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The Landscape of Farm LifeRobert NoonanI have been blessed to grow up with parents and grandparents who appreciated the rich, dark soil and thoroughly enjoyed gardening, farming and landscaping. I also grew up on a grain farm in northeast Nebraska where the earth’s bounty provided for our family every year. I still farm this family farm. My earliest memories were pushing my way through the blooming peony patch, while black ants crawled inside of my sweatshirt. I still take a deep breath expecting the fragrance of the mom’s lilacs or grandma’s roses when recalling those warm spring and summer days in the flower garden. My family had an orchard with apple, plum, and pear trees. Around the outside of the orchard were raspberry canes staked up with steel post and heavy wire. The north part of the orchard also had 4 mulberry trees. My younger brother, climbing like a squirrel was able to scale the upper branches of those fruit trees. My sister and I would lay old large sheets, with a few holes in them and run for it. My brother would proceed to shake the mulberries from the tree and my sister and I would lift up the sheet on all the corners and dump the purple sweet fruit into the bucket. A little bit of cleaning, sugar, and some unpasteurized cow’s milk and we had dessert. Our 2 acre vegetable garden kept my mother canning and freezing from midsummer well into the fall, and kept her children out of trouble weeding and watering the garden all summer long. Gardening, mowing, rogging in the bean field, and animal care were just a few of the activities that kept us outside and working with nature and her plants all summer long. When we were not working, which did happen, on evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, my brother and I would go exploring in the eleven acres of trees my Dad owned. We had numerous adventures in that mini-wilderness. There were plants there we had not seen anywhere else.The acreage was filled with wild plums, gooseberries, chokecherries and wildflowers. Some days my mom would go with us and we would help her find wildflowers we had seen to transplant to her garden by the house. My brother and I would transplant strange trees from that acreage into our back yard. There were honey locusts with long thorns that I imagined were used in Jesus’ crown of thorns. We also grabbed a few American elms, which had all died in the neighborhood from Dutch elm disease except for this beautiful group we had found. The only time we would be inside in the summer would be when we were sleeping or when it was storming. Even when we slept, the windows were wide open. Growing up in this bountiful environment made it obvious to my family how closely connected to nature we were. We also realized how dependant we were upon the land and her plants. We saw every spring, summer, fall, and winter the cycle of life, birth, growth and death. The plants sprung up, produced their fruit or flower and then died. We rarely saw hail, which would beat down the landscape and destroy the grain and the fruit. But we also saw the rain that turned the fields green again after a dry spell. Our blessing and prosperity were and still are subject to nature’s decisions. Landscape is such an integral part of my life. As I write this paper, I am surprised at the emotion that arises within me, the great love I have for nature and especially for her plants. I never tire of looking at gardens, forests, pastures and fields. Just ask my wife if she is ever concerned about my driving as we travel through Nebraska or any other place in the world we have been if I will drive right off the road sometime while viewing a new landscape. I am always looking at what types of plants or trees are growing and what is the condition. Do they need rain? Are these shrubs native to this area? Can you grow crops here or can you graze the fields? Are these the questions of one obsessed? Perhaps, but I think they are the questions of a person of loves nature and things that grow. The experiences of the farm landscapes that have surrounded me my whole life gives me the feeling of abundance. I have experienced spectacular beauty ranging from that of a pollinating corn field to the shade of 70 foot tall hackberry trees that embrace our 90 year old farm house. What a gift I have been given. A gift I need to share with others. Related Products: When They Were Boys Back to Articles Page |
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