a perfectly imperfect life: the farm (part 1)

i didn't actually abandon this blog... and i didn't take a week off for no reason, either! nope- i packed up my girls & headed to Texas for 5 days! my grandpa has a farm in Madisonville, TX with lots of wide open spaces perfect for little girls & their cousins to run & be crazy cowgirls for a few days. my siblings and i got to visit the farm every year as we were growing up, and it's really special to have our children there now. they are getting to make the same messy, funny, exhausting memories that we did- 4 generations of one family all in one place. amazing...

now i may have created an image of Gone With The Wind in your mind... i love our family farm, and i love the old farmhouse, but Tara it is not! there is beauty in the old white homestead... but it has been patched & shored up in very unromantic ways over the years. it is sinking in many places and moldy in all the rest. the rain brings out a strong wet dog smell from every corner & crevice, and the gas heaters smell faintly of broccoli. but there is also a beautiful history there... a lot of love and sweet memories. no, not a picture perfect loving family- we're broken & mixed-up just like your family. but we are a mix of serious & silly, sweet & salty, love & frustration melting into one perfectly imperfect mess. and that's family, right?

we gathered to celebrate my grandpa's 89th birthday- amazing. he's still out there on the farm EVERY day pulling weeds, hauling limbs, burning anything he thinks he won't miss. yes, he's starting to show his 89 years in the typical ways... maybe (definitely) shouldn't be allowed to burn things anymore. but i'm still really proud of him! happy birthday, grandpa! here's to many more years of celebrating with you!

Julia with her grandpa & great grandpa... isn't the sky beautiful above this multi-generation group?

so what do we do on the farm?

lots of digging in the dirt... and some tasting dirt as well.

a little wandering in the pastures and playing with the animals- this year there's a puppy who hangs around, as well as a sweet old farm cat.

my sweet niece named the puppy 'boney," and it stuck... poor dog!

we also go for LOTS of walks down the road to find the cows or wander about the property. i'm not sure how many acres it is altogether- mom? dad? you can fill me in! but it's just big enough for a pleasant walk & talk, and sometimes see a little nature. deer mostly- sometimes armadillos or skunks or wild hogs. those are other stories for other blogs!

and when the kids get cranky and can't share toys anymore, we load them in the back of the pickup for a drive. these are my girls with my sister's daughters: annabelle & dorothy (annie & dot)! my brother's kids came later in this trip- i'll have pictures of them in another post.

no, we don't let them just roll around back there by themselves- the car was not moving when these pictures were taken! and we don't ever leave the property with the kids in the back of a pickup truck. just tooling around the pastures... feeding the cows & seeing the sights!