The Train Spot

For small children obsessed with all "things that go," the place we live is HEAVEN.  The lovely home we're renting from family friends is really close to the train tracks. Before we moved in, I had visions of middle-of-the-night train whistles bellowing, windows rattling, kids waking up crying, and bleary-eyed parents rocking them to sleep while covering their ears to muffle the noise.  Thankfully, none of those things have happened.


What I didn't anticipate, however, was how much entertainment the trains would provide.  Every time the kids hear the train whistle in the distance, they drop what they're doing, yell "TRAIN SPOT!!" and run to the nearest window to watch the train whiz by.  And there are a LOT of trains - usually at least one per hour on weekdays.  They love to count the cars, note the colors of the cars, even speculate about the contents of the cars.  I thought the excitement might wear off, but we're two months into living here, and I still struggle to get them to stay at the table if we're having a meal when the train whistle blows!


Besides trains, spring has brought out a lot of big earth-moving equipment.  The other day we passed a spot where they were digging to put in underground tile.  There was a bulldozer, a huge excavator, and even a crane. I drove by slowly, but as soon as they were out of sight, my little guy kept saying "See more eck-ah-vay-der?"  Those early toddler sentences are just so adorable!  I couldn't say no.  It was a busy road.  But I unabashedly did a U turn, pulled off to the side of the road right next to the action, and put on my hazards.  For fifteen minutes, the kids watched, with dropped jaws, as huge scoops of dirt moved from place to place.


And, of course, tractor rides.  Once the weather got nice enough for the farmers to get into the fields, everyone in the area was working sun-up to sun-down to get the corn, sugar beets, and soybeans planted.  The kids looked forward to their daily rounds on the tractor with Daddy.  It warmed my heart to see them climbing into the tractor, smiles plastered on their faces and eyes filled with wonder.  After their ride, it wasn't uncommon for both of them to just plop down in the dirt to play.  **Awesome**

Last night, they got their first ride in the Polaris Ranger, a side-by-side utility vehicle the guys use for everything from hauling seed bags to picking rocks to checking out fields.  They even got to "drive" while on my dad's lap.

Never a dull moment here, where life is like living in a "things that go" board book!

And Your Name Is...?

It happened for the first time, and I'm sure this won't be the last.

I was playing outside with the kids when a vehicle drove up slowly.  A sweet older lady rolled down the window and said, "Well hello there, I heard you were back in town!  So good to see you.  Why, I don't think I've seen you since high school!"  And on she went, as I'm simultaneously racking my brain to figure out who she is and waiting for her to take a breath so I can say "Remind me of your name...?"  By the time there was a pause, I felt like the conversation had gone on long enough that it would be awkward to admit that I had no clue who she was.  She knew not only me, my parents, and my siblings, but she even alluded to my grandparents and THEIR siblings!  Thankfully a quick phone call afterward yielded her name, so I'll be more prepared next time we meet. :)

In other news, we've felt so well-supported and loved since moving in!

The night before CrazyRunningHubby started his first day of work on the farm, we had barely begun unpacking.  I spent an hour or more hunting down the essentials: coffee pot, clean underwear, and a pot for oatmeal (no luck that night on the clean socks).  The next morning, I got a text from an awesome cousin, asking if I could use a hand unpacking.  She not only came that morning and helped me get my whole kitchen unpacked, but she also brought lunch for all of us AND the fixings for us to make tacos for dinner (she knew
we hadn't made it to the grocery store).  A-mazing.
 

Petting Oreo the Bunny

The kids and I have explored some "default get-outta-the-house spots," like the Y and the library, that we plan to incorporate into our regular routine.  I've been really impressed with the quality of story time at our local library.  In fact, the first week we attended, which happened to be the week of Easter, they even had LIVE chicks and bunnies on hand for the kids to pet and hold!

Today a thoughtful elderly neighbor, someone CrazyRunningHubby and I have known and loved for many years, gave the kids Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that she hand made for them.  Can you believe she made these?!  She's been making them for kids for years.  In fact, she said she's on to the second generation of recipients in some families!  What a treasure. 

