I Belong to the Country

By Julie Nischan

I grew up on the small family farm in Northeast Kansas with my parents and two older siblings. My mother was a teacher and encouraged my love of reading and writing at an early age. My father was a farmer who grew cattle and crops while teaching his children a strong work ethic and the value of a job well done. I learned many life lessons exploring every inch of the family farm.
I Belong to the Country is a collection of beloved memories from my childhood and poetry inspired by nature and my experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julie Nischan
• Release date: May 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9780578827179

Book preview

I BELONG TO THE COUNTRY

JULIE NISCHAN

Copyright 2022 by Julie Nischan

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission.

ISBN 9780578827162

Cover by Deirth Trickey

Editing by Joe Pierson

The Definitive Explanation of Two-Man Baseball – first published in 105 Meadowlark Reader Beginnings: Issue 1 Spring 2021

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family. Through the dirt, sweat, hard times, and laughter, I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything.

To my two biggest cheerleaders, my mom Delphine, and my husband Andrew.  Your constant motivation and love mean the world to me.

And to my old pen pal Vernon A. Spain, cowboy poet. Gone long ago but never forgotten. Thanks for all your encouragement to a fledgling writer and sharing your books with me. I wish I could share mine with you now.

Contents

I Belong to the Country

Creation

Stuck in the Mud

Lessons

Farm Kid Games

Snow Angels

The Garden

Sun

Riding the Bus

Catnap

Rural Center

Family Tree

Life Lessons from the Fair—The Show Barn

Sweet Dreams

Life Lessons from the Fair—Arts and Crafts

Tireless

Life Lessons from the Fair—Baked Goods

Home on the Range

Life Lessons from the Fair—The Style Review

Directions

Life Lessons from the Fair—Fair Queen Candidate

Dreams

Going for a Ride

Shadow

Staying at Grandma’s

Time

The Definitive Explanation of Two-Man Baseball

The Voices of the Wind

Learning to Drive

Train

The Dirty Side of Country Life

Winter on My Mind

Stargazing

Rainbow

Getting out of a Jam

Dream Chaser

The City Band

December

Daddy

Golden Years

I Belong to the Country

I belong to the country. I was born in a small Kansas town in 1971 and raised on a small Kansas farm. My earliest memories are of being outside. Dirt, cattle, wheatfields, hay, the smell of the air before the rain, the smell of the corral afterward. There is no green so vibrant as new grass on burnt ground, and no smell like a bonfire (where the very best hot dogs are cooked). The sweetest alarm is the birds singing me awake on spring mornings. It’s not silent like city people think. Many different birds singing different songs, squirrels chattering, scolding everyone, the cattle mooing to each other and insects buzzing by. It’s funny how you don’t notice how loud the locusts are in the fall until suddenly they all stop, and the silence is almost deafening. I still enjoy the chirping of crickets and the crunching of leaves underfoot.

Sound is magnified in the country. The open spaces let the wind gather its strength so that it screams and howls as it travels past. Thunder is indeed thunderous; you will hear it long before the rain comes and sometimes long after it leaves. The thunder has a song of its own; sometimes deep and rolling, sometimes crashing like cymbals, shaking the house to its foundation and echoing to the horizon and back. As the storms would pass, the thunder would grumble and mutter, letting you know it still had plenty more to say. The lightning was as bright as the sun at noon, if only for a moment. Jumping and slashing across the black sky in an unpredictable pattern, it provided a more awesome show than any fireworks display. If you listened closely, you could hear the sizzle between the roar of the thunder. The strongest storm passing over a city is nothing like one in the country. You could see it coming as the clouds rolled in. Lightning would flash between the clouds faster than a blink, and thunder would mumble its reply. As they came closer, the air would be charged with their intensity. It built till they reached their crescendo overhead, and our power would go out. First the thunder would shake the bed, then the lightning would illuminate my room as if I had turned on the switch. Then a moment of black silence, and the duo would repeat itself. Mom would herd my brother and sister and me to the basement while Dad watched the storm from the picture window in the living room. Eventually the booms and crashes, snaps and flashes would move on, taking their show down the road. Then I could sleep again, soothed by their murmurs as they left.

I knew every inch of our farm. From the mailