All my life, especially as a child while playing “farm” with my younger brother Robby, with his turquoise, Tonka Toy Christmas gift farm set (I reflect as I write I enjoyed the set more than him), I was age nine dreaming of owning my own farm someday like Daddy and being a writer like Laura Ingalls Wilder.
The play farm set contained plastic horses, cows, pigs, chickens, a whiteboard fence, a Tonka truck, and a matching horse trailer. My imagination was vivid and wild.
We would while away the hours. And I imagined myself in this life someday. And now I am living that dream!
Sometimes, however, all grown up now, the play farm was more glamorous . Especially when the tractor’s not a running, or the baler’s not a tying, or we haven’t eaten since noon, the dream I dreamed is not all that glamorous.
But then, at the end of the day, once you overcome the challenge or challenges placed before you, you laugh out loud as you joke with one another, “We’re living the dream,” and life goes on, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else than where we are now on the farm. Cherry Ridge Farms!
Finally, after all these years, you may say I have arrived? I think I would say, maybe I’m just getting started!
Today, all grown up, and many, many years later since that original dream, I can happily say that I’m still living the country life on our horse farm and continuing to pursue my writing career.
I have been writing a weekly column for our local newspaper The Brown County Press, Take Joy! My Farmhouse Journal and am a writer for Seasons Magazine, a regional lifestyle magazine.
I have been featured in Country Woman Magazine, having received the 2017 Country Woman of the Year Award and featured in Farm and Ranch and MaryJanesFarm magazines.
And most recently, I’ve been in the kitchen rustling up some great dishes filming Sherry’s Country Cooking show which airs on our local cable station and on YouTube. Students from Ripley High School are my camera students.
In 2016, my 160-page book published, chock full of memories and recipes of my growing up years and my country woman life: My Farmhouse Journal: Memories and Recipes.
Though it is a great accomplishment, it is bittersweet one (like the recipes of life and in mybook) because I wrote it during, my older sister Debbie’s bout with stage IV cancer. I’m so glad she held it in her hands and we were able to reminisce our childhood memories together one last time. My book is dedicated to her.
Finally, after all these years, you may say I have arrived? I say, actually, I think maybe I’m just getting started. Always
Take Joy…It’s there for the taking!
If there is one thing I hope you take away from me through my countrywoman life and writing, is to Take Joy! it’s there for the taking. And follow your dreams!
Perhaps you’ve had a dream like mine, maybe of a different sort, not writing or farming, but something else. Maybe you gave up on it, or are about to, not feeling it will ever come true. I say, this–now hear me out–don’t stop dreaming. Don’t stop cultivating your dream. Take a soil sample. Do a soil test. See what you need to apply to make your dream thrive and flourish. And bring it back to life!
So here’s the thing…don’t stop striving for a crop, if a crop is what you want. No matter your age. You can dream again, re-master that old dream. And it’s ok to live a new dream, too. Look at me. I’m living proof.
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