A Introduction to Our Farmstead

If there is one thing you should know about our farm table - it is that we are tea drinkers, and by default anyone who sits down at the table will become a tea drinker too.

Mama is a culinary magician. She can create a meal to feed an army with little or no notice, with a cupboard full of ingredients most folks would have no idea what to do with. If you happen to be anywhere on the premises at meal times, you will be invited to partake. Small town, midwestern hospitality requires this. Just try and talk your way out of it. I dare you.

After dinner, Pa will push back his chair, feed the dogs a few table scraps, and top off his tea cup - and yours. Then he will add a bit of honey. After a chat about the latest (by "latest" I mean old) and greatest piece of iron in the workshop, bits of history, or grand plans, Pa tops off his outdoor tea cup and heads back outside. He’ll take a stroll to the shop and work quietly there until the next meal or until his cup is empty - which ever comes first. After supper and another brimming cup of tea, he and Mama will head to the barn to feed and water the animals. Horses, cattle, chickens, pigs, and dogs are among the permanent residents on the farm, as well as a chap who needed a place to stay while he looked for a new place...and that was 24 years ago, but more on that at a later date.

Aside from tea, the other thing that powered our household, and continues to do so, is horsepower. Horses, steam engines, belt driven machinery, three phase motors, early tractors, but rarely anything new. Our farmstead breathes days gone by. My parents were - and still are - firm believers that ‘new’ doesn't necessarily mean ‘better’.  Just because coffee is the beverage of the "New World" (per its arrival to Europe in the 16th century - give or take) doesn't mean it is better than a good ‘ole cup of tea. 

I grew up on the cusp of the twentieth century, only I happened to be twelve years old as the world plunged its way through Y2K. Our lifestyle presented some challenges through the years (as you can imagine, it caused me some grief in grade school) and my childhood was anything but ordinary. But as I grew older, went to college, married, and had babies of my own, I’ve realized I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Usually met with a sort of curiosity, my stories differ from those of most gals in their 30’s (not that anyone is counting). Methinks I should put pen to paper - or rather fingers to keys - to record it all as best I can, because it is a story worth telling. For the record - my millennial self still likes avocados and my iPhone, but there is so much more to tell. The story of many cups of tea, many kinds of horse power, and all that goes with it.