One thing about having the dogs is that it has gotten me back to one of the things that I love most of all; that being the outdoors, and more importantly, the outdoors where I grew up. There is something about being on land that you grew up on, that is part of your DNA, and the very essence of who you are that speaks something to your soul. Everything that I loved but mostly took for granted when I was growing up, now takes on new meaning and I see it in a totally different light, almost as if seeing it for the first time. At the same time I recognize it from somewhere deep inside that truest part of myself that sometimes seems far, far away, or perhaps not even alive at all. A chicken coop was a chicken coop, a fencepost was a fencepost, something that held up the wire to keep the cows at bay, but now they stand as weathered guardians of a time gone past.
The girls and I were home recently for a visit, and we always head up to the top of the "church hill" first thing in the morning, where the hundred year old Baptist Church still stands guard, although sadly it's doors have been closed for some time. We decided to try our luck on the trail that winds through the woods behind the church, and after some careful walking through the deep snow (I was careful, the girls were having a ball and couldn't figure out why I couldn't keep up) we emerged into the field behind my Uncle Eddy's farm. I was instantly taken back to my childhood where I knew every inch of the fields and woods on my uncle's farm that stretched on for miles...this was where we had set up tee pees for our Indian reservation, and that was where my cousins attempted to build a log cabin, and where the treehouse was, and straight through those woods was a giant rock with a split down the middle that a young child could disappear in for hours...
I know I've said it before, but there is something about returning home to the land that I grew up on that feeds my soul.
