Yea .... I live here.

OK -- I'll admit it.  It is the time of year that I am getting crabby and cranky.

I've planted and weeded and weeded and planted.  Somethings are successes.  And other things .... well, not so much. 

It is exceedingly dry and the rain storms skirt around my neighborhood .... leaving us hoping and praying the next clouds will have rain.

I've tried to keep the house neat and clean with dismal results.

I wanted storm windows ... ain't happenin'.  I wanted to strip the paint off doors..... not getting done.

Yea ... I might be a tad bit crabby.

But for all of that, what bugs me the most............ is having my house put-down by guests to my farm.

This is my house ... on Friday August 19th.  Windows need storms.  Siding needs repairs and painting.  But the roof is new ... the gutters are good.  And it is ours.

On our second date .... Honey invited me here to supper.  And as I tell people, I knew when I walked in the door ........ this was where I belonged.  I was home at last.

(Now it took Honey longer to realize that he wanted to share this with me!  But on to my story!)

On Friday .... I was working in the attic, trying to get some stuff organized.  I have an alarm on the driveway which 1) did not go off or 2) I did not hear.

The phone rang and it was a customer that was in my driveway.  She called and chastised me because I had not come outside.  

I apologized for not hearing the alarm and asked if she had knocked on the door.

Why would I knock on the door?  No one would live there!  Yep ... that's a quote!!!

(As you might guess, my perky customer service attitude was not at it's sparkling best at this point!!!)

Yea .... I live here.  

And though I know ... its not fancy ........ it has an air of dignity, a history of hard-work and a lifetime of sheltering the families that lived under its roof.

Our house is a Classic L farmhouse.  It is a variation of a popular housing style ... the Queen Anne Victorian.

A short lived style ... it was the  predominant house style of the farms of the upper Midwest...... Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.  It was the replacement for the log cabin or the sod house that first provided shelter.  By the Panic (Depression) of 1893 .... the Classic L was replaced by the American Foursquare style.

Our house in 1927.  Yea .. the outhouse is no longer needed.

Our house was built in 1892 and  faces east  ... the sun greets you in the morning.  All Classic L farmhouses faced east or south to protect the front door (which opens into the kitchen) from the cold winter winds and snow.  

Ours is fairly original ... we just removed the two chimneys.  There were always chimneys for the cook stove in the kitchen and the wood stove in the parlor.  The kitchen has its original wainscoting.  All the doors remain the same.  The trim is original and the ceilings are at their original height.

I know its not a McMansion.  I know its not in the latest, greatest neighborhood. This is a farm house!  It has the dust, the dirt, the age that 120 years of sitting in the middle of  a cornfield gives it!

I'm sorry that I snapped at the customer comments.  

But most of all, I am sorry that she is so shallow that she doesn't realize the pride that was built into this home.  She doesn't understand the heart of the people that hand-hewed  the rafters and ceiling joists.  They birthed their children here ....... and lost their crops.  They hung on by the skin of their teeth during the 30's and wondered, if the bank would extend another loan during the 80's.

In the book,  Death of a Dream, there was this little poem that was found in a child's composition book among the rubble of a Classic L farmhouse.

Then give me but my homestead

I'll ask no palace dome.

For I can live a happy life

With those I love at home.

I pity someone that doesn't get it.