inspired by a thoughtcatalog list on great things about growing up on a farm, i’d like to introduce my top ten things about growing up on a faux farm (a couple of which are duplicated from the article).

1. chasing fireflies

late summer months in southern minnesota means you get to see some fireflies. my sibs and dad and i spent more than our fair share of time capturing the little blinky guys.

2. horse troughs

oh, there is nothing like filling up one of these bad boys with cold water from the hose on a hot summer day. usually the water was so cold that we had to let it sit a day before climbing into the old horse trough we had. poor man’s swimming pool, is what it was. but it was glorious.

3. drinking from a hose in the summertime

yep, there is nothing that beats drinking from a hose in the summertime. or running through a sprinkler. or filling up horse troughs (see above).

4. the space

living on a farm means having a lot of space. we ran around like hooligans on the farm for most of the summer months, not giving two hoots about running on to anyone else’s property because guess what? we had enough space that we didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s property.

5. the smell of springtime

ah, this could be a bit controversial, but in the springtime when the snow begins to melt and things become a bit slushy, you know it’s truly spring when you can start to smell the cow manure melting from the surrounding fields and pastures.

6. privacy

(see space above.) one plus to having the space to run around like hooligans is that we didn’t have to worry about being decent or dressed all the time. ha!

7. bonfires

anytime i want to have a fire these days, i have to drag out my fire pit and set it up in my driveway. in the country, all you have to do is head out on the back forty where all the brush you’ve been throwing in a pile all year has collected and set the pile ablaze. we’d have bonfire parties!

8. the creek running through the pasture

there was a creek that ran through our pasture and also our aunt and uncle’s pasture a mile north of us. those creek times were some of the best times. in the winter, we headed down to the pasture, laced on our ice skates, and took a few turns around the creek. in the summertime, on more than one occasion we headed out to our relatives’ creek (bystepping the cows) and built little waterfalls that flowed down a silty hill and into a shallow area of the creek.

9. barn cats

not much to say here! one can’t have too many barn cats. (my uncle squire was a huge proponent of the barn cat. he got many “schmeichels” from a few of our so-called ferals.)

10. sunsets over the field

you can’t really expound upon perfection.
 
i would like to say that none of these images are mine EXCEPT the final sunset one.