Unspoken Lesson from the Farmer: Live.Your.Life.

As I continue to daydream about what this blog might entail and what I want to share with you, I remind myself that I need continue to introduce you to my #FancyintheCountry world.  As I mentioned in my first post, Why Fancy in the Country, this blog is dedicated to my mom and my dad. Yesterday, as I made my way to work in the big city, I thought of a thousand things to share about my dad and how his influence has shaped my life.    Many of them are lessons, spoken and unspoken, that he taught me during his time here on earth.  

Lesson #1

"That's just part of it."

Lesson #2 is 

"Live Your Life."

What a lot of people don't understand about farmer's is that they are also people.  Just regular people who like to have fun and live their life just like the rest of us.  Even though their choice of fun half the time is sitting in a tractor alone for several hours planting or harvesting their crop in the fields or scouting their fields.  

It's their "little piece of heaven".

But farmers do like to have a good time and my farmer dad sure did.  He taught his farmer daughter 

and many of her friends how to do just that.  

Sometimes it consisted of packing a bunch of girls in his truck, grabbin' a bag of peanuts from Rural King and hittin' the road for the hog roast the boys were hosting down that country road.  Now I wouldn't say he necessarily thought it was fun to wait for his daughter and her friends (his other daughters) to change their clothes a million times, do their hair and make-up and then decide to do it all over again.  I would say he got in the habit of doing that, but the real fun came when he showed up at the hog roast to see those boys and share that bag of peanuts.  I could barely get him away from the roasting pig or the fire for a good picture.  

Sometimes fun consisted of getting home from a long day's work on the farm to find his girls on the back porch chattin' away and deciding to have a beer with them before hittin' the hay.  But then that turned into more than one beer and the idea that getting the gun out for target practice off the back deck was a good idea.....  So we lined those empty beer cans up to practice.  "You girls need to know how to use a gun.  Let's practice."  

And even though my farmer dad could barely sit still, he did like to have fun and relax in the water at times.  That was after the cannon bombs off the boat to purposely splash people, pushing people off the boat and annoying my mom by dunking her under the water.  He would then swim off by himself, relax and offer his peace.....

Dad was an avid sports fan and always an athlete ready to rough and tumble with that good Thomas defense and pushy elbows on the basketball court.  He loved to watch football, but I think he grew to love the tailgates with his friends and family even more.  He would always remind you, "even if the football team sucks, we can still have a good time."  

And we always did.

Every time I get sad about him being gone or those flashbacks return of that night on the farm when he died, I then hear him yelling in my ear, "Stop it.  'That's just part of it.'  I died but I'll see ya later.  Take 'er easy."

So then I remember, oh that's what I learned from him.  The saying that I always say to people.....

Live.Your.Life.

He sure did, and I think that's the second lesson he taught my mom, my sister, my friends, our family and myself.  Work hard to play hard, quit worrying so much, stop thinking so much and just let it be, go and "live.your.life.".....because "that's just part of it".

 And now that I am older and somewhat wiser, I realize that "Take 'er easy" is NOT "Take her greasy" but actually "Take her easy".  And that's what I am trying to do in this life.....remembering to "take 'er easy" and "live.my.life."  To find that "little piece of heaven" here on earth before joining him up above.

Photo by family friend, Rusty Kirk