Favorite Things. Country Living.

Today I was in a sentimental mood and wanted to share a few of my very favorite things in this world.  Let's start with this tire swing.  My grandpa hung a similar one in a tree for me when I was 9.  My favorite thing was to swing away on a sunny afternoon.  

 

Dirt roads.  My Mom and I always enjoyed traveling down the back roads, around our town, singing our favorite songs.

Old farmhouses.  Nothing looks more lovely than one of these standing on the edge of a field.  I lived in a two story farm house for a few years as a kid and I will never forget sleeping upstairs under the tin roof during a thunderstorm.  Let's put it this way, it's not a peaceful nights sleep.

Baby calves.  Isn't this the sweetest animal face ever?!  

Farm gates.  I love these gates.  I have opened and closed many a gate on my grandparent's pasture.  I love the groaning sound the hinges make as you swing them wide and wrapping the chain around the post to secure it closed.

Momma hens.  Mainly because I am one to my 3 teen kids.  Being a momma is definitely one of my favorite things.

Clothes flapping on a clothesline.  One of my favorite memories is getting the clothes out of the basket to hand to my grandma while she pinned it to the wire.  She would then take a pole and push the line up in the air so the sheets wouldn't touch the ground.  Nothing is better than sleeping on sheets that have been hung in the warm sun all afternoon!

Now we get to the heart of what I love about country living.  Hay!  I loved watching it being cut,  folded into rows, made into square bales and bucked up in to the bed of a truck.  Nothing beats the smell of a freshly cut field of hay.  I am also a fan of cloud watching.  As a kid, we would sit in the lawn chairs with my grandparents and gaze at the sky.  Finding pirate ships, Snoopy or a dinosaur was always a bonus.

Eggs!  The more colorful the better.  When I was little I would wait for my next door neighbor to come out to collect her eggs.  Sprinting out to meet her I would ask if i could help, despite being terrified of the hens sitting on the nests.  I would slowly put out my hand and feel underneath the hens warm body for eggs.  If she turned her head and started to peck, my hand was out of there lightning fast.  

Tractors, fields and hills.  My grandpa would always let me sit on his lap while he drove his red tracker across the field.  Although he only kept cattle, my childhood was spent driving past many of our neighbors crop fields.  My grandparent's farm was on top of a hill, similar to the one in the picture.  The road to their house reminded me of a roller coaster ride.  With windows down and hair blowing in my face we would scream as the car zoomed down the hills. 

I love the crow of a rooster.  While my experiences with them have been terrifying at times, I still love how they puff up and crow in the morning.  (If you have never been around roosters they have sharp spurs on the back of their legs).  Some of them have been down right mean and come flapping up at me with the intent to attack.  I have used brooms, boots or shovels as protection to get around one rooster in particular.

Hope you enjoyed my favorite things about growing up in the country.  All these beautiful photos have been pinned to my 'Green Acres' board on Pinterest, where you can find the links to the original posts/photographers.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a walk down memory lane with me.