This weekend Charles and I took an early drive to the dairy to buy some milk, cheese etc. From where we live it only takes us a few minutes to go from city to rural and then a pleasant drive about a half hour away to the dairy. I will take you along and share the drive.
When we go to the dairy It always makes me remember my younger years and I think about how rural life is a better fit for me than living in the city but the city is where we live so for now I will enjoy the drive.
When I was young I lived in the city but my grandparents and aunts and uncles lived rural. When my children were young we bought 10 acres of land in the country. Our house was a simple old farm house. We had a barn and chicken house and some good land for gardening as well as enough space to grow a large field of corn. We also had a stocked catfish pond. It was a place that felt right and I enjoyed living on a small farm. A job transfer came along and we sold our little farm and we were once again living a city life which has never felt right.
Yesterday I was thinking about how people live today and how people lived long ago and how living in the past had so many more things that filled our senses. Sounds, smells, feeling things were completely different than they are today.
It seems to me that today is just noise and that noise just makes us numb. This is not how it is suppose to be.
As I remember the old days I see biscuits coming out oven in a cast iron skillet and I smell and hear bacon or ham cooking on the stove. The windows are open and the curtains are blowing and I can hear the birds singing their morning song. Actually that sounds like our home this morning because we try to keep our home like the past.
I hear my grandmothers voice and her soft chuckle that she often made because she was happy and strong in her faith. I hear sounds in the house more clear because there is nothing making noise other than clanking about with pots and pans and dishes.
I remember the times of pumping water from a hand pump. First picking up the jar of water and pouring it into the hand pump to prime the pump and then the water gushes out into the bucket. I remember the constant reminder to refill the jar so it will be there next time to prime the pump.
As we drive by the pecan orchards, this second day of fall, I remember the many pecan pies I have cooked and eaten and how everyone had their own recipe but they all tasted good. My Aunt Nina was an especially good cook, she made a delightful pecan pie.
In the city we live close together and our views are limited. We look out our windows or sit on our porch and we see pretty much the same thing each day. We do notice the season changing and such as that and the flowers and trees but rural life has so much more to see.
When I was younger than I am now, bridges were much different. Many of them were wooden and large bridges were often draw bridges. There are still some around but there is something about having to stop for a draw bridge to lift up so the boat can pass under. It slowed us down in a good way as it was expected.
Today we live rushed and I don't know why other than everyone else is rushing so we feel we must rush too. Is it because we have become too competitive? Are we suppose to be on top or get there first? Have we lost all sense of what life really is about? Sometimes we need to make change to get on the right road to find calm and live at a more sensible pace.
I feel happy when I see a dirt road because in my past so many of those I loved lived down a dirt road.
This is the dairy ahead.
When I see the cows grazing and understand the hard work that these people do I feel good about spending a little extra on a better product.
We drive up to a small building to purchase our dairy products. They use an honor system to pay for the dairy we are purchasing.
There is a cooler that keeps the dairy products cold. Milk, Yogurt, Buttermilk, Cheese, Cream and more. They even have grass feed beef.
We bring a cold bag with ice packs with us in the car. We also can return the glass jars which is a good thing. The name of this dairy is Working Cows Dairy and certified organic. They have worked hard at turning a traditional dairy farm into an organic dairy farm and I appreciate their efforts.
We head home but take another route because it is not about how fast we can get out there and back home but making the trip enjoyable.
Long ago when electricity was coming to small towns the people that lived rural did not have electricity or running water. In the 1950s and even into the early 1960s it was still common for those that lived rural to not have electricity in the deep south. Many think those were modern times and they were if you lived in a city but for those that lived on farms it was still quite an old fashioned life for many.
Today there is a new trend for people that want to live an off the grid life. Some people feel a longing or are searching for better way even when they have what some would call a good life. Maybe what they are searching for is a home and not a house which can be anywhere we live if we just make it a home with homemade meals and taking care of that place we reside.
We don't have to do extreme things to find a more simple life. If we cannot afford to move out of the city we can learn from those that do live rural and at least bring a piece of that home with us. We can make our life simple by just making changes in the way we live.
Times keep changing and if we keep following what others are doing we might end up far from where we are suppose to be. We need to live our own lives the way we feel we should live. Listen to our gut feelings and do something about it.
If we want to live a more simple life then we should live this way and not let it bother us what others think if those people aren't living a life that we wish to resemble.
This is a cotton field. Sometimes we forget when we put on that cotton shirt or dry dishes with that cotton dish towel that it all starts with a seed and a farmer. We give little thought anymore where things come from and a drive out to the country can put things back in perspective if we pay attention.
The closer we get back to the city we see that the land is not being farmed but landscaped and large houses sit on that property with no farm animals.
For some reason today people accept living in a noisy plastic world and just go about life. I truly wish, if they only knew what life was like before it became this way. I am trying to share what that life was like here on my blog. I can only go back so far in time for personal experience so I made a point to study about the way people lived even further back in time than I did and try to resemble those times in our home. I do know what it sounded like before the noise of today and it was quiet and good. I remember what it felt like to walk down dirt roads and that was even better.
Grandma Donna
