30 Days of Truth Day 5: Something You Hope To Do In Your Life

I hope to own a family farm.

There, I said it. I want to be a farmer.

I want to be a farmer like Joel Salatin at Polyface Yum.   More than just a farmer, I want to be a steward of my own land. I want to coax green growing things from the soil. I want to raise my own animals with care and love. I want to have my grandchildren come spend the summers with me and help me collect honey from the hives and pick fat, juicy apricots from the branches of trees that are so full of ripe fruit the tips bend down to kiss the ground.  In the sun-drenched kitchen, I want to be able to teach my children and their children to properly sauce tomatoes, make dill pickles, strawberry jam, and bake up divine peach cobblers from things we have grown. On early spring mornings, I want to sit at my front window and gaze at steam rising from freshly plowed fields. I want to smell the acrid smell of burning weeds from the ditches. I want a soft brown, velvet eared cow that thinks my back porch is her own private Idaho.

I want a garden...I want a huge garden of heirloom plants, edged with Shasta daisies and purple cone flowers and with rows of sunflowers as a back drop. Moulin Rouge, Ring of Fire, Velvet Queen, Claret Hybrid, the Mongolian Giant, and the Russian Mammoth would all have a home in my garden. I want a huge herb garden with mounds of basil - the Siam Queen, purple ruffles, globe basil, sweet basil, and Magical Michael.  And tomatoes...Nebraska Wedding, Lemon Drop, Red Zebra, Beam's Yellow Pear, Amish Paste, and Trucker's favorite. Cabbage, corn, beets, cucumbers, squash in all it's variety, beans, berries, onions, garlic, lettuce, melons, carrots, potatoes, peppers, watermelon.

And flowers. There will be acres of flowers.

I don't need 400 acres - 50 or 60 well situated ones would do just fine.