Sunset

Many times I’ve talked about how much I loved being at my grandparents’ home/farm. They had 60 acres and they had cows and chickens and sometimes a pig. One cow (Spot) was for milk but the pigs . . they would be there one time and not the next time . . they were for bacon!  We moved from Natchitoches, Louisiana, about an hour from my grandparents, to near Lake Charles, LA, about two hours from them, when I was 5. My parents had a new house built and it was nice – air conditioned, heat, 1-1/2 bathrooms. My grandparents old house – no air conditioning, the only heat was a small fireplace in one bedroom and one little gas space heater. And . . no indoor plumbing. No phone. A TV that worked sometimes but the only time it was on was on Saturday night when they watched Lawrence Welk . . EVERY Saturday night. Just thinking back, I should have totally disliked being there but I loved it and would have stayed forever if my grandparents said yes, and my parents agreed. I’m sure with all the work my grandma had to do with raising a garden, feeding a pig and cows and chickens . . the last thing she needed or wanted was a full time 5 year old. We went to my grandparents’ almost every weekend. I never remember a time when we left to go back home on Sunday evening that my grandma wasn’t standing at the gate, waving and crying. So, I get it honest. No matter how hard I try to leave Missouri, no matter how much I tell myself I’m not going to cry . . I cry. I don’t want Addie to always remember me crying as I drive away but . . it’s what happens every time.

Home

Anyway, so much about living here reminds me of the time I spent at my grandparents’. In the evening when I go to put the chickens up and I’m coming back to the house, our little house reminds me so much of their house. We were always outside there at dark and the little white house with a porch all the way across the front, and the tin roof had all the lights on, the windows were often open, curtains open. When I’m coming back from putting up the chickens here, the lights are all on, the house is small, white Austin stone, porch across the front and the roof is metal. So many similarities to our home here and to my grandparents’ home . . at least in my memories.

I’m not sure why some evenings, as the sun is setting, the tops of the trees glow with the last of the sun’s light. Maybe it happens every ay and I just miss it most days. It happens pretty quickly. Maybe, depending on the clouds or other atmospheric conditions, it isn’t like this . . I don’t know.

Sun Setting

This evening was one of those days. Such a beautiful scene. You can even see a few chickens running around. The two baby chicks are still able to get out of their fence . . sometimes, but it’s getting harder for them to find a way back inside the fence in the evenings and we’re having to help them find their way back in now that they’ve gotten too big to fit through the fence. It’s hard to see but one of the little chicks is on our side of the fence down by the big gate.

Those chickens don’t seem to have a care in the world!