Life on the Farm

Memories of that first little house are sketchy, at best. We only lived there one year.

We moved, but not far, to a house next to a working farm. I didn't have to share a room with my brother and my closet stretched so far that it could easily afford secret places in a game of hide-and-seek.

I didn't spend much time at home because the farm held my interest. I was in first grade now and the woman at the farm watched me after school until my mom got home. There must have been more than twenty cats roaming around. Lightning and Thunder were my favorites. I think one was fluffy and bright orange. I had heard that the color red enrages bulls, so I would purposely wear red when I visited the cows and bull in the barn, just to test the theory. Nothing bad ever happened. There was a goat that wandered around and sometimes my mom would look out to find it standing on our old Saab.

We children had no contact with my father. I suspect my mother was slowly making it through the divorce process with a man who was hard to pin down. He paid no child support. I never realized how poor we were.