I Love This Dirt Road Life

Puffs of fine dust swirl where our feet meet with dry Kansas farm ground. “Mom, it’s like we’re living in the desert.” She’s right. This drought has left our land crackly, where it was once lush. I shake my head in amazement, that such a young child would make such an observation. Then again, the land is really all there is to observe out here. No mature trees, just a house, a red metal shop, and an old, rusty round grain bin turned chicken coop affectionately called “The Tin Man.”

Our homestead juts out of the corner of the field, an odd mixture of old and new. Old house, new foundation, old walls, new siding, old land, new family. On a bright, unseasonably warm February afternoon, the girls and I take a walk. We have no playset, no Little Tikes plastic house, nothing but a few flattened balls and a battery-dead, sun-faded Dora Jeep dot the brown area that some might call a yard. By most accounts, it’s boring out here. But still, we walk.

The sun is warm on the place where my hair parts, and the cool wind whips the short strands around my face and feels refreshing on the back of my neck. The girls, dressed in long sleeves but no jackets, wander around aimlessly until they decide on a direction. The preschooler takes the lead, barking out commands over her shoulder, blonde curls in a cascade down her back. “I am the leader! Follow me! You have to keep up!” The new hens follow close behind her, but she is unaware. Seven clucking yard birds chase her new white tennis shoes, now turning brown from the earth. Their plump, rust colored bodies seem so supple in the sunlight, and I can’t help but think of gathering the same colored eggs in the spring.

“Hey sweetie, did you know the chickens are following you?” She turns in indignation. “Go home! You don’t belong here!” I laugh. They briefly scatter and then approach her again. Now, she’s scared. “What do they want mommy?” An especially daring bird takes a peck at the sparkly stripe on my daughter’s new shoes. So, that’s what they’re after. She screams and runs straight out into the field, rows of green sprigs pushing up through parched soil. They follow until little sister and I and the dog and cat start running, too. They’re not sure what to think, and return to pecking at the edge of the field.

So this is where our walk leads us. The field. Straight north from the house, along the line where new wheat meets old stubble on the neighbor’s ground. New and old meet again. A half mile back to the property line the rows extend, and draw us forward as if we were the implement attached to the tractor. We’re simply being pulled. And here, with horizons stretching endlessly in each direction, daughters giggling and wind caressing, I am blindsided by a wave of pure gratitude. This. This is what I’d be missing if one of those jobs had worked out. This is what I would be missing if I were cashing a steady paycheck instead of sewing together a patchwork of income. This.

Tears well and I fight them. Why? I’m not sure. I just don’t want to cry in this moment. We walk and run and plod ahead, destination unknown. “Look!” A ladybug catches our eye, a bright pop of red against straw stubble. Unexpected beauty in a desolate surrounding. We squat. I reach out and it scurries up onto my hand. I rotate my wrist as it tiptoes along, and we discourage the toddler from snatching it with her bull-in-china-shop graces. “Be very still, and don’t startle it, or it will fly away.” We stare in silence until a puff of wind stirs its body, reminding of the freedom to leave. The red shell splits, wings appear, and the ladybug flies away home.

We continue along, until I realize we are very far from home. “Girls, we need to go back.” I turn around, expecting to hear cries of “Wait mom!” Instead, I walk a little further, and finally look to see what they’re doing. 40 yards back, they sit on the ground, heads bent together, long blonde curls meeting beautiful auburn waves. Twenty small fingers work together…and dig. My two darlings scrape and claw at the dry Kansas soil, in search of buried treasure. I open my mouth to plead “Stop,” but the words don’t come. Instead, I sit down. I watch. I soak up not only the sun, but the memory. Both girls are wearing crimson, and again, it’s a bright pop of red against straw stubble. Again, it’s unexpected beauty in a desolate surrounding.

My daughters return to me, and I hoist the youngest up on my back. She buries her head between my shoulder blades, and hums. She is so content. My arms are behind me, giving her plump bottom a place to rest. I won’t be able to carry her this way much longer. She’s growing so quickly. Much quicker, it seems, than the sad-looking wheat in our drought-stricken field.

Still, I love this dirt road life. The wind never stops blowing, the bills they just keep coming, but God is always good. While I’ve been worried about which doors are closed and which windows are open, he gave me this. A place where doors and windows don’t even exist. It’s all open. Wide open. Possibilities and dreams have room to grow. Where the great-granddaughters of my Grandpa Johnny break apart the same soil with their hands that his plow did many, many years ago. And I know he would be proud. I can almost see him walking beside us in his brown lace-up boots, sky-blue pearl snap shirt, and Big Smith overalls. He wouldn’t say a word, just stop to survey the land every once in a while, rubbing the nubs of fingers together that he’d lost in a farming accident as a child. He sacrificed so much to have this land, to live this dream. And now, so am I. So are we. I let the tears fall.