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Wide Open Spaces

No doubt, there’s a perfect place for most of us.  Some love cities, maybe it’s the hustle and bustle and amenities and proximity to everything that appeals to them.  Some like the wide open spaces, happy with mail ordering the many things we can’t get out in the rural areas.  I can’t think of any place I’d rather live!  I think my perfect place is right here.

As I was packing up my things to take to visit Cindy earlier this week, I decided to leave my camera at home.  I didn’t want to be taking pictures while we were visiting and it’s a route we take often . . any time we go to Pittsburg, KS or Joplin, MO so I figured I wouldn’t come across anything worth photographing.  I was wrong!

I passed this field of freshly cut and baled hay and I had to turn around, go back and get pictures with my cell phone.

The sky was so blue, the grass actually looks blue!

As I drove a little farther up the road, the sun was shining directly on the field and I had to stop again and get more pictures.

And a bit farther up the road . .

I know many will look at this picture and say . . what’s your point?  but, I think this is so beautiful!  Really, I think this is the perfect spot for us.  Have I said yet that I love this area?

A little farther up the road and I came across this:

It’s big old chicken houses!  I’m taking Ruby back and showing her how most chickens live.  I’m betting she would appreciate her purple coop and all those hand picked mulberries a whole lot more if she knew the dire conditions most chickens find themselves in!

So, folks . . when are you moving to Missouri?  🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. You don’t really want us all to move to MO. Those wide open spaces would disappear and the whole thing would be ruined. I’ll just stay in my own wide open space in NE.

  2. I don’t need to move to Missouri to see that. They have big bales of hay like that in Michigan, too. I moved out of the big city into a small town and love the drives through the country to visit family and friends. Cows, hay, corn and tractors are all wonderful sights. My family thinks I’m nuts, though.

  3. And, Judy, if you come a few hours farthur into KS, you can watch the wheat go from beautiful shades of green to those wonderful golden colors that mean harvest time! It’s all about our own perspective, isn’t it? Some people would not be happy here or there (where you are) and that’s just as well. It does leave us a little room to enjoy w/o being crowded!!

  4. Judy, thanks for posting these—makes me homesick, though! Missouri is a great place, for sure!

  6. Judy, hayfields freshly mowed with bales of hay scattered on them if one of my all time favorite sites, I agree it’s absolutely beautiful!

    But quit teasing us about Missouri. I’ve been homesick for 6 years and will probably have to stay that way! LOL

  7. Beautiful spaces. We have them here is SE Iowa, too, and I DO appreciate them! (Could you still smell the hay?)
    Last Thursday we traveled to NW Chicago suburbs so I could attend the guild there and see Bonnie Hunter’s trunkshow. Snooped around Friday and went to her workshop on Sat. It was a wonderful time and met the nicest people…but getting around there takes all the courage DH and I have! Maybe you get used to it, but that traffic is crazy. They do have many advantages and it would be such fun to belong to a quilting group like that, but we have the spaces and that’s what I am used to…
    Thank goodness for technology that lets us look through the window and share.
    (Hoping to meet you too, Judy! Please don’t make me go to a big city.)

  8. I LOVE the depth perspective in that 3rd picture! Those are great photos for a cell phone camera… moral of the story… take your camera anyway… you never know when you will stumble across the perfect picture! (I’m preaching to myself here… I need to take the camera with me more.)

    Now as to the MO thing… LA is pretty good too (if you like heat, humidity, mosquitoes, humidity, humidity…) I have wide spaces all around me, but not very open, since they are covered in trees.

    Kat

  9. Your chickens don’t know how good they have it at your place. And I just love wide open spaces but no one else in my family agrees. There has to be a Starbucks or a Tim Hortons(Canadian coffee chain now appearing in the States) in the vicinity or some people would be desolate. What’s wrong with making coffee at home?

  10. I don’t have to move to Missouri. I am already here. Ok, on the opposite side of the state, however, we drive to Tulsa to visit my son and YES, the wide open spaces are just BEEUTIFULL :).

  12. I don’t know what it is about them, but I, too, think hay bales (round or square) in a field are beautiful.

    Nice pictures!

  13. Please let me speak up for the big city! I love living in Chicago, and I grew up on a farm, so I know how it is in the wide open spaces.

    I can walk 6 blocks to Lake Michigan – there is different light and movement every minute on that lake. Storms going over the lake are like masterpieces.

    Walking along the river downtown is so beautiful, and going for a concert in Grant Park under the stars is heavenly (so to speak). *S*

    So let’s all just agree that there are positive and negative things about ALL places. The important thing is to be happy where you are. And, of course, be able to quilt. *L*

    • I think I said in the first couple of sentences that there’s a perfect spot for everyone. Some like cities . . some like country living.

      • yes, you did! and you, and I feel I do too, have the best of both worlds…..easy to get to the city for what it may offer, easier to be in the openness of the country. Good thing, as you said, there is something for everyone! love, love, love your love of where you are!!!!

