Golden Years

Another shot on the way to Cooperstown.

When I added the title (for the golden color of the light and fields), it actually made me think of my paternal grandparents. Like us, they had a farm, although for as long as I was growing up, it wasn't entirely a working farm. It was more of an offshoot of our own. We used the fields for hay and the very occasional corn crop. Their barn was used for hay storage and for calves and heifers when our barn was at capacity.

At one point, their barn housed a few pigs. But once they chased grandma around the pen, we no longer had them (just freezers full of ham).

My grandparents sold their farm many years ago (as did we), and the house they moved into is right next to a farm owned by a young guy in his twenties.

My grandparents are still farmers at heart. They watch his every move--though not in creepy, stalker ways. Moreso, they watch to see that he is farming in what they see as the correct way. They *tut-tut* when they see that he hasn't done something at the right time or in the right way. And though they don't say anything to him, they'll gossip with us when we talk on the phone. "Did you know Brian didn't even start planting corn until this week? He should've..." and on they'll go.

They may be in their golden years, but farming is still in their blood. I'm sure that, if she could, Grandma would go out and help unload the wagons of hay like she did when we still had our farm.

And I'd lay odds on the fact that she probably takes homemade iced tea over to the neighbor on hot summer days when the wagon has been unloaded and everyone is taking a break.

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