Welcome to the farm. I would like to give you a personal tour of the place and introductions to everyone who lives here. Unfortunately, the other human who lives here was gone during today's photo shoot. Perhaps you can meet him later. In the meantime...

 This is Andy. He is three and a half years old, and in the three and a quarter years we have owned him, he has gone from being the world's worst puppy to the world's best dog. He has made us smile through some pretty sad times. He has only given us one sad time, the night I lost him on a bike ride before I found him again the next morning. And he has been an only child until last winter when we got a cat...and this spring when we added what now tallies to 27 other furred or feathered creatures to his care. (Mostly feathered...not sure the chickies really count, but they do drive up the numbers.) That is also Andy's chair. It was a freebie from our previous life, and the only leather chair we own, which means he can sit in it and lick his butt and eat his feet without soaking our good furniture with his saliva. It also stays nice and cool to the touch, so it is excellent to sleep against. And it has a deep channel behind the cushion, which is perfect for burying bones in so deeply he has to ask us for help unearthing them.

 These are the chicks. They are mostly Silkie Bantams, but with some pretty interesting crossbreeds of Silkie and Heavies, such as Silver Laced Wyandottes and Buff Orpingtons, I would assume from what little I know of heavy egg laying breeds.

 This is the view from my living room window. Eventually the field in front of the house will be more than just Andy's spot to poop, it will be fenced and become a summer home for a herd of goats and their kids. Right now we have to mow it to control the weeds and grass, which is about as anti-sustainable as it gets.

 And this is the view out of my dining room patio door. Including the flower bed the dogs so thoughtfully dug up for me this morning.

 Meet my happy, happy flock of chickens. Well, meet half of the flock. They are a bit clique-ey. The bantams are in the barn working on a large scale scratching project.

 The barn, which once held horses and dairy cows and now holds relics of the life my grandparents lived on this farm. Oh, and chickens. And cats. And an ever diminishing number of mice and birds.

Many a party, many a basketball game has been held in this haymow. (the basketball hoop is above the camera in the picture.)

The barn police. AKA Marv and Moto. Mai is the white blob seen through the stairs toward the bottom, as she daintily descends.

The hydraulic squeeze chute, which restrained 1000lb cattle as they were being administered medication or undergoing other procedures.

The scale, scalehouse, and Harvestores in which grandpa fermented high moisture corn, to be cracked and loaded unto his feed truck parked under the white raised bin. He then drove the feed truck slowly along the bunks, augering out the corn and silage for the cows.

Marvin, who came to us as Starvin' Marvin but since losing his manhood and becoming accustomed to his diet of mice being supplemented by catfood and a daily egg, now has to live with the moniker Large Marv. AKA Marvels. The Marvelous. The Marvelously Marvelous. He frequently shows up missing chunks of nose and ear, but he won't tell us where the fight club is.

Oh, boy. Whatever it is, it is in a hole and it smells delightful.

 The yuccas, also know as soapweed, are finally starting to bloom. The most beautiful time of the year in Kansas, when the cactus start blooming. These stalks have saved lives in eras past, storing water that has been used to quench thirst when no water was to be found.

The entourage that follows the giver of food and attention every where she goes. You just never know when she might be feeling benevolent, and you would hate to miss it. Even the chickens have taken to following me around, since I have been working on getting them to eat out of my hands. the pickup truck belongs to the farm- it was the only new vehicle my Grandpa ever bought. He was so proud of it. Looking at it now makes me realize how long ago that was.

 Anouk, the littlest guard dog. When she went into her crate last night, those ears were the same elevation. But overnight, the right one got serious about popping up. My little sweetie is growing up!

 Where the humans sleep. And a few animals. It is impossible to be sad for long inside walls that hug us and whisper to us of happy times. Peace and joy happened here, they say. And a lot of crap. But they remember the good stuff, not the bad.

 Where the puppies go to get happy!

I can practically see them growing.

And that is all for now. When they say a place has a soul, I am never sure. Is it soul I feel, or is it just the knowledge of what happened in this space? Would the site of a massacre feel as sad, angry and haunted if I had no idea of the blood long ago soaked into the ground? Would the smoke-blackened caves squaws and their children hid in while their men fought to either death or imprisonment seem so claustrophobic with lingering dread? And on the flip side, would the community picnic area out in our pasture seem to vibrate with echos of laughter if I didn't remember the laughter? I ask myself this with this place, too. If I had not known the earthy souls that were my grandparents, would this valley seem as safe and peaceful and inviting? Would my heart reach out and absorb all the vibrations, all the life that is still lingering here and hum at it's frequency? My dominant right brain sees these feelings in color- earth tones shot through with deep purple compassion and blue longing. Both of my grandparents drew their happiest breaths, their most pained breaths, and their last breaths in this place. I do not pretend to know anything about what happens to our souls after they are released from our bodies, but I would like to think that as theirs left this house for the last time, they touched everything in their paths on their way out, just as they had physically during their lives. Maybe left footprints and fingerprints in the form of lingering love. Because I feel them here. I feel their energy, not in a creepy, haunted sort of way, just as a heartbreakingly gentle caress on my back, a flash of deep gray brown laced with purple compassion. I walk into this house and I feel, just as I always did, that I am safe now. Nothing bad can ever happen here.

It may not just be me. I have heard this from others, people who did not know my grandparents. This place has a feeling. A gentle, peaceful, earthy feeling. They can feel them here, too. This feeling of belonging and welcome. No, this does not mean they are still here, it just means the love that was here still reverberates. I think I am sure.