Hankering for the homestead

All of this old machinery on display around the grist mill reminds me of the family ranch where I spent my summers as a child. The ranch was homesteaded by my Grandfather. He had only one child who live, a daughter, my mother. After she married my father he eventually ended up working as a ranch hand.Our summers on the ranch were long and warm. I remember playing on the farm machinery, robbing the wood pile to make boats and floating them down the creek.My brother and I spent a lot of time in "the shop."The shop was carved out of the end of a old log cabin. Most of the cabin was taken up by the bunkhouse once used by teamsters who traveled the road and stopped for the night at the ranch.But that was before my time. Eventually the "new road" was built and the winding dirt by-way passing through the middle of our ranch property was traveled only by residents and occasional fishermen.Some of my best childhood memories are tied up in the ranch. I remember reading "Black Beauty" while curled up in the living room next to the heat vent on rainy summer days. On warm days, I explored the garden, sucking the nectar out of the columbines and making mud pies, decorated with grape hyacinths and lilacs.
At night the sky was large and dark and full of stars. Frogs in the creek lulled me to sleep in my cozy little spot of security, in our little two bedroom house.My children have a much larger house than I did on the ranch. They have television, soccer games and access to the community swimming pool.But I feel they are deprived. All the organized sports and computer games in the world will never take the place of the simple joys, and simple freedoms, I had as a child on the ranch.