The sweet smell of fresh country air and the sound of water trickling through a creek bed

I started spending summers with my grandparents in Missouri when I was about 8 or 9. It felt like the whole summer, in a good way, but looking back it was most likely four to six weeks. Long days stitched together with work, laughter, and the way of life on my grandparents’ farm.

I got to help with everything. Grandpa let me ride along in the tractors, and walk through the pastures, checking livestock and waters. Grandma taught me patience in the garden, and how to keep my hands busy snapping beans and pulling weeds from the strawberry patch. It didn’t matter if it was dirt under my fingernails or dust on my boots. I felt like I belonged in both places.

The drive to the farm always built up my excitement. Northeast Missouri never seemed short on rain; the creeks always ran with water, and the trees that lined them stood tall and green. The grass in the ditches and waterways was thick and high, sometimes three feet or more – at least to my young eyes.

Grandpa’s land stretched on both sides of the road for miles.

Coming in from the north, we’d turn off the highway, turn south on a dirt road, head back west, cross a rickety bridge, then turn south towards the farm.

The road was a narrow limestone lane. Just two tire tracks with grass in the middle really.

As we eased south, we would pass the Quonset, then the pasture where the cows stood by the pond, and on the east side of the road, the pigs would be rooting in the draw.

Pulling into the driveway felt like coming home.

Grandma was usually in the kitchen, busy with something she seemed to do effortlessly, and Grandpa was always there with a smile. “Hello Reuben,” he’d say, his voice steady and warm. I hope I never forget the sound of it.

At night I slept in either the middle room or the northwest room depending on the year and if my other cousins were there too or not. Both rooms had windows facing north and we kept those open at night because the house didn’t have central air. It could get pretty hot during the day but that cool summer air felt just right about bedtime.

We had to keep the door closed between the main house and the extra bedrooms so that the ac unit wouldn’t overwork itself. That door had a unique oval shaped knob, and it only opened the door by turning one direction, so we taped a sticky note on the door with what we thought at the time was an elaborate illustration of how the knob was supposed to turn.

That note stayed on the door for years. That detail has no meaning at all but for some reason is burned into my memories like the sound of the door creaking and the smell of the air.

Those summers were full of simple joys, lessons I didn’t even realize I was learning, and memories that still tug at me today. They taught me what it means to belong – to a place, to a family, to a way of life. Even now, when I step onto my own farm and smell fresh cut grass or hear the livestock calling, I am reminded of those Missouri summers. That’s where my roots were planted, and they’ve been guiding me ever since.