There’s a guy I grew up with who has an amazing farm and homesteading business, the kind of thing you might read about in a Booker Prize winning novel set on the prairie with a strong female lead, or Pinterest. He and his wife are always posting photos of the animals they raise and the things they grow and the fuzzy things she makes from their sheep and whatever else she can lay her crafty little hands on, without using a kilowatt of electricity. Some days, I can smell the homemade herb bread and the wood burning stove in their farmhouse just by looking at the crocheted baby hats she whipped up. There are no babies for miles. She just can’t stop herself.
I have become Kathy Bates-y obsessed over this couple and their farm. The fact that they started out as regular people is added intrigue. He was with me in the redhead alliance — population 7 — in our graduating class, and she was just another clarinet player in band. Forty odd years later and they’re Chip and Joanna Gaines without the shiplap.
Last Christmas, while I was scanning the As Seen on TV gadgets to buy for my holiday shopping list, she was showing off a 7-foot-tall pine tree she had handcrafted from wool feathers, whatever those are. It was so beautiful. I cried a little bit. [Read more…] about My Dream Life as a Walton Walk-On