My father and grandparents farmed and ranched. My parents were divorced so I spent weekends and time in the summer on the farm. Gardened, learned to sew beside my grandmother--her on her treadle and me on my greatgrandmother's treadle.
Tended chickens, helped vaccinate cattle and rode horses for fun and to round up cattle. These are the best memories of my childhood.
My husband's grandparents ranched and he spent summers with them. Also some of his best memories.
Fast forward to 7 years ago. We built a home out on my DH's grandparent's ranch (now owned by his mother who lived in her own house alone on the ranch). Our house was for weekends and eventually retirement--a 30 year dream of ours to build on the ranch. In the process of spending more time around his mom during the building and weekends visiting (we lived and worked 5 hours away) we discovered that his mom had dementia. I took an early retirement (I'm an RN) and moved to our ranch house to be near his mom and help her get diagnosed and deal with day-to-day needs. That was 5 years ago and she is now in a wonderful private home with 7 other eldery women,including her identical twin sister. My husband is still living and working 5 hours away and I still live on the ranch and manage day-to-day ranch stuff. We have two mini-donkeys and two great dogs as pets and we lease the place out for grazing, so cows come right up to the front porch grazing but, luckily we aren't responsible for their care. One of the cows is as gentle as a pet and loves to be scratched and have the prickly pear thorns pulled out of her face. Last week I surprised myself managed to take the broken hydrolic cylinder of our tractor (used for clearing cedar and such) to take in for repairs. My dad and grandfather had to be smiling up in Heaven somewhere.
I'm in Heaven again and love that my grandaughter has a place like this to spend time on and create memeories. I do miss my DH alot, and can't wait for his retirement in a few years when he can be here full-time!