Missing the farm
No energy to write lately.
Thanksgiving was alright, though it hasn’t been the same for years. I completely stuffed myself, that I still don’t think I’ve recovered. Every since my mom starting pointing the family against each other, hardly anyone celebrates any holidays together anymore. And of course peopel grow up, get married, start their own families or they want to celebrate with their spouses family. And the holidays become more empty.
It’s actually worse on my fathers side of the family than my mothers. Some of them haven’t spoken to each other in years, and I remember when we would -all- sit down for thanksgiving dinner. I remember when hunting season started, all of the men would be up before dawn, and my grandmother would cook them a quick breakfast before they headed out into the woods. All day long they’d trickle back in one by one, some with a new kill, some without.
Or in November when we would kill our own turkeys for the holidays. I miss bundling up for the cold weather and standing around while watching the men chop off the heads (I know this sounds grotesque, but it was a family tradition), then place them in this huge black boiling cauldron of water so that the feathers were easier to pluck. I got to help with the plucking mostly, but I was also allowed to peel the gizzards for stew. But I never wanted to gut them, that was just too much for me at the tender age of 9.
It was always a big family event, and I loved living on a farm. I loved being around all of my family. I loved picking strawberries with my grandmother and all of my little cousins, and eating more than we picked. Or playing tag in a field of corn and getting cut up from the leaves. Or taking the 4-wheeler out and tying a sled behind it to run it through a potato field (which are extremely bumpy). Or even sleding down one of the cow pastures and hitting frozen cow patties on the way down (they actually made nice jumps).
I guess there’s something special about large ‘hillbilly’ families. I sat here watching “The Horse Whisperer” the other night, and that beautiful Montana ranch just made me miss my childhood memories even more. What I wouldn’t give to meet the man of my dreams (Crocodile Dundee meets Robert Redford from “The Horse Whisperer”) and own a ranch like that and have a large family.
I feel like I’m slowly losing all of my farm girl roots. Sure we still plant our own vegetables and we raise rabbits, sell fresh farm eggs, and have a plethora of other critters we take care of. But it’s not the same. We don’t own this land, and what we have now doesn’t compare to the size we had before. We have no money, and no hopes of having any anytime soon.
Speaking of critters, somehow a chipmunk found it’s way into the house the other day, and even though it was being bombarded by both dog and cat, I was able to catch it. It apparently found its way into the bathtub drain, which had to be freezing, not only from the water but from the porcelin tub itself. So when I went looking for it later on, I saw it laying in the middle of the tub, soaked, freezing, and exhausted. I just grabbed it up, put it in my squirrel cage from before, and set it by the woodstove.
It appears to be doing fine now, it has a nice big log with lots of holes to crawl through, some sunflower seeds and peanuts, and a little thing of water. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it, I’m thinking not very long. I don’t want it to get used to being pampered if it has to survive the winter outside.
In other news, I had to reformat my hard drive Sunday night. Talk about your typical pain in the ass. I ran into a few troubles along the way and started to panic that I was never going to get it up and running again. And I have absolutely no money to get a new one.
Still have some holiday shopping to do, I think I’m really only going to spend money on my dad and my sister this year. Maybe Jeff too, but he’s not that easy to shop for.
If anyone wants to exchange holiday cards, let me know.
I need to contact my Aunt sometime this week. She has a lot of my grandmothers old recipes, and I want to get a few of them for my own recipe book.
I just learned that Jonathan Brandis committed suicide. If there was one actor I had a crush on when I was 13 or so, it was him. This is very devastating 
Same birthday as me and everything.
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4 Responses to “Missing the farm”
December 2nd, 2003 at 8:36 am
Beautiful entry, Crys. You’re lucky to have had that as a child, and you’re right to want to keep it alive. I’d love to exchange holiday cards, but I think I need your address again. Do you have mine still?
December 6th, 2003 at 3:15 pm
Also caught “The Horse Whisperer” recently, and was struck homesick by the family meal scenes. Even though it had been less than a week. Hope the chipmunk is well…
December 6th, 2003 at 3:21 pm
We used to have big family meals every Sunday night. I remember family members hailing down from the woods (we all lived within walking distance) for my grandmothers homemade pot-pie and biscuits.
*sigh* Yes, homesick
August 6th, 2004 at 4:33 pm
This blog is pretty interesting, will add a bookmark, thanks.