Places I love: Grandma's Farm

I shared a few pictures of our trip last week, and wanted to share a few more now.

I moved to Utah my sophomore year of collage to attend Brigham Young University. I lived in a small town in southern Indiana before making my trek out west. My parents moved to northern Kentucky since I got married, but Indiana will forever be home. I’m a Hoosier through and through.

I grew up just a mile from my grandma and grandpa’s farm. My dad is one of thirteen kids and I have lots and lots of cousins.

I spent countless hours on the farm. Sunday afternoon was a general gathering time for the family. I spent hours playing with cousins, collecting flowers, and playing ghost in the graveyard at night. We snacked on watermelon and stove popped popcorn. It was a truly wonderful way of life that I want to recreate, in my own way, for my kids. My grandparents’ farm is one of my very favorite places on Earth. I love it because there are so many memories tied to it, but as I was there a few weeks ago, I also realized that it is just plain neat. I hope you enjoy a little tour.

My grandparents live in an old farmhouse down a dusty lane. The property’s original log cabin homestead is right behind the main house. My grandparents use the log cabin to store some things and it has a wonderful screened in porch on the front with not one, but two porch swings inside. There is no better to place to watch a thunderstorm roll in over the corn fields than that porch.

This is such a kid-friendly place. The screen doors even have kid-height pulls in addition to the ones of average height.

The only picture of me and my great-grandma, whom I am told I look very much like and who died when I was very young, is on this very porch swing (pictured).

My grandma has a cute little swinging song that she made up and sings to all the grandkids when they swing with her.

The screened-in porch is wonderful, and this outhouse is hilarious! My grandma/parents actually made us kids use this in the summer when we needed to go to the bathroom. There is no light inside and being alone in that place would creep anyone out. I have great memories of my sister standing guard with her back to the door so that it could left open a crack to let some light in. Thanks, sister from saving me from the dark. The outdoor sink at the bottom is where we would wash vegetables from the garden or muddy hands and the barrel with a sink in it is a homemade drinking fountain. I plan on having an outdoor drinking fountain at the shanty because it is just a great idea.

outhouse, working outhouse, real outhouse

The animals at the farm could keep any kid busy for hours. Grandpa has always had peacocks on the farm and this year he even had a little group of babies, two of which are albino. One of the pictures is of the mother peafowl sitting on another bunch of eggs. Can you find her?

albino peacock, albino peacock chicks, white pea fowl chicks

The old water pump. When you are a kid it is hard to get water to come up and out without a lot of work. It was a goal every Sunday to get water up and the cousins and I would take turns pumping.