My Life as an Accidental Farmer!

Memories of a life once filled with designer clothing, lunch with the girls, corporate meetings and business trips fill my head, only to be replaced with my every morning mantra of "Who am I and how did I get here?" The morning commute use to take an hour and was filled with my favorite gourmet coffee. Now, my coffee is consumed on the porch, overlooking a pasture filled with cows.

Let me back up here a bit and share this life experience in detail. Up until 5 years ago my life was the corporate world. I lived for the challenge of meeting deadlines, loved the required travel, learned to drive with my knees so I could 'text' co-workers and had to have my mocha latte every morning at $5.00 a cup. As if in a fairy tale I woke one morning, looked out my apartment window at the city streets below, and never expected that my life would be turned upside down by the end of the work day. Did I say 'end of the work day'? Heck! I should say by 10:00 a.m.that morning my life did a belly flop! At 9:55 I received a document via messenger stating that a distant relative married to someone I didn't know had died and left me a small farm in Texas. Holy Crap!

No matter how many times or how loud I spoke to the representative law firm, they were deaf to my protests! I offered to give the land to the law firm but they didn't want it either. It's a heck of a note when you can't give land away in this day and time isn't it? So, by 5 p.m. I was the sole heir of distant relative whatever-her-name-was, married to someone I didn't know, and owner of a farm. (No disrespect intended to the deceased.) My commute home that night was not as relaxing as usual. In fact, I found myself feeling a little road rage when I passed a truck with Texas plates,-- they were driving too slow for city traffic and everyone in the cab of the truck had on a cowboy hat. Good Grief!

A weekend trip to the "farm" revealed a 60+ acre overgrown critter-ridden mess! There were two ponds, which when I found them in all the weeds appeared to be snake and turtle infested creepy holes of green water. Crunching noises from behind the trees turned out to be cows,(not a swamp creature as I first thought) and that unidentified odor turned out to be cow "patties"! (My over active imagination envisioned barrels of toxic waste floating in the green goo covered ponds). Who knew that this was supposed to be pasture land and not a forest? Not me! I like trees. A little research and a conversation with a cousin twice removed (whatever that means,-- to me it sounds like his life has been wiped out twice and then he was brought back to try again) revealed that the trees had to be killed with some sort of chemical to save the pasture-land. Ok. Sure.

Hidden in the trees which had to be killed I found a quaint little house that actually needed very little repair, but a whole lot of paint. I remember thinking what a great weekend retreat this could be if cleaned up. That must have been the moment when exposure to cow patties, frogs, green ponds and thoughts of tree killing took over my brain. Me a firm believer in the "once a city girl always a city girl" philosophy found myself being pulled into the dark abyss of the other side! The farm side!

Six months of commuting weekends had me carrying spray cans filled with a mixture of a $90.00 a gallon chemical and diesel for spraying trees. I lost count at 15-gazillion dead! Sure enough, they began to turn brown and fall over! Amongst the soon to be murdered trees I found an old 'brush-hog' made by the original owner (the father of whatever-her-name was, married to someone related to me), and learned I could pull it around with my vehicle and cut grass! A side note here,-- in the whole wide world it is spelled 'brush-hog', but in Texas it is pronounced and usually written as 'bush-hog'. My knowledge of the workings of this mechanical creature came when I saw a sign that said 'bush-hog' for sale at the local feed store. I know there are various farm animals, different types of horses, all sorts of varieties of cows, making it a natural leap to think this was a type of hog. I would imagine the good ol' boys are still laughing at me over that inquiry. I have learned much since then!

Five years have passed. Two years into this tree-killing, brush-hogging, cow pattie smelling adventure I quit my corporate job. Yep, you read me right. I quit and moved to the little house and made it my home. Much effort has been put into regaining back the pasture land and now I can see all 60+ acres when I sit on my newly built screened in porch.

Each day I get up and pour my coffee, (a gourmet blend I grind myself, can't give up everything ya-know!) and step out on the porch to watch the morning begin on my farm. Every morning the mantra of "who am I and how did I get here" runs through my head and is met with a smile. I know exactly who I am for the first time in my life, an accidental farmer; and where I am is on my farm, living the good life.