my friend pixie shared this site with me today: farmgirl fare. what a cool site. i will definitely add this to my google reader and be back often.

i live in a big city but am increasingly enamored with farm life. i think a lot of this has to do with spending my formative years on a farm. a chicken farm to be exact. when i was in early elementary school, my parents raised chickens for a living in springhill, arkansas. i just tried to google the town so i could share a link with you, but it looks like maybe now it's been incorporated into the city of hope (which will sound familiar to you since it's the birthplace of a president named clinton).

anyway, lately (read: since i started my garden a few months ago) i have also been flooded with memories of farm lifat my grandparents' house. i can remember my grandma churning butter in a big ceramic pot with a small hole on top for a wooden stick to fit inside. i remember sitting on their screened-in porch, watching as the grown-ups shelled peas, shucked corn...all from the enormous family garden. i loved getting lost in the rows of plants there. (i also remember being downright miserable at times, out in that southern heat and humidity...)

i know these experiences have shaped who i am, and they are now influencing my thoughts about the things i want my children to hold dear someday: nurturing living things, knowing the satisfaction that comes with growing things with your own two hands, connecting with the earth. these are good things.