The Heat of the Summer

After days and days of over 100 degree days, it wears on you. You feel tired and lazy. I suppose if you could just stay in the house and not have to do chores like hanging clothes, feeding and watering animals and tending what is left of the garden, then maybe it wouldn't be so hard on a soul.
I have been thinking a lot about my life, maybe because in one week its my birthday and that seems to be a natural time of reflection.
When I was in school we had this farm boy start attending. Howard was his name. We joked and joked about how you could take Howard out of the Country, but you couldn't take the country out of Howard. Guess we saw ourselves as city slicker kids or something. In retrospect, Howard had what I wanted but at that point didn't have the formula for my life all set out in front of me. I regret that we teased him and hope he still is that sweet farm kid at heart.
Emery is a farm boy and I love that about him. I never tire hearing his stories about working the tractor and hopping off to catch the school bus. Or his stories of blizzards coming up on the prairie and he couldn't make the walk home so had to stay at neighbors.
It wasn't an easy life, there were failed crops, water freezing in your glass of water left out on the table in winter. Hard stuff, but it made him strong and able to handle just about any situation.
I really admire him. While thinking about my life this week and where I am heading, I remembered the things that hold my heart. The simple life, my family, caring for people, doing things the old fashioned uncomplicated way, and things like the smell of the woodstove, gingerbread baking and bread fresh from the oven. I love candle light, kerosene lamps, the hum of the spinning wheel. The steady puncturing sound the needle makes when you are quilting. The tick of the clock being the only sound in the room.
Long skirts, wet around the edges from watering the garden. Lace up boots. I have really given this French chic thing a try. But I hate make-up, never messed with my hair when I was young, and just am not into it now. Its impossible for me to be a slave to fashion since I have no fashion sense for longer than 15 minutes. I love pretty dishes and eating smaller portions, that's wisdom from the ages. Women weren't fat in the US when they worked hard and ate small portions since it was lady like. Tiny bites were norm back 100 years here too.
What I am saying is, you can take Patty out of the Homestead life, but you can't take the Homestead life out of Patty. Me and Howard have something in common. I can't make myself be something I don't believe in. All my life I believed and still do, that in the end, its not what you wear, where you shop, or how your hair looks that counts.
When I wrote about the legacy of my great great grandmother Fannie Heckbert. I wrote about what she did, how she reached out, what her heart was like. I don't have a clue what she looks like. There isn't a picture of her in my possession. Her looks, her dress etc, totally non relevant.
For some folks, they blend it all and that is amazing to me. I am just not made that way. Some folks can talk clothes, hair and shoes for days at a time. I get bored. Its not that they are wrong, its just it doesn't work for me.
My hands are worn from doing dishes, digging in the dirt. My feet are wide from going without shoes most of the time. My hair, well I like it long best so I can twist it back, and braid it, looking like some old German grandmother. I tried to be different, just to get further from the place I had been in life. But its just not working.
I sat under the oak trees, soaking up the shade. My chair, an old rusty one, but its comfortable. Chickens scratching near my feet. It makes me smile.
Nope, you can't take the homestead out of Patty !