Fridays on the Farm

It's been quite awhile since I did a 

Fridays on the Farm post.

To bring it back in to play,

I thought I'd share these pictures of the kids at my parents' place--

the farm on which I grew up.

These pictures were taken on Mother's Day this year.

This is the barn where the milk cows were kept.

It no longer houses animals, just my dad's "stuff."

My brothers, sister and I spent many hours milking with my dad in this barn.

My parents moved here in December of 1978.

He milked cows here until he sold them in February of 1995.

Grandma and Grandpa's farm has lots of wide open spaces.

Elizabeth (and the others) like to explore.

This view looks out to the end of their driveway--

the very same driveway that my siblings and I had to walk, nearly every day,

uphill both ways, whether it was snowing or raining, 

to get to the end to wait for the bus.

(Or run for the bus while he waited for us, depending how the morning had gone.

And this was back in the day when we wore moon boots, my friends.)

You can see the foundation of my dad's old barn on the right of this picture.

It was really very old, and he had it burned several years ago. 

A stave silo also used to stand in this space and without the two of those structures,

it really changed the way this part of the yard looked.

Truthfully, I still occasionally need to remind myself about why something seems "off".

For all my growing up years, the barn and silo were there.

My dad didn't have them taken down until several years after I'd left home and married

so it's kind of like it didn't register with my brain that these things are gone.

What would a sunny day at Grandpa's be without riding horse?

LittleBit loves (and prefers) to be barefoot.

She was making her way across the yard from the house to go

say hi to the horse and Linnea.

 It also is customary to bring out the bikes whenever we visit my parents.

Grandpa let them use his car ramps in order to construct a bike jump.

Andrew and Christopher caught some good "air" that day--

over and over and over and over...

I am glad that Dennis and I are raising our kids the same way we were raised--

in the country, on a farm.