Knolltop Farm Wife

When you were younger did you ever say, “I will never…….”    Fill in the blank—drive a minivan, let my children have a motorcycle, allow my kids to play video games, sit and watch dirt track racing…. Last weekend I found myself doing something I thought I would never do.   Racing of any kind was not on the radar in my family. My parents never took us to any kind of car race, motorcycle racing, nothing of the sort.   The closest we ever got to racing was the Standardbred racing at the county fair. So when my husband said, “Hey, you wanna go to Butler?” I said, “uhm….sure.” Growing up in the south, dirt track racing was his the thing to do on Saturday night.   He watched it on TV, he went to the track, he loved every minute of it.   I have never known this side of my spouse, we never had the time or the energy to take four kids to the dirt track on a Saturday night so this part of his personality has been muted….until now. Sitting in the dirt ...

It's a cold and windy day on the Knolltop. The cows have had their lunch and now it's time to head into town for a few supplies. I miss writing on this blog. It's a freeing place to be for me because no one pays me for it and I can write whatever I want and if you don't like it, you can click exit.  But I hope you don't, it's not my desire to offend anyone. It's also been a great timeline for our family. A place where I have documented so much of our lives for a few short years and I believe that is such a valuable piece of our history. While none of my children will read this today my hope is that when they are 50 or 60 they will come back and look it over and savor the memories from their childhood on the Knolltop. One thing...among many things....that I did not do when our children were young was the annual family photo.  I've seen countless other families who have had breathtaking photos of their families and yet we have nothing but church dire...

There’s nothing like the smell of shavings when you walk into a barn at a livestock show. In one breathe sweet memories sweep across your mind like a movie on the big screen and you instantly feel at home. I had that sensation as I walked into Freedom Hall at the recent North American International Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky. It was late one night and I had posted the last picture of the day’s show, slung my camera over my shoulder and   spent a little time just walking the aisles of cattle.   Several scenes played across the screen in front of me as I strolled around clipping chutes, feed pans and straw packs.   On my left, two older men were swapping stories of days gone by while across the aisle a young fitter covered in cow hair and adhesive was winding up his cords and oiling his clipper blades. I glanced straight ahead into the milking parlor and saw a man milking a cow and chatting with his buddy who sat on a bucket nearby. I turned down...

Growing up 19 months apart, they were close.   As toddlers many thought they were twins as their mom dressed them in similar outfits.   They were inseparable.   Whatever the oldest one did, the second one copied. When the older brother stepped on a stone, the younger one stepped on the same stone.   When the older brother played baseball, the younger one found a mitt and played along. When the older one got a tractor, the younger one made his purchase. When the older one went to college, the younger one went to college.  While their personalities were polar opposites, they got along like two peas on a pod. After a long, busy day having gone their separate ways, they would convene in the kitchen late at night and talk in hushed voices about their day as if debriefing from a top secret mission.  The older brother was a wanderer wanting to see the world, the younger one was content staying within a 20 mile radius of home. The older brother travele...

At a spring band concert at our small high school gymnasium I held my camera trying to video the last concert of my daughter's high school career.  Probably her final concert ever. It was her senior night and I wanted to capture the entire event.   Jake and Sarah   I sat in the bleachers with my parents as we listened and I try to hold the camera steady. I couldn't help but be distracted by the children in front of us. They were about 9 or 10 years old and were very active and very loud. They crawled under the chairs, over the chairs, pulled each other's hair, cried to their parents and as their parents made a poor attempt at keeping them settled, these three kids paid no attention, they just kept squirming and giggling.  I was disgusted at the parents lack of respect to not only the students performing but also for the parents surrounding them.  If they had any clue at all they would keep their children quiet or take them out.  Why couldn't they ...

Nothing means holiday time like cold temps and a white blanket of snow. Thanksgiving is over, the turkey is gone and now we are thrust full throttle into the Christmas season. There are no excuses now, the decorations have to go up, the gifts have to be purchased and an entire host of traditional foods are waiting to be made and eaten. Are you as overwhelmed as I am at the thought of Christmas being just a couple weeks away? It could be because I usually wait until the week of Christmas to start shopping while by December 5 th I’ve made three batches of fudge and eaten two of them. Can you say sugar high? Good nutrition gets blown out the window in December while mood swings, cortisol production and weigh gain wash over me like a tidal wave ending up five pounds heavier by January 1 st . In addition to all the traditions that must be kept in order for Christmas to arrive, we still have to keep all the necessary plates spinning like laundry, writing, grocery shopping, cook...

They say that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. That could be true, of course I could define insanity in several ways….like four kids in six years or thinking a batch of cookies could last more than 2 hours or trying to be a PC mom by not letting my kids play with guns when God gave them a built in gun in their thumb and index finger. Insane or not, there are some days when we struggle with doing the same wrong thing over and over and over again. Are you with me? Do you hang out in this camp? We try to change and we do for a while but then we find ourselves back at the camp fire of self-condemnation saying, “Why did I do that again? I thought I was passed this.” Overspending, lying, laziness, gluttony, over indulgence, immorality, addiction of all kinds, you name it, we can struggle with it. So what’s the answer? If I knew that, I could put on seminars and get paid the big bucks for solving all our probl...