It Had to Happen

Things I miss about the farm. You knew it had to happen. Sooner or later I'd bemoan this city life and yearn for the sweet (think cow dung) smell of home.

Only, I don't really miss it.

Not really.

Okay, I miss a few things.

I miss my children trotting down the road to fetch the mail. It was a heckofa long way from the house and it was always good fer stretchin' yer legs after a long day of school.

I miss the silence of it all. Sitting with my Beloved on the patio, listening to the crickets as they played their evening symphonies. Candles would flicker in the setting sun as the sky blazed pink and blue. Then we'd run into the house because the skeeters would eat you ALIVE.

I miss my yellow rose bush.

I remember when I'd lay a sheet out in the yard. It would lay partly in the sun and partly in shade because the children could never agree to be in one or the other. Then we'd read funny poems from  Shel Silverstein and spit watermelon seeds.

I miss Mom's butterfly bush.

I'm certain I have a scar from raspberry and blackcap picking. There must be at least one burn mark from canning peaches or pears. Sometimes I can smell that rank stench of cattle in the morning and see the flies as they gently alight and then land on the hard rump of some bovine.

I miss...But wait. Most of these are memories. Only some are things I truly miss, like rose bushes. I suppose it's not the farm I miss, but the little farm hands.

I do not miss bovines or dung or tangled wire. Or nails or tacks or that weird thing we used on the calves. I do not miss the bats that would swoop down at dusk in the barn. I do not miss the rats when we had chickens. And I certainly do not miss the chickens.

But I miss farm kids.

Dirty, smelly, tanned farm kids.