Good morning to everyone !! It has been a nice quiet weekend around here in the Parker house. We were finally able to have the tractor fixed Friday and we have almost gotten the pastures grass cut. They are looking so beautiful now. We sure do have a beautiful home! I am so thankful that God has blessed us with this farm. We can grow a lot of our own food, we have space to have family and friends over for a visit, and for wonderful bond fires at night.
Don’t get me wrong it is a place that is hard work every day of the week. Life here is hard at times. This afternoon we have to put hay in the barn, boy is that hard. Those bales weigh about 75 pounds a piece that is a lot of weight when you have to put 25 – 50 of them in the barn. But would I change anything? My answer is NO! My children are much better for having worked on this farm. They know how the cycle of life works, how to love unconditionally, how to laugh when things get bad, and how to let go when you have to because there is not any more options.
My children have learned to be self proficient and how to take nothing and make it into something usable and beautiful. Here is an example, take an old piece of wood. We have lots of it laying every where. Last summer we needed bird houses so we gathered up wood from all over the farm, we started building bird houses so the birds here would have a place to nest and have their babies. We could just as easily have thrown the wood into the fire but we looked at it as important and something that might have another use. Now we have beautiful bird houses that no one else has. Each one is totally unique and beautiful in its own way. Beauty is all around us we just have to be open to see it.
One life lesson that this farm has taught my children is to not handle life with gloves on. it has taught them to get involved, get dirty, and become the catalyst for change that they want to see in their world. It has taught them that hard work and sweat produces beautiful things. I have always told them anything worthwhile takes everything you have and then some. Life takes hard work, blood, sweat and tears. I have found this out, anything worth having takes a lot of hard work, and when you have to work hard to obtain it you really appreciate it much more and you understand what you had to go through to get it. You look at it differently than if some one just handed it to you.
Guess what ?? The birds have nested in every one of our birdhouses. So though they aren’t like every other bird house I have seen at least the birds love them. We have watched many little birds fly out into this great big world into their own lives. Sometimes I think maybe we have seen second generations nesting in those houses.
I love hearing about your life on the farm, it sound wonderful! Thank you for sharing it with us.