LONGINGS

As winter draws near I'm thinking more and more of summer days at the farm. As soon as school was out for the year we would pack up kids, cats, food and water and drive out to the farm. We would flush out the water tank and then fill it with the water we brought. We would open everything up to air out. Now mind you the kids got out of school in May so we could only open up for a short time as usually the weather is still cool. Then we would settle in. The next day we would go back home and fill up the water containers again pick up our mail and go shopping if needed.
But the best part was after the weather got warmer. We would set out the folding chairs and just relax. As you sit and just watch the wide open spaces, you would see a deer or two. Once a day we would drive the 20 miles back home to get our mail, take a shower if we needed & go shopping if needed.
Then back to the farm and the camper. After dinner, the kids and grandpa would go start a bon-fire while I cleaned up. Some times I would join them at the bon-fire. Other times I would just sit in my chair next to the camper and listen to the sounds of the cows mooing, pheasants calling each other, the birds & the crickets. We would hear an occasional plane, but most times you would look up in the sky and see the trail of steam but no plane.
Before sunset the deer would get braver and come close to us, so close that we were afraid to breath for fear of scaring them off. Then at night the sky would be so clear you could see a bazillion stars. Most times as the lights came on you could see as far as 50 miles away. It was fun to try to figure out what town was what in the dark by the lights. This was one way we discovered the smaller airports that we didn't realise these towns had. When the weather was too hot to be outside, during the day we would only take a small walk around the farm to see.....well nothing really we just walked. Even me although now I don't think I could.We used to have a creek on the farm. But one farmer damned his end and another farmer dried his up and farmed it. So now all I have is the memories of when I was a kid. The times that I would get a inner tube and go down and play around in the creek. The time I got bit by a snapper. I was lucky that he didn't take more outta my butt. The time my mom lost her wedding band down at the creek and the days and even months after that my parents looked for it before my dad finally bought mom a new ring.(yes we have taken a metal detector down and look for it but dad says it must have falling in the water and was washed away).
The stories I share with my grandchildren of all my summers there at the farm as a child.
They always say "I'm bored whats there to do?" To which I tell them use your imagination like I did. The I would go off on one of my childhood stories of what I did when I was there.
So now as the cold air settles in for another winter and the knowledge that5 soon there will be snow covering everything, I think more and more of those long summer days at the farm doing almost nothing. It's what gets me through the cold winter months.