Settling In

We're into week two of settling into a more normal schedule, and we're glad to be sleeping consistently in our own beds.  The timeline surrounding the move was hectic but fun:

Friday        Last day of class; CrazyRunningHubby finishes up his MBA
Saturday    Moving Day
Sunday      Headed back to Suburbia to beat snow storm
Monday    Cleaned "old" house in Suburbia
Tuesday    Flew to Florida for a little family getaway
Sunday     Return from Florida
Monday   CrazyRunningHubby starts work on the farm

Yes, it was a whirlwind.

Moving day was a huge success.  We were able to load in Suburbia AND unload on the farm in the same day.  Yep, we have the most AMAZING family and friends.  Amazing.  It was a brisk but sunny day.  My sweet aunt and uncle brought lunch for the whole loading crew.  Warm white chicken chili that was the perfect compliment to offset the chill outside.  They also brought a veggie tray that included corn and beets (two of the crops we'll be growing).  So thoughtful!

The night CrazyRunningHubby finished up classes to complete his MBA (a journey six years in the making), we went out to dinner to celebrate with my parents, my sister, and her husband.  We went to a little Mexican restaurant in town.  It was a fitting spot to transition from our old life in Suburbia to our new life on the farm.

This particular little Mexican restaurant actually used to be a "Happy Chef," where I remember stopping to get biscuits and gravy when I rode along in the truck with my dad as a kid.  He would haul truckloads of grain to a shipping facility on the river, and sometimes I'd get to go along.  I'd bring along my sleeping bag and a supply of Barbies, and I'd have a ball playing in the sleeper cab of the truck.

As we sat there laughing and celebrating over fajitas, I had a flashback to being in that same spot many years ago.  Sitting in a booth across from my daddy over biscuits and and gravy, with our truckload of grain idling outside.  I pictured our little girl getting a chance to do the same thing with her daddy someday, their own truckload of grain idling outside.  Yep, I thought, this is gonna be a very good move.

Filling Up Boxes & Emptying the Freezer

We're less than one week out from our big move to the farm, and everything is falling into place. 

We've found a lovely home to rent in just the right spot, smack dab between both sets of grandparents.  It's worked out that some friends of ours will be renting our current house in Suburbia, a win-win for them and us.  And after nearly six years of persistent effort in the cracks of a hectic work and family schedule, CrazyRunningHubby will finish up his MBA the day before we load up the truck to move.

This phase of a move is always bittersweet - the intersection of excitement about what's to come and sadness about saying goodbye.  As the towers of boxes in our living room grow higher and higher, I've definitely had a few "What the heck are we doing?!" moments.  Some of the sweetest years of our lives have happened in this house, with the people that surround us here.  Change is always hard.  Yet we couldn't ask for better circumstances, moving back to a place and people that are very familiar.

The other day, I was chatting with our 4-year-old daughter over apple slices at the kitchen table.  I asked her if she had any questions about the upcoming move.  She said, "Mom, who will we be friends with when we move?"  Good question.  So I pulled out the iPad, and we browsed Facebook, looking at friends and family in our new locale.  She got excited to see the kids (especially little girls) her age that we'll be able to hang out with.   Afterward I realized that little exercise was not just good for her, but it was really reassuring for me, too.  Lots of life has happened since we moved away from this small town.  We've changed, people there have changed, but still...  There's nothing quite like the people you knew when you were growing up.  I'm so excited to reconnect with people that I haven't gotten to see much in the past fifteenyears - the type of friends that after about ten minutes, it feels like you've never been apart, and you stay up laughing all night.

This week, we're filling up boxes and trying to empty out our freezer.  I had frozen a lot of berries at the peak of yummy berry season last summer, and we had a few Ziploc bags left.  So I threw them together with some flour, sugar & butter and hoped for the best.  What came bubbling out of the oven was an ooey-gooey Triple Berry Cobbler that was the perfect compliment for some needed-to-be-used-up vanilla bean ice cream.  If you want to try it out yourself, see the recipe below!


