Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Ranch, as a child

Also while I was in Texas, I went out to the ranch with my dad. It brought back a flood of memories and feelings.
I LOVE the country. It's creates a similar peacefulness in me that creating art does. I just feel settled and like I can breathe and take my time and forget about all the pressures of the world around me.
As a child I used to go on all kinds of adventures on our ranch. I would go out into the woods, thinking at any point a wolf might attack me (the thrill!), coming across a field of old blue glass bottles (it was magical!) and a half buried car (the mystery!). Our land felt endless and every time I went exploring I discovered something new. My sisters and I had a designated camping area, where cinder blocks served as stepping stones in the stream we had to cross to get there. There was a patch of trees that huge vines hung from that were swings for us. There were tanks of catfish that we would fish in. Dad would always back up the truck to the VERY edge of the tank, and every time, it caused me to panic because I was SURE he was going to back that truck into the water. But he never did. I tried riding a calf one day, because it was more my size than the horse we had. It threw me off. My sisters and I would sit on the fence and take turns letting it fling open for our own little joy ride. When the cowboys came out to do God knows what to the calves, you could find my head poked through the fence of the pin, watching everything. Totally engrossed. Sometimes I would take my stick horse out and pretend that I was part of the Pony Express. And I would pick bunches of wildflowers (especially bluebonnets, shhhh! dont' tell). I would play on the haystacks, pretending I was an Indian, and I would cook with the mud. I used to have parades on the fourth of July and unless it was dry, we would shoot off firecrackers. My grandmother had a HUGE garden that I would help her with, and she would cook me my favorite green beans and little potatoes. We swam in a huge round cow trough and laid on a blanket under a starry night that went on forever. And when we were old enough (which was bout 12 I think), we started driving a tractor to help dad with the hay.
I love the country. I want to raise my kids in the country. It was so beneficial for me to just be out there with my imagination... hanging out with the cows.




1 comment:

  1. I love this. So many memories I had never heard from you before sis :) love k.

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