The Farm

As much as I resisted Facebook at first, I have to say that I think it is pretty wonderful. I have definitely reconnected with a lot of friends and even family that I haven't talked to for a very long time. One of my favorite features is the group feature. You can create a group for just about anything! Recently, my cousin Jayme made the group "I Grew Up on the Brunner Farm and I'm PROUD of It!" I was thrilled to join the group and absolutely loved the photos she had posted. I miss the farm, I really do.

It's hard to describe life growing up a farm. It's a lot of hard work. Our farm was about 1500 acres and we had a feedlot with about 5000 cattle every winter. Every summer was spent planting, nurturing and harvesting the food for the cattle. Chores included everything from getting up at 4:30 or 5 in the morning to hep my dad irrigate, to checking the gates on the pipe in the fields with my cousin Matt, to spending hours picking rocks out the fields. There were times that I hated it, but most of the time it was idyllic.

Almost all of my cousins lived within ten minutes of me and I remember many games of Padball in Matt & Paul's driveway. I think I spent almost at much time at their house as I did my own and it was never unusual for me to simply open the door and walk in.

We cousins got in a lot of trouble, but we also managed to have a ton of fun along the way. I think that we made some pretty incredible memories and some pretty tight bonds...that's why we are still close now, even though we are spread out all over the United States and even Canada. Facebook has added a new element to this. We're all together, in a group, able to connect, trash talk one another, congratulate each other, and just share life together.

Thanks for the picture, Jayme, and thanks for the memories, guys.

My Farm, at least part of it. This is the part that we lived on. If you look closely, you can see our house in the middle of that clump of trees. Aw, I miss the farm.