"MOVING WEEK" TRIPLE BERRY COBBLER
 Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Serves 6

Ingredients
4 T butter
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 T cinnamon
0.5 tsp salt
1 c milk
3 c berries (I used frozen raspberries, blueberries & strawberries)
3 T sugar

Directions
1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2) Place butter in a 2-qt casserole dish and place in oven.  Allow butter to melt while you mix remaining ingredients
3) Mix the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt) in a medium-size bowl.
4) Whisk the milk into the dry ingredients until smooth
5) Remove the dish with melted butter from the oven.  Pour the batter into the pan on top of the butter, then scatter the fruit on top.  Sprinkle with the remaining 3T of sugar.
6) Bake about one hour, until the entire top is browned (no jiggly batter spots in the middle), and the berries are bubbling.  It's wonderful served warm with vanilla ice cream!

  

There's No Place Like Home

Farm Girl Love.  That pretty much sums it up.  I’ve always been a small town girl at heart.  And after nearly 15 years away from my hometown, we’re coming full circle and moving back.  So, like any good 21^st century gal, I’m starting a blog to document the transition.  Mostly, I plan for this to be a foodie and parenting blog, but to kick it off, I thought I’d tell you the story about how we ended up back where it all began…

My family, circa 1986 (I'm in the front right)

I grew up on a farm.  My dad operates a farm with his brothers, growing crops like corn, soybeans, and sugar beets.  As far as I’m concerned, I had an idyllic childhood.  I went to a public school where my graduating class was a whopping 36 students.  We had a chance to be well-rounded in sports, the arts, and more because when your school is that small, everyone has to participate or the activity doesn’t exist.  An inkling of talent could make you feel like a superstar.  It was a great place to grow up.

My husband and I became smitten with each other in high school.  We started dating a month before my 16^th birthday.  To ask me out, he dropped a neatly folded piece of paper into my lap that said"Will you go out with me?"  Classic. He was a year ahead of me in school, and we grew up in the same small town church.  College came, and we parted ways for a bit – he went to a tiny Christian college down in Tennesee, while I went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where there were more people living in my dorm during my freshman year of college than there were in my hometown.  After a year of saying we could “date other people,” we both admitted we really just wanted to be together.  So we dated long distance through our college years, which seemed hard at the time, but in retrospect was for the best - we got a chance to grow up separately and come back together knowing that our grown-up versions were still compatible. 

Fast forward ten years.   Five moves, three houses, two kids, nine different jobs between the two of us…  Life in suburbia has been good to us - great friendships, cushy corporate jobs, and lots of important life lessons learned along the way.  We’ve enjoyed life in the big city, but have always been nostalgic about home.  In November, my husband was “reorganized” out of a job for the second time in two years, and we started thinking and praying about what was next.  After a series of metaphorical doors were slammed shut in quite spectacular ways, we found ourselves wondering if God had a bigger shift in life direction in mind for us. 

There had been an open-ended offer from my dad for years to come farming.  Hubby's family also has land that is rented out, with relationships and finances that need to be managed by someone in the next generation.  We’d always loved home but could never imagine ourselves living there again.  Something special about this point in time made us reconsider that.  After praying about it, we noticed a strange and dramatic attitude shift.  Within the course of a few weeks, we found our attitudes shifting from no way to not just being less resistant but actually desiring to make the move.  We talked it over with both sets of parents and told them we were going to do it.  The day after we gave my dad our final decision, Hubby’s former boss called to tell him that, through a series of people moving around, his old job was available again and was his for the taking.  A week prior to this conversation, we would have gratefully accepted.  But when the offer came, we said “Thanks, but no thanks!”  Gotta love God's timing. :)

Transitioning back to small town life will undoubtedly come with its challenges.  But I know that will be tampered by the steady undercurrent of good-hearted people who take care of each other, a way of life that is slower, though certainly not simple.  This is a unique chance for us to continue the legacy of prior generations, provide a nurturing place for our kids to grow up, and enjoy a nice life for ourselves in the meantime.  It’s the best of all worlds, and it just makes sense.

Since after all…

There’s no place like home.