Farm kid wannabes

Someone told my Uncle Tandy that drinking goat's milk would help with his gastrointestinal issues, so he up and builds a goat pen and a goat house and a milking bench and he gets himself a billy and a couple or three nannies. Now, I suspect he also thought he might make a buck or two moonlighting in the goat business, because (1) does one guy really need three goats to keep him in milk? and (2) my uncle was--how shall I say?--frugal. It once took him and John David three weekends to take down an old shed because every scrap of reusable lumber and every single nail, no matter how bent--had to be saved and neatly laid by. Lord, I've no idea how long it took John David and my Aunt Emma to pound out straight some six coffee cans of crooked nails!

The Jackson place there at Kadane Corner wasn't a farm, but it was the closest this seven-year-old city kid was likely to get. Between running leases in the bed of my uncle's pickup truck, helping Aunt Emma with her kitchen garden, tending to chinchillas (another moneymaker that didn't make) and trying to ride Old Billy on a dare, it was as close as I needed to be at the time.

Every kid deserves at least an occasional taste of country life. I know I wouldn't take for the summer weekends I spent with my aunts, uncles and cousins at Kadane Corner and out near Rule, Texas. IF you are a parent or know of a parent looking for a place where a kid can get back to some of the basics of life, check out Restless Prairie Farm's Farm Kid Apprentice Day Camp.

You ain't lived until you've come home smelling like a goat!