  14. Ah Judy, I couldn’t agree with you more. I was born here in Missouri and have lived my whole life here. I love it. Of course I am in northwest Missouri, but it is still beautiful here. Great pictures. Winona

  15. Funny you should ask! I had a dream the other night that my parents were moving right down the road from you. I was so excited in the dream because I would get to see you whenever I came to visit them!

  16. That seems to happen to me also everytime i drive around thinking i should have taken the camera

    great photos

    i m moving tomorrow right in your area so we can have so much fun canning quilting and laughing

  18. Lovely farm pics !! We also live in MO, and while I love my house, yard, & Life in general here. We have been here since ’04 and havent met a soul Id sew with or supper with. The neighbors dont talk over the fence,even when I give them free produce. Mr retires in 4 years, theres nothing that will keep us here.

  20. As a recent transplant back home to TN after 22 years in California – I so appreciate the open spaces and the seasons now. My favorite thing is spotting the hawks looking for breakfast from their perch on top of the new hay rounds!

    • *sigh* made the mistake of marrying a Bay Area *native* who thinks the crowded, horrible traffic, $$$expensive housing$$$ of the Bay Area (our lot is 50′ x 100′ and most of it is either house or pavement; I have maybe 96 sq ft of veggies growing in raised beds) is “wonderful.” ugh.

      We lived in lots of places when I was a kid–military family. Wyoming, Colorado, even other places in California. Went to high school in San Antonio & Tampa; college in Atlanta. Been in the Bay Area way too long, but Himself won’t hear of leaving it, even *after* he retires. very depressing… visited Tennessee when I lived in Atlanta. Beautiful. Blue Ridge Mountains, panhandle of North Carolina, all that gorgeous stuff. Not that it isn’t beautiful here; it’s just tooooo crowded and tooooo much traffic and tooooo many people tooooo close together (oh, yeah; “crowded”)

  21. No Missouri for this Colorado girl, but I love your pictures and love most of all hearing, for once, someone who is happy and content where they are. =)

  22. It’s the “big sky” effect – I love being able to drive around and see lots of sky. While mountains are beautiful to look at and cities are ok to visit, after a few days, it just gets too closed in.

    I live in a great place (Edmond OK) – Oklahoma City is close by but it is not too big of a town. Go a bit down the road and there are the golden wheat fields and cattle. Love it here.

  23. I’m in NW Wisconsin. I too love living in a semi-rural area with big open spaces. Everyone in my neighborhood has 4-20 acres, and I have a view from my kitchen sink of 178 beautiful acres of rolling farm hills; Someone who travels alot recently chided me for rarely leaving home; told me I needed to get out and see the world. My response:”once you’ve seen heaven, why would you want to leave?” It’s not everyone’s idea of heaven, but for me this place is pure bliss!

  24. I’ll love your pictures, but I’ll stay right here in New Jersey with our rivers, and lakes, and ocean and smallish mountains. For the bigger ones, we have to drive into New York State, which is only about an hour away. AND, we can take the train into NYC. But for total relaxation, I’d come and visit you.

  25. I love these pictures. When we were on vacation last fall I took a lot of “odd” pictures because they were slices of life that other people live and I wanted remembrances of the way things are in other areas. And yes, I loved Missouri living in Springfield, but that was many years ago.

  26. These pictures are great! When we were on vacation last fall I took a lot of “odd” pictures because they were slices of life that other people live and I wanted remembrances of the way things are in other areas. And yes, I loved Missouri living in Springfield, but that was many years ago.

  27. Good pictures! When we were on vacation last fall I took a lot of “odd” pictures because they were slices of life that other people live and I wanted remembrances of the way things are in other areas. And yes, I loved Missouri living in Springfield, but that was many years ago.

  28. One thing I love about traveling is the ability to see all kinds of wonderful places. This week I’m enjoying the mountains and lakes of North Georgia but I’ll be happy to get back to my city next week!

  29. Judy,
    I’m so happy to hear a person who was not born in Missouri brag on how wonderful living in Missouri is. I too think our state has so many beautiful places and natural sites that make it unique. I’m a Kansas born girl, but love the outdoors and all things natural. I’ve lived in the city a good part of my life, but when the opportunity comes along, I’m always ready to see and experience the finer things in life. So glad you love your little piece of heaven in Missouri. 🙂 Dar

  30. Those photos of the fields with the bales of hay look like paintings or postcards, not bad for the camera phone.

    My life and my living are in the city, but the country is a nice place to visit. ~ksp

  32. Judy, those are the kind of hay fields I’ve been searching for to take pictures. A wonderful find!

  33. My husband and I just spent the past week riding our tandem recumbent bicycle across Missouri on the Katy Trail ride – 5 days, 225 miles. We followed the MO river most of the way, from St. Charles to past Columbia. It wasn’t until the last day as we were approaching Clinton and were riding in the prairie region that we really felt at home.
    There’s just something about the wide open skies in this part of the country. We moved back to the Ozarks in Jan. ’07 after living on Long Island for 23+ years. It’s like we finally have room to breathe! We love it here, right outside Springfield, MO.

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