Just a City-Slicker Farm Girl

Here are a few of my crazy backyard chickens and some bulbs Tammy got me for my birthday. These things make me happy.

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Creature-lover, friend of all animals, crazy...these are just a few of the words I’m certain people use to describe me. Obsessive might be another word, too.

I have already spoken about my lack of friends as a child. There’s no beating around any bush, I was weird. My hair puffed out past my shoulder in frizz, my teeth jutted out like a horse’s, my limbs were long and dangled like a chimp’s. My waist was short, my chest way too big—I’m pretty sure I looked like I would fall on my face for lack of junk in the trunk. Awkward—the word that was and still is my mantra. I loved animals, because they loved me. This creature-loving trait was inherited from my Papa Bill, a lovely man who barked at dogs and gabbed with them in their own language. I, too, wanted to talked with doggies in their language. I, too, wanted over an acre of land with a pond and space for animals to roam. That was the life for me.

Twenty-two years after my grandparents moved to their small paradise, we bought our home sprawled on three lots. Only one month before, I left my corporate job at Boeing, just nearly escaping the issues that currently engulf the company. God called me to be a stay at home mother, and we rented out a smaller house, not believing that the perfect home would come so quickly. We looked at the house, and the owner was reading the newspaper with my parents' picture right on the first page. It was a good omen. The backyard is huge...big enough for my dog and cat, and eventually the chickens.

Gardening is something I instantly started doing, I know, like raising chickens, it's such a cliche millennial thing to do, but I love it. Same with raising chickens. My backyard is large enough to accommodate my animals.

Still, if I could I would have a farm somewhere. Right on the outskirts of my city. Because I still love the convenience. Can I have a place like that? The best of BOTH worlds? That would be a slice of heaven for me. But for now, what I have will do.