home again, home again, jiggity jog

I grew up thinking I would be a farmwife - that I was well-suited to be out in the country with a flock of laying hens, a bunch of kids, and bread baking in the big kitchen where we always ate our dinner at noon and supper at night and after the dishes, the kids would spread their homework all over the table until bedtime.

I had a run at that life in North Dakota, but early learned that nothing I had to say was as interesting as the ten o'clock weather (not to mention the farm report) and that women were pretty much left in the kitchen, whereas I really liked to operate the farm equipment and be outside.  Sometimes I was allowed to drive the grain truck, and I had a run at disking one of my father-in-law's smaller fields:  I later suspected someone might have been indulging me on that assignment.  Eventually, we left the Dakota plains for the Rocky Mountains and learned that life doesn't turn out the way we imagined.

I'm now back in the midwest watching the sun set behind bluffs and the rolling valley to the west.  We live in the driftless area, where the ancient glacier spared the hills and palisades and left the great river that has tugged at my heart my life-long.  I don't miss the chickens and the kids are grown and gone and homework doesn't clutter the kitchen table.  I toast every sunset and bless the sparing glacier and the red-tailed hawk and the gifts of my life, various and unexpected, and ultimately, leading home.