Nothing If Not Thorough

So when need arises, Google answers.

I thought well okay I've got to find a great set of old farm photos - to illustrate where I would hope to take Birdwell, because only old will do. Maybe I am an old soul, but I tend to channel specific eras when it comes to architecture, clothing, music, etc. Even my favorite movies reflect this odd preference (has anyone seen 'The Trip to Bountiful'?). So I began googling old farm photos and very quickly got lost down the rabbit hole of old farm photos. Who knew. So I had to reel myself in, surface, and take a deep breath before downloading any of them because I wasn't sure what I was really looking for. There really are that many old farm photos.

About old souls. Very soon I will introduce my ancestors into this conversation, because they are still relevant although long dead. Needless to say, there were farmers on both sides only two generations back, not unexpected given how America's rural past is not that long departed. Most people can tell you about great-greats who farmed and where. My farmer relatives aren't necessarily haunting me in this process as much as gently guiding from where ever they are. And I am fairly sure they would laugh, in a nice way, if I were to explain Birdwell to them. Because farming, to them, was all they knew, and it was a very hard and entirely unforgiving way of life - certainly not a choice for any of my great-grandmother's thirteen children - and to have a 21st century relative 'pretending' to farm an imaginary farm would be absolutely beyond them. But how 21st century it is to me - I am not and may never be in a position to work a farm (I want to explore those exact words in a later post - working a farm - because it implies so much) - but I can create a pretend farm wholesale online. And Google is there to illustrate and populate it at my will. Googling is nothing if not a thorough way to catalogue and gather and peruse the images that will help me construct Birdwell.

I look forward to posting the images I have brought out of the ether that will begin defining Birdwell.

When I Bought the Farm

Buying a farm that exists only in your imagination is both easier and harder than you would think.

For me, it is acknowledging that - just maybe - I will never be able to cure my perpetual case of 'BarnHeart' (h/t to Jenna), and that the only pasture I will ever populate with heritage breed livestock will be the one that I create solely with the raw power of imagination, not muscle. This is practical honesty; I don't view it as giving up on a long-held dream, just acknowledging that at this time of my life, buying a farm might not happen.

So on the one hand, an imaginary farm is free: risk-free, financially, and crop-wise, and stock-wise. (I don't use Facebook but I would imagine this might the [hopefully more creative] version of Farmville.) In this way it is easier. I am not waking every day at 4 a.m. to milk a cow or haul water.

But on the other hand, it might be harder. Because I have all options on the table, as it were, I can make Birdwell whatever I want it to be. I am going to create a farm plan, here on this blog, and post by post, am going to proceed as if Birdwell was real. Because it will be real to me.

So step one, I buy the farm and christen it Birdwell.

(I might or might not have a glass of something bubbly to celebrate.)