Back home on the farm.
I've lived in many places and all within the state of Oklahoma. I love this state. I feel safe here.
I grew up as a small child on a farm in western Oklahoma. I spent my childhood running free and nobody around to catch me when I fell. I climbed some of the highest trees on the farm and riding horses with my sisters and pigs with my brothers. Feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. Getting chased by the goose and feeling the pinch when she bit me on my butt cheeks. Learning to milk a cow and shooting my first .22 rifle at 6 with my uncle Elmar by my side. Planting a garden and watching it grow. Participating in the harvesting of crops weather it was peanuts or potatoes we had a lot of fun. Riding 0n the tractor beside my dad or my uncle while they plowed the fields. Walking in thigh deep mud out in the fields helping move the irrigation pipes. Driving daddy's pickup behind him as he drove the tractor down the road to another field with my younger sisters standing in the seat watching as the cars and pickups behind us honked their horns insisting we get that thing off the road. My first bicycle and my sister and I riding to the preacher’s house so we could go to a small church in the middle of nowhere. Climbing the cherry trees and getting a tummy ache from eating sour apples. Watching bumble bees as they buzzed around our head as we picked flowers from grandma's garden. Catching fish and learning how to clean them and playing kick-the-can with my brothers and sisters. Camping with our family was so much fun because there were so many of us.
I have lots of memories I wish I could give my children but life is not that simple anymore. I have tried to teach them what I have learned but sometimes the opportunity is just not there. I long for those days again.
