My dad was raised on a ranch near the Beaver Dam State Park in NV. It's been years since I've been to the ranch, and my boys have no memory of it. So this past week we convinced grandpa to take us to the ranch for a few days. No cell phone service, no internet, no traffic....just nature. It was an "ah-hah" for me. So many of us discuss the growing, yearning desire to live more simply, more healthily, more happily - yet we continue to live day to day in an ever increasing state of chaos and "busy-ness." I believe this desire is part of the collective unconscious - a trend occuring throughout society, yet many are unaware of what they're feeling and worse yet, unaware of what they can do about it.
So what can we do about it? Just get in the car and GO! (Okay, it may help if you HAVE a ranch to go to...:) It was SO freeing. The peace and stillness of the ranch was conducive to a peace and stillness within me. It opened the channels of inpsiration and put my children into focus as the priority, over other time demanding/consuming "necesseties" of my typical home life.
We stopped by the Hafen ranch on our way to the Mathews ranch. Let me just say, I was overwhelmed. I have known these people all my life - in fact, our families are currently in their 5th generation of sociality - one with another. However, on this trip, I was impressed by the thought, "This is what's meant by 'salt of the earth.' These people are truly that!"
Here are my boys at the Hafen ranch in front of the old school house where their great-grandpa Mathews attended school.
Here are some photos of a great-grandpa Hafen entertaining my kids as if they were his own. Love you people!!!
Then at the Mathews' Ranch we leared all about our grandpa's upbringing. My boys had a great time - Thanks Grandpa!
Posts
5 comments:
Chris' family live in farm country that goes way back in their family history-- the road they live on is named after his family and was being paved when Chris and I were dating.
One of my favorite trips was going to all of the "family history" spots. It was incredible. I've always felt like his family was "salt of the earth" too.
Sadly part of that area is being bought in parcels and sold off to developers. I just want to yell, "NO! You can't do that!"
I want to take my boys to see all those places before they're gone.
Loved your post. Thanks for sharing.
Oh! I want to go next time! I love your outlook on life Angel. I hope you find a home here someday.(By the way, the house next to mine goes up for auction on June 4th) When do you go to CO?
Love this post Angel! My dad is a cute Grandpa I must say! So are we the 4th generation and our kids the 5th?
So many memories out there! At your ranch I remember a fun girls weekend in High school and Amber Ence did a 360 in her car on the drive there, we went on an interesting hike, played interesting games, and on the way back to your ranch from visiting mine, we got stuck at the train track by a stopped train and the engineers gave us water bottles!
Love ya!!!!!
fabulous!!! i love historical visits, we were just in North Carolina on a 500 year old working farm. so cool.
I remember a birthday party at the ranch--either yours or Natalie's. Fun memories :)
Post a Comment