet grandparents on the front porch swing.

My kids took to it just like I had back in the day. As soon as we were there they were outside playing with second cousins.

My cousin and I in my Grandma's kitchen.