Friday, April 18, 2008

Winging It


Hello, my name is Benjamin. I'm two years old, the youngest of three boys that live in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Mom and Dad live with us too; in fact, the reason we live in the middle of nowhere is because Mom got a job nine years ago at a state park in western Minnesota. They lived in town for a few years, then bought an old farmstead ten miles out.

Most of the time my parents are just winging it. They really have no clue what they are doing in the country. They got chickens: injuries, disease and predators took most of the early ones. They planted a garden: three years later it's being turned into a goat pen to try to eradicate the weeds. They planted an orchard: deer ate all the buds off of the branches, and now the old orchard is where the new garden will be when we get the goats.

The old-timers who have lived out here for decades just look at my parents, shake their heads and smile. My Mom's dream is to get a dairy cow. Fresh milk, butter and cheese all of the time. Has my Mom ever cared for a cow before? No. Does she know anything about cows? Not much. Is this going to stop her? No way.

By the way, the expression on my face in the photo above is the one I have on most of the time. Nothing gets Mom and Dad's attention faster than a good old-fashioned yelling fit. I figure I've got to live it up while I'm young, because by the time I'm ten years old I'll probably be milking a cow and shoveling manure all day long.

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