Grandparent's Farm

My Grandparents Farm

Grandma with my Aunt Edith

These look like twins!

The farm house this spring. Sad to see it being rented out & going downhill.

I always had a farm to go to when I was growing up. I consider myself very lucky. My grandparents lived on a gravel road named after them in Illinois. It was cool having a road named after you. My dad was one of seven children born on the farm. It was a Swedish family. A very reserved, quiet Swedish family. They were dairy farmers with 80 acres. By the time I was 5 or so, the cows were sold & the land rented out for someone else to farm. My grandparents were getting too old by then to continue the hard life of dairy farming. They were in their mid-nineties when they died & lived on the farm almost that time.
Going to the farm was fun when I was young. Getting to see the new kittens in the hay loft, climbing the silo (and getting in trouble for doing it), playing under the huge pine trees, walking through the barn, watching my Grandpa milk the cows, playing Barbies with my cousins. As I got older, it was less fun to go there. Nothing to do, boring, "do we have to go?" I guess almost every kid goes through a time in their life when visiting with relatives becomes a chore. How I wish they were still around to ask questions about farming back then & what their lives were like with seven kids to feed. My dad is gone too. So many times I wish I could ask him things.
I drove by last spring. Cars in the yard, the house needs painting, construction equipment everywhere. I'm so afraid I'll drive by one day & it will be gone. Just another subdivision in the country.
I read a book last year called "The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People " by Ben Logan. I thought of my grandparents & dad often when reading it. I think it describes so well what it was like in the 20's & 30's on the farm.
When I watch Eli & the boys cut the hay next door at the farm, it is a reminder of the way it used to be. Who knows, with gas prices so volatile, it may be the way of the future.