John Deere Green

I got a card in the mail today from my Aunt Mary. I have three aunts still living, only two who live in town. This was the aunt I had lunch with on my 50th birthday. She didn't realize it was my 50th when she agreed to have lunch with me, and sent me a card thanking me for taking her to lunch and saying how honored she was I chose to spend my birthday with her. I wanted to. She's a wonderful person. She's strong-willed, she raised five boys, she's full of common sense, and she laughs a lot. I love spending time with her.

In addition to her home in the cities, she owns 40 acres in the country an hour or so away. It's her second home. It has a modest three bedroom home with a deck and porch, a huge lawn, and an in-ground swimming pool. She used to always let my parents spend a week there every summer and when my girls were growing up, my parents would invite me to come up, probably so they could spend some time with their granddaughters. When my mom passed away, I think I "inherited" their week. My aunt has been offering my family a week up there every summer since. Everyone simply calls it "The Farm".

It was only this last year that I learned about her history with the Farm. She said that her dad bought the place from two old bachelor farmer brothers who could no longer keep up the place and were moving into a retirement home. He even visited them from time to time. Aunt Mary grew up in the city, but when an epidemic was going through town, her father moved them to the Farm for a summer. He would drive out every weekend and spend time with them, then on Sunday night bring home all the dirty laundry. He'd come back the following Friday with the clean clothes.

I remember the old Farm house. It had a sloping floor and a hand pump for water. We'd go up there every winter with my cousins to cut down our Christmas trees. The water and heat would be turned off and I remember how we'd tease my brother. Mice would crawl into the toilet bowl looking for water and drown because they couldn't get back out. We'd tell my brother it was his job to chip them out of the ice and he'd get upset. I also remember the time we had sandwiches and soda pop packed for our lunch. When we were done, my cousin Mark sprinkled and sprayed the orange and grape and cherry pop all over the snow, trying to make it look like vomit. He got yelled at for that. Mark was always doing goofy things like that.

When my aunt inherited the place, she eventually decided to tear down the old farm house and had a new house built. And a pool put in. A great aunt paid for the three-season porch in the back. I love when I'm up there and sitting on the deck drinking my coffee in the morning watching all the birds on the many bird feeders my aunt has. Or tanning by the pool in the afternoon. And sitting on the screen porch in the evening playing board games in the cool summer breeze. Besides being a wonderfully relaxing place, it's a place I associate with my mom. When I'd join my folks up there, it was a time for me to spend days with her, talking and relaxing without schedules or demands of any kind. To this day, when I'm there, I feel close to my mom.

We have lots of family stories about the Farm. Like the time a few years ago when my brother and my cousin Mark threw me in the pool, lawn chair and all--and Aunt Mary yelled at Mark for that too. Or when my Baby Girl was little and in love with the song John Deere Green and anything to do with tractors...

They were farm kids way down in Dixie
They met in high school in the sixties
Everyone knew it was love from the start
One July in the midnight hour
He climbed up on the water tower
Stood on the rail and painted a 10ft heart
In John Deere green

...and my uncle would take her for a ride on their John Deere lawn tractor. We have pictures of that. Another great story is the spider story but I'll refrain from embarrassing my oldest daughter with that one. I've even gone deer hunting with my dad at the Farm.

I know the Farm is a special place for my girls too. When I tell them we have been offered a week in the summer, even though they're in college, have jobs, and other commitments, they do their best to clear their schedules so they can spend time up there. That says a lot. I love that my aunt has given me all those memories, and created such a sense of family for my girls.