Everything I Need to Know I Learned on a Farm

Ok, well maybe not everything... but some of life's most valuable lessons were learned as a girl spending time on my grandparent's farm. Looking back, I can see that much of who I am grew from that place... grew alongside the pecan trees, and the collard greens, and the rose bushes. Like any good teacher, life found a way to instruct me without my knowledge, imbedding life lessons in everyday details.

Some things are better if you wait a little while.
Just about everyone in the South drinks iced tea. Usually from a Mason jar, and usually with so much sugar that the first sip makes you pucker your lips. But, ohhh it is so good. The best kind of tea is sun tea. I don't know why it tastes better... it is still just water and tea bags... but the flavor doesn't even compare. When Granny made sun tea, she would put the giant glass jar on the porch facing the west and let it steep for what seemed like forever. We would sit and eye that jar just waiting for it to be ready. The water darkened quickly and we would get so excited thinking it was time... but she never let us rush it. You see, the color fills the water as the heat begins to brew the tea... but it takes hours for the flavor to develop. Sometimes we would rush, thinking we knew better, and take a sip from the tap.... it tasted weak and dilute... and disappointing. But, if we waited just a little longer we got to enjoy one of nature's most refreshing and satisfying treats. So many things in life are that jar of sun tea... and if you can just learn to wait for the time to be right, they will be satisfying too.

Just because somebody SEEMS like they know what they are doing, doesn't mean they actually do.
When you spend a lot of time on a farm, you find yourself observing things in a different way. The comings and goings of the animals on the farm became quite literally like a children's story book to me. I would sit for hours just watching them, imagining what they were doing... sometimes even narrarating for them as if they were people. My own private 'Charlotte's Web'. I got to know the animal's personalities very well. The geese were very chatty. They loved to gossip about who went where and how so-and-so got into the water trough that morning. They squawked out their reports to each other and flapped their wings for emphasis. They spoke very quickly and talked way too much. For as much business as there was amongst the geese, there was an equal amount of nothing going on with the goats. I came to find that goats, while loving and cute, are not very smart. There was one goat who was larger and older than the rest of them, and they seemed to have nominated him their leader without his knowledge. I called him 'Big Papa', and each day I would sit and watch the same scenario play out over and over again. Big Papa would be minding his own business, eating some grass... and decide to move to a different part of the field. So he would start walking his awkward elderly gait... and within a few moments, all of the other goats would start 'baaah'-ing and looking at him, and then each other. They would move as a group... sometimes every single goat in the herd... following Big Papa. He would stop and begin to eat and they would always 'baah' in agreement and all go back to eating grass just inches away from where he stood. And Big Papa would always look over his shoulder, and then jump! just a little when he saw them all gathered there right behind him. 'Baaah! What do you WANT?', he'd say, and jut his hairy chin back in their direction. He would take a few more steps away and start eating again... and all of the other goats would seem to say, 'Oh! He's moving again! We should all move again too!' and they'd take the same one or two steps he took and then agree amongst themselves that this was the new best place to be. Big Papa hated those goats following him everywhere... he would sometimes even shake his little goat head back and forth and I could just imagine him saying, "Would you all stop following me already?!" But every time he moved, they moved too. Whether he took two steps or two hundred steps... there they all were... right behind him, following his unwilling lead. He never shook those damned goats... and the goats, for all of their following... never actually got anywhere.

Deal with life's messes as you make them... or they will become a disaster.
Cooking is a very important thing in the South. Recipes and secrets are handed down through generations... being taught hands-on in kitchens on every street. My Granny was an amazing cook. She made just about everything from scratch and she knew every ingredient and every measurement by heart. People literally traveled hundreds of miles to enjoy her specialties. Cooking things from scratch can be a messy business. Especially in the tiny kitchen she had, which only took my little legs six or seven steps to get from one side to the other... and that was the long way. The kitchen was always filled with people trying to help. Were you lucky enough to be one of the chosen few who got to stay that day, you could be sure to be taught some trade secret that she would manage to keep only for you. Then, when others tried to duplicate the recipe... they never could get it quite as right as you could. This was an amazing feeling. She also taught us kitchen lessons you can't live without in the South... like the difference between a 'dash' and a 'pinch', and how to keep the fruit from sinking to the bottom of the fruitcake. As we would cook, she would always make sure that each bowl, each spoon, each pan... was cleaned as soon as your use of it was complete. There was no leaving dishes in the sink until the cookies were cooled, or stacking up pans until bellies were full. When we sat down to eat, the kitchen was clean, because she made us clean as we went along. Sometimes, a few would get together and pitch in to make the meals... asking Granny to rest and let them serve her for a change. By the time the dinner was on the table, the kitchen looked like a war zone... and it would take hours, and usually her help, to get it back to it's proper condition. There is something different about the way a meal tastes when you know there isn't a mess waiting to be cleaned up in the next room... and I have found that life is much the same way.

Don't try to act like something you're not... you'll only make a fool of yourself.
The farm was situated on a dirt road that we called 'The Lane'. You'd go down the lane to get to Aunt Leila and Aunt Thelma's house... or to the old family homestead that was reduced to just a few rocks that used to be the foundation... or to sit amongst the trees and watch my favorite sunset in the whole world. I learned to drive a car on the lane, and quickly decided that I much preferred that to the other road that ran by the house. County Road 349 became the Indy speedway when drivers switched into country mode, realizing there were blessed few other cars that would cross their path on the way to O'Brien. On the other side of the lane was a field from the neighbor's farm, one of his fields he used as a pasture for his cows. Unfortunately, I am not going to tell you a story about cow tipping... I never tried it... BUT, the cows did offer another interesting challenge. After hours and hours of sitting on a porch listening to cows 'moo', me and my dad would try and replicate the sound. I was never as good at it as he was. He can sound exactly like a Guernsey if you close your eyes and try to forget that he is your dad. One day, when I was nineteen or so, I was taking one of my million walks down the lane, and the cows were standing right at the fence. I was all alone, and was about to say hello to them like I usually did. Except... I decided to try out my 'moo'-ing skills. I stopped in the middle of the lane, and looked back through the dust my feet had stirred up to make sure there was no one else around. There were no people, no cars speeding by in the distance... just me... and the cows. They looked at me with their big hooded eyes. A dead stare that simply said, "Um, can we help you?". I breathed in deeply with excitement... I was going to answer them! I tried to recreate the shape my dad always made with his hands that seemed to make the best moo, and placed my hands over my mouth and in a loud, deep voice I exclaimed, "Muuuuewwwauuuugggh!" The silence that followed was deafening. I lowered my hands, expectantly... looking for any sign of recognition from the cows. They all stopped chewing and stared at me with their big cow eyes.. blink... blink... a tail swished a fly away... blink. And then... one by one, they all turned and walked away. I stood there for a moment... awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other... my hands still forming my best moo shape... and then called after them, "Ok, well... uh... nice, uh, talking to you!" I walked away that day having decided to leave the moo-ing to the cows... and to my dad.

Don't judge a porch by it's paint.
The little house owned by my grandparents had three bedrooms by the time I was born, and around the same time they built out the dining room, they added a wrap-around porch. It wasn't very big either, but somehow that house and that porch could seat a multitude. There was a long row of rocking chairs... first-come, first-serve... and every one else took a place sitting on the railing between the supports, or on the stairs... or on the hoods of the cars parked right in front. Over time, the porch began to sag a bit, and the wood on the railings began to crack from years of swelling and shrinking in the humidity. Everyone did their best to help keep things up, but inevitably the extensive use took it's toll. The white paint began to peel and flake in spots... usually the worst around the railings where people sat... have you ever noticed how you can pick at something unconsciously when you are deep in conversation? The story of 'The Velveteen Rabbit' tells of a toy rabbit that longs to become real... but what always struck me about that story was something else. The boy in the story spent so much time sleeping with the rabbit, and squeezing it, and playing with it... that eventually all of it's fur wore off. I always relished the thought that the little boy actually loved all of the fur off of that toy rabbit. Well, in the same way, we literally loved the paint off of that porch. I imagine that if the average person were to drive up to that house and find that porch empty... they would look with shame at the condition in which it was kept... and probably make a few judgements about the family that would let it be so worn and tired. But they would be wrong. That sagging porch was home to more wonderful moments than I can even recount. There was heavenly singing, and shelling of peas... laughing, and crying, and book reports... there were the most wonderful welcomes, the saddest goodbyes... there were marriages that started and ended on that porch... secrets confided and countless stories told... but most of all, there was life, and love, and lessons on that porch. I learned that the value of a woman has nothing to do with her hair color or her size... I learned that if you keep singing long enough, you can sing your way back from a broken heart... I learned that the things that are most cherished usually never cost a dime...
...and I learned that a life covered with peeling paint is just a life that has been truly lived.