~life in an old farmhouse~

Welcome to Sunday my friends and family from a place far away where the sights of  mountains, canyons, mesas, and ranges surround us.  Kansas, "the land of where you can see forever and ever AMEN", is 611 miles to the other side of the big mountain.  Back there in my old home state wheat fields are ripening and farmers are busy gathering what precious grain they have been able to grow this year.  Times may not be so good for them this season but they will not give up or give in to the challenges that they will be facing because, well because they are farmers.  They work the land.  I miss that part of Kansas, the season of the summertime harvest of Hard Red Winter Wheat.  My father was a custom cutter, a "wheat whacker", for more than 25 years. From May to late September he would make the harvest circuit all the way from southern Oklahoma to the mid section of the state of North Dakota.  I am his daughter.  His blood flows through me so I would not expect to feel any other way.

Things have been so busy here since I returned back from a visit to Kansas when school was out nearly 3 weeks ago.  I am working full-time this summer as a CNA, providing home visits to people who need them in the areas of Montrose and Delta Counties.  I like this job because what I do, and many others just like me, allows folks to stay out of long-term nursing home care and remain in their homes.  Sounds like a reasonable request of life, don't you think?  I have needed to learn some new things already this summer, some of them quite difficult to do, but I am sticking with it and even though I have made mistakes, I refuse to quit or give up in the effort.  For about 7 years my mother was a home health aide back in Hutchinson.  In fact, she was close to the age I am now when she decided to not sit at home, a newly made widow after my father's death, and to get the training she needed from the local community college in order to be able to do that type of work.  I remember the day I helped her to acquire her high school transcript and how strange that seemed to be to call the high school office over at her former childhood home in Halstead, Kansas and ask them to send a copy of Mom's 1937 transcript.  Mom never learned to drive, a story of its own for sure, so she relied on the local public transit called the Golden Express, to get her to and from her clients' homes in Hutchinson.  She loved it and because she was my mother, I love it too.  I wouldn't really expect it to be any other way.  I am her daughter.  Her blood flows through me so why would I feel any differently?

Mike and I have been very occupied with things around this 100-year old + farmhouse that we live in.  The combining and merging of possessions between two people who have now been married over a year has been an interesting process.  Part of learning how to live here in a place that just last summer was not on my "I LOVE THIS LIFE" list was to begin to learn how to make this house mine as well as Mike's.  We have begun to change things around a bit, getting rid of stuff that really wasn't needed and putting things together in a different kind of way.  It started last summer when we painted the bedroom in a nice blue shade and began to decorate things in the manner of a seascape.  Then later on in the fall and winter, we moved into the kitchen and used just a little lighter shade of blue.  In the springtime, I began to convince Mike that the paint referred to as "paper bag brown" was really not so bad after all and I painted the small spare bedroom in that shade.  It became a place where I could put many of my things that had just been stored in boxes underneath the bed out for display.  I was so homesick for Kansas during the first few months here that it was I who relegated those things of importance in my life to a place of storage that was out of sight and out of mind.  It felt nice to get them out once more, to enjoy them as I had back home in Kansas for so many years.

Then, well then came it came to the mudroom just shortly before school was out in May.  Mudrooms serve a useful purpose in old farmhouses such as ours.  It is the location where hopefully folks entering into the house would be able to wipe off their feet and lay down their "carry on" belongings before traipsing throughout the remainder of the rooms.  Ours had served that goal and yet also had become of necessity, a place to store things that we had no room for elsewhere.  We may have had only a few months more before we reached the "critical mass" stage of the game.  Between the two of us, there was that much to be dealt with.  So earlier in the spring, Mike began to devise a plan to build a nice storage shed for us to use, just adjacent to the house and worked hard to get the project completed by the time summer began. 

Two months ago, in the very early stages of construction.  Because of the weird weather Colorado had during the beginning weeks of spring, there was little Mike could do to work on it.  We could only imagine what it would be like when completed.

Mike is a very talented kind of guy and he knew just what was needed in order to make the "just right" storage shed that he had in mind.  He scared me to death up on that ladder all the time, but all's well that ended well.

While I was back in Kansas after school had dismissed here in Colorado for the year, he was able to take advantage of the great weather that had finally arrived and completed the shed for the most part.

He added a few finishing touches like the two metal stars he was able to find down at the Second Chance Thriftstore in Ridgway, CO and the peace symbol that I found back at the ETC. Shop on Main Street in Hutch.  I just realized that the photo is a little misleading.  I was taking it through the vantage point of an old wooden fence next to our house.  So what looks like he sided it in fence material is really just that, an old fence.

And because everyone needs to have two lucky horseshoes hanging above their shed door, Mike added these plus an interesting piece of artwork we spied in Wichita, Kansas last month when we went home for the graduation ceremony of our niece. 

Now that the shed is done and most of the things have been moved there to storage, we are able to enjoy some peace and quiet in a room that has been opened up and transformed from a mudroom to a sunroom.  For two people who had lost track of one another for over 4 decades, Mike and I had come to like many of the same things in our lives.  We kind of put those common things together in this room that is new to us and now can enjoy them together.  A dozen or more healthy and green plants, books on gardening and growing things in this clay-filled Colorado soil, and antiques fill the room now. And as I sit here this morning typing this blog post, I can look out the eastern window towards Kansas and see the sun rise over the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  It's a great place. 

The Renfro Family does not live in a fancy home and we probably never shall or even want to.  We must live within our means and those "means" would dictate to us that we should be thankful for a roof over our head and four walls about us that keep out the cold of the winter months.  If you could see out the kitchen window what I see now, you would understand what Mike has always referred to as our $1,000,000 view.  Wait a minute.  YOU CAN SEE IT~  Give me a second and I'll be right back.  Don't go away.

The San Juan Mountains~14,000 feet plus in elevation.  Snow covered for probably 75% of the year.  Some day soon, a hummingbird or two will stop off for a drink of nectar and entertain us with their presence.

Time now to get the day started and it promises to be a most busy one.  There are many challenges that lie ahead for me this day but I will make it, of that I am sure and friends, the same shall be for you as well.  I say we just hang in there together, ok?  You and I.  Each of us.  Any of us.  ALL of us.  Have a great day wherever in the world you might be at this point in time.

I am positive, now more than ever, that life is exactly what you make of it.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It's all in your perspective my friends.  All in your perspective.