This weekend marked the unofficial kickoff to SUMMER. Memorial Day weekend brought several of my family members together on the family farm. Members of my family have been living on the family farm for almost 100 years now. It is the current residency of four members of my family...my parents and my cousin Matt and his wife Amanda. The farm is located on the Tennessee Kentucky stateline and it is still a family gathering place for holidays every now and again. My parents house is usually where everyone gathers. It will not be too much longer before we out grow my parents house if we keep adding at the current rate! Number 25 will be added in a few shorts weeks...but here are a few photos from this weekend of a few of those who were able to make it.
I love this small path since it helps keep the property interconnected.
Barn # 1...The tobacco barn (view 1)
The tobacco barn view 2...the barn quilt was painted by yours truly a few years ago for a school project while working on my master's degree. The pattern is called "Log Cabin" and it was selected since my mama has made all the cousins quilts in this pattern. This is the barn I spent many days when I was younger helping in the family tobacco crop & my 4-H sheep projects were raised in this barn.
It is hay season on the family farm so daddy and Matt have been a little busy.
Barn #2...the Ridge Barn. I love this barn because of its character and charm! When I was a kid it was the "red" barn, but that has long disappeared. Now my aunt Kathy is the proud owner hence why I called it the "Ridge Barn".
Somehow sunsets in the country always seem prettier.
I am thankful and blessed to have been raised on such a beautiful family farm. I realize that now that I am an adult, but when growing up I did not appreciate the country living. Living on the farm meant that I had a few chores and had to help in the tobacco patch and my mama's daylily patch. I had to get up early and be on the school bus around 6:45 a.m. in order to be at school by 8:00 a.m. Most of my friends lived in town and had the convenience of being near everything, but that wasn't the case for my family. To shop or do anything "big" we had to travel one to two hours depending on if we went to Cookeville or Nashville. I survived without all the hustle and bustle of city life. Life on the farm has its own pace and things seemed to be simpler then and even now today.
Thinking about today being Memorial Day and country living & farm life made me think of this passage from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: There is a
time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be
born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to
kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to
weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to
scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to
search and a time to give up, time to keep and a time to throw away,a time to
tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to
love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
I am glad that my parents decided to build on the family farm and raise my sister and me there. I got to be raised with my Pa Ralph being our closest neighbor. Not many kids can say that! If we ever needed anything he was there in an instant to lend a helping hand or words of advice or encouragement. I never dreamed at the age of 28 that I would be living back so near the family farm (I am less than 10 miles away), but somehow God's plan brought me back when I was 24. I don't know what is in store for me in the upcoming years but one thing I know for sure is that I love going back and visiting the family farm and country living every now and again even if it is just for a visit. Without these special veterans in my life I would not have been so lucky to be able to experience life on the farm. Thanks Pa Ralph & Pa Virgil!
Ralph Craighead
Virgil Savage
