Maggie's Farm

Yesterday, I told you that I needed to change my nickname for where we live. I mean, noboby told me to change it and it wasn't intentional that I used the name, it's just been a pet name for our home. But, with one of my fav author's using it, too, I just didn't feel right. I even had written this author a fan email back when I read her book and told her that it was like she had jumped into my life and started writing. Anyway...I have a new name.

Maggie's Farm is a Dylan song but my favorite version is one that the Grateful Dead covered. I haven't touched, yet, on my blog about my huge, huge, huge love for the Grateful Dead but I will.


Maggie's Farm plays on my Ipod and in my head when I am out doing work all summer long. We like to joke about moving to the sticks and when we first arrived on Maggie's Farm, we had no clue how to survive life in a rural area.

First, we moved from a sunny and warm beach town. We moved into this big, rambling house in the country and on my first cold morning out walking the property, I came across three dead groundhogs. I raced inside and locked the doors and called Mr. Man at work to report that we would need to move, pronto! Some sort of curse was on this house and I was afraid for our cat's life. He couldn't help and wouldn't be home until after dark so I did what any rural dweller would do. I picked them each up with a shovel and hauled them to the open farm land and woods. FUN.

The next new thing was actually having to heat the house. The house was being heated with propane and we had a big propane tank that sits over in a field on other side of the fence. I had no idea how this new concept of having to heat a house worked. But, our house became cold in no time. In the middle of winter. While I was unpacking boxes. I called the propane people and they asked what the tank read? Hmmmm?? Is that my new job, too? Picking up dead animals and reading a gauge on a propane tank? Well, yes, young lady, it was. (The older farmers and men in this area love to use the term, young lady) So, it was now my job to climb the wooden fence, balance on a fence rail, pull the cover off of the top and read the gauge. I have been doing this for the past 10 years. I did get smarter, though, and quit trying to do in high heels, kitten heels or flipflops.

No respectable rural dweller can mow, rake, plant, weed or jump off and on a tractor in heels. Well, I tried but got stuck in the ground. I also learned that you cannot work outside in strands of pearls. I was trimming bushes and a branch got caught under one of the strands of pearls and I thought Mr. Man would come home to find me dangling from the bush on the steep incline.

We don't actually farm the land. We are just surrounded by other farms that grow corn and soybeans. And, there are cows and horses that roam the farm around our house. So, since we don't actually farm, I don't have to wear actual farming boots...thank goodness.

Shoes...another dilemma of living on Maggie's Farm. I arrived with no shoes that would be suitable for this new life. I mean, you cannot toddle around in heels while picking up dead animals, reading the propane tank, digging a garden, mowing the grass, hauling trash cans a mile of a steep hill of a driveway...I mean, seriously. So, that meant that I needed a shoe wardrobe just for Maggie's Farm. I now have a collection of printed muck boots, leopard print Crocs that I ONLY wear on Maggie's Farm and Uggs. Oh, and the boot collection I would like to forget, the snow boot collection. To look in my closet and then to look in my garage, it looks like two totally different women live here just by doing a survey on my shoe wardrobe. Don't get me started on my flipflop collection. I have an addiction and once the weather turns to sun and warmth, I live in flipflops. I work in the yard in them, I have some that I use for taking care of goats. I have the flipflops that are just cute and I wear out and about and I have the flipflops that I buy in bulk just for yardwork, goat work and Maggie's Farm work. Goats are a whole other part of my life and a whole other blog entry. It's coming, though. Don't worry...

Living on Maggie's Farm has given me many ever changing moods. The moods have run from dismay, to horror, to disdain, to finally actually love. I mean, with all of my making fun of living where I do and the daily chores that come with living on Maggie's Farm, I love it and the house and the place that we call home.

So...Maggie's Farm....the new Green Acres.