I Wanna Be A Farm Girl

When I was a 14 years old my dad moved us to Siberia.  Ok well, Bothell, WA.  At the time I thought it was Siberia because the nearest tiny little grocery store was about 8 miles away.  We had maybe three neighbors and there was nothing to do but watch the grass grow.  This really was the last straw for me.  I was a very angry girl! Up until age 13 I had been raised in a great little neighborhood in Birmingham Alabama where I had a charmed life complete with ballet lessons and three brothers to command.  One December day my dad got one of his famous wild hairs and moved the family to Washington state.  We landed first in Bellevue, WA.  A nice little town at that time.  It was a culture shock - nobody spoke Southern there and it was the coldest summer of my life!  Still I made friends and settled in.  I was just getting comfortable when the wind blew again and set us down in the most insignificant little town on the planet... Bothell.  Those of you who live in Bothell now will wonder if I'm crazy!  Now you can jump from house top to house top all the way to Seattle.  In 1974 in the summer after my 8th grade school year this was not the case!  I spent an entire summer pouting and being tormented by my brother Pat who also had nothing do do.  We had no friends and had nothing to do but watch the grass grow.  My dad began planting gardens and collecting animals.  Chickens and cows are what I remember mostly.  I hated the chickens.  They chased me! Well... maybe they didn't but I was afraid they would.  They sure crapped a lot.  I didn't mind the cows so much except for the electric fence.  Bad fence!  :(  It completely ruined Christmas one year - but that's a different story.  Anyway what we had was a little mini farm and I hated hated hated it!  What a miserable life!  Here's what I thought about chickens and eggs...

Can you see the love on my face?

Here's a look at rural Bothell back in the old days.  In the 70's I mean.  This is looking down across our pasture at the neighbors little house which you can see hidden under the tree if you look very closely.  I know the house looks tiny and the tree looks huge.  That's really the way it was.

Here's a picture of the new barn my dad built in Bothell...

Somehow I made it through high school and beauty school and moved out on my own.  My dad decided Bothell was getting too crowded and moved my mom to Whidbey Island.  It was like stepping back in time.  Their little farmhouse was so very quaint.  By this time I had been driving into North Seattle every day for work so somehow peace and quite was becoming more desirable.  On the weekends sometimes to relax and unwind I would go visit their little farm in Langley.  My dad had now added sheep, geese and pigs to his little collection.

I wasn't crazy about the geese... again... birds chasing me is not fun!  And the sheep... ehhh... whatever!  Until they began having babies!

Well... how can you not like little lambs?  In this pic you can barely see the little black lamb - but I was in love with it and was having so much fun feeding it a bottle.  And I think that's how it started.  Somehow I'd gone from HATE to LOVE!  Of course I never imagined having a little farm of my own.  And I'm sure I never would have had it not been for Dave who came along and created one from nothing on a big sandy plot in once again... the most insignificant town on the planet... Chewelah!  We have a ways to go with our little farm.  It's not finished yet but we now have our own little flock of chickens 

Mama hen with her six chicks

And cows

and barn

And gardens

I still can't believe they grow this tall!

Dave's corn garden

Lots and lots of tomatoes!

And I just gotta say... there's no place like home!  Now I love my teeny tiny little town.  Although I love going west to the big city for work and visiting my kids, if I had my choice I'd never leave Chewelah.  Well that's not true.  I love to travel - and I love my little mini farm.

Here's my own little farm house

And my beautiful grand daughters

And the whole family who miraculously all appeared at the same time in October 

Well now... that was quite a tangent!  I guess I better report the stats... this morning the fatometer read 155.3 which is more reasonable than the last week.  Still a ways to go from my summer low of I think 148.  Glucose was 119???  Yesterday it was 105.  I really did not eat anything to my knowledge that would cause the spike.  Oh well... maybe I walked in my sleep last night and gobbled up a bag of chips or something.  Oh wait... yep... Dave brought me a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich for lunch yesterday.  Sour dough bread so that's not as bad but still... I guess that's what it was!   It was seriously good!  Really!  Bread, butter, bacon, cheese!  Bad Dave!  :)

I'm very excited to be going to visit my sweet little grand-baby Charlotte next week.  She is the weeee one shown in the picture above.  Amazingly she will be turning one year old next month.  Her mommy said she was a cranky little girl this morning.  Hard for me to imagine!  Last time she was here she was very angelic.  I think mommy's crazy!  :)  I'll take lots of pics of her when I get there and will share them with you.  We'll see if she's cranky :)

Ciao!