Today I was busy with two main things: working on our family farm and driving with my parents to look at a used car for sale (spoilers: we bought it!). At our farm my mom, little sister (who is a freshman in high school), and dad all worked to cut and remove undergrowth from our woods. The plant, called Honeysuckle, takes over all the newly sprouted trees with its broad leafy branches, leaving no sunlight for new vegetation. So one by one my dad saws down. Our job is to drag the branches either into a ditch or into a row we form that my dad would push together with a grader blade later to burn. Who says women can't do manual labor?! In case you haven't noticed, I don't have any brothers! I have been brought up as a classy lady, but one who isn't afraid to get her hands a little dirty on the farm, even if it's only 17 degrees out!
Our farm is over one hundred years old. It is registered as a Missouri Century Farm. My great great grandpa bought the property originally, and my grandpa was born in that house along with all his immediate relatives before him...which is admittedly a little creepy!! Of course there has been renovations and additions to the house and many out buildings, but there are a lot of original antiques too. I do not live on the farm because my grandparents still reside in it, but at such point they require a nursing home my parents would move in. We live only two miles away. and unless we are harvesting wheat and straw or hay we usually only work on Saturdays.
The interesting thing is that I don't live in a rural area. I live in suburbs consisting of stores and residential areas. My family's land is actually the largest piece of privately owned land in the county even accounting for pieces of it that have been sold throughout the years! We have been given many offers to sell, but we are the last farm left in our area. There are plenty of commercial shopping centers, don't you think it's important to leave a few original pieces of time alone?
Usually we put in a full day of work there, but after lunch we instead headed out to see the car we were interested in buying. The hope was to replace the car of which I described the crash a few entries ago. I ended up getting another Chrysler Sebring just as I had before. It is a different color and it is four years older, but had the same amount of miles as when I first bought my other one. I am still on the fence as to whether I like it just because I really liked my newer and nicer one, but I am fortunate to have found a reliable car and hopefully I won't be housebound much longer!! All in all, it was a positive, productive day. Now I'll take a long, hot shower before I relax and watch some Supernatural!
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