The Farm Dream

I've had it my whole life.  I'm not even being dramatic.  When I was little I used to play house like every other little girl, but my house was always a prairie house.  I pretended I was wearing long dresses with an apron and a bonnet.  I envisioned a simple kitchen with wooden spoons and bowls which I made cheese in.  I loved the Little House on the Prairie books and read them all.  When my sisters and I discovered the American Girl dolls, I was instantly sold on wanting Kirsten because she was from a simple farm family.  I have always wanted to milk a cow and come to think of it, I never have!  The farm dream was not created in me by visiting other peoples' farms or hearing people talk about their farm.  No one we knew had a farm.  The farm dream is just a piece of me that has always been innately ME.

I grew up in Goleta, a suburb of Santa Barbara.  What kid wouldn't love that?  Me.  Yep, I was odd.  Yes, the beach was fun and all but I remember feeling stuck (for lack of better words) as a kid.  Stuck in a neighborhood.  Stuck in a seasonless environment.  Stuck in an area that never seemed to change.  Stuck in the crowd of people.  I always longed to live on a farm with room to run and get away from the crowds.  A place to watch the seasons change and things grow.  I LONGED to keep farm animals.  Little did I know, my mom dreamed that same dream...even PRAYED for it....for 14 years!  I never knew that until her prayers were answered.  When I was 15 we moved north and my parents bought 14 acres.  I was home!  Those 14 acres were never farmed, but there were seasons, and space, and things grew and changed.  My mom usually kept a veggie garden and for the first few years, I helped my dad upkeep the walnut trees until the market for walnuts wasn't worth the effort and the trees were left to the squirrels.

My mom and my boys watching cows

I am lucky to be married to a man who shares my dream.  He has been known to spend hours researching how to harvest rain water, how to tend rabbits, keep bees, and raise chickens.  Our desire to homestead has only grown over the years, while the housing market has declined.  For now, and probably a while, we are here.  We could stand it no longer and as soon as we read The Urban Homestead, we got to work on our little plot.  For now, that is fulfilling part of our desires.  But we still dream.  Don't get me wrong, we are very content in life and feel blessed by our little plot.  But one can always dream right?

Kisses for Daddy

That they can.  And it was brought to my attention today, that the farm dream is quite innate in our oldest son.  While we were driving, he excitedly shared with me his "great idea".  "Mama!  Let's sell our house and buy a NEW house with land so that we can have rabbits and goats and sheep and chickens who can lay eggs in their little nests in a barn!"  His enthusiasm was so sweet and so full.  I told him I had the same idea and that it WAS a great idea.  Perfect.  In his mind it was settled then.  All that was left was running the plan past Daddy and then we'd be in our new farm in no time.  He so pushed this plan that I finally had to tell him about money, which is something I don't often talk to him about as I'd like to shield him from its powers for as long as I can.  The disappointment in his face literally brought tears to my eyes.  Maybe his too.  "But Mommy, I just want to have some goats and get the eggs from the nests and we can have lots of room to run and play and get our energy out!  And we need to grow our food because God likes it when we grow lots of food."  Again, I assured him that I wanted all those things for him too and if I could, I'd make it happen.  But for now, it was out of our reach.  I KNOW his disappointment.  I could feel it in the core of me as I saw it on his face and in his body.  I knew it as a kid and know it as an adult.  I tried to encourage him by pointing out how blessed we are to have some space to grow plants to eat and tend to our bunnies.  He cheered up at that.  And I told him about how his Grammy had also dreamed of having a farm for a very long time and she prayed to God about it.  I told him praying doesn't mean we will get it, but God likes to know the desires of our heart and sharing those desires with Him can feel good.  So he prayed right then....for his farm....and his goats....and his chickens with the eggs in the little nests in the barn.

Maybe the farm dream is genetic.