As mentioned in my profile, I am a widow and I do live in the country. On 2-1/2 acres. I've lived in the country a lot longer than I've been a widow. I was only widowed a couple of months ago. However, it seems longer as my husband died from the complications of Alzheimer's disease, and that can remove the sense of companionship that all happily married couples enjoy, sometimes many months or years before the actual loss of your beloved spouse. I'll just share with you that he was a wonderful, gentle, humble, loving man and it was an honor to be able to do what I could for him in the final years of his life. I've been saying good-bye to him for a long time now, so I suppose I was uniquely prepared to lose him. It's a source of great joy to me in knowing that he is with the Lord right now, and can no longer be touched by any sorrow, confusion, or pain. He was a true man, and his dignity and manliness shone through him to the very end. ... You will probably read some stories about him in my future posts. But I especially wanted to introduce you to him in my first paragraph!
Oh, also, I should probably say that although I try to do a good job with spelling and grammar and punctuation and all the stuff about first person, second person, and everything... I will make plenty of mistakes. And I probably won't use spell check or grammar check or all of that. It just kinda cramps my style and I will obsess about all of that instead of just getting whatever is in me out of my system. Which is not desirable to me. And this IS my blog. Just a caveat...
As far as country living... I was born and raised on a farm in upper Iowa, not far from the Minnesota border. Daddy and Mom raised and grew just about everything, at one time or another. This was before the large farms that specialize in grain, dairy, beef or whatever. We did it all. As a child I can remember us raising dairy cattle, beef cattle, chickens for eggs, chickens for meat, hogs, and at different times we also had sheep, geese, ponies, and horses (the last two were for me). And probably other types of livestock.
We raised apples, grapes, strawberries, rhubarb and any kind of vegetable you can imagine. Along with lots of flowers and roses and flowering bushes and shrubs. I'm probably forgetting a lot of things we grew. One of the things we did when I was a child, in the hot summer evenings, was to get in the car and cruise around with the windows down and polka music on the radio. Daddy would stop and get a quart of beer that he and Mom would share while we drove around and looked at crops and flower beds. Ummm, I guess there were no open container laws back then.
I lived in this glorious manner until I was 17 and left home. When I was growing up, I would get up at 5:00 a.m. during the school year to read (a book) for a couple hours before leaving for school. During the summer I would get up at 5:00 a.m. to do my chores so I could have the rest of the day to 'play'. At that time, I would pack a lunch and a thermos and take my horse or my bicycle or my feet and disappear all day until supper time. I could be swimming, playing tennis, visiting a friend, riding into town to the playground, or just plain walking/riding/bicycling all over the countryside. No one worried about where I was or what I was doing unless I was late getting home... and I was a very prompt child.
After leaving home I lived various places, all city, until 1994 when we moved here to our little acreage in southern Illinois. This has been our home since, except for a time in Indiana. In Indiana we lived in the country, too, so I figure I've got about 38 of my 61 years spent viewing a rural landscape out of my kitchen window.
Allright.... the necessary, but possibly boring, details have been covered. Making way for later posts that will undoubtedly enthrall you.
Blessings,
Katrinka
My late husband, Randy (Mister D)
in his Mom's kitchen in California
summer 1984
in his Mom's kitchen in California
summer 1984
October 22,1948 - July 30, 2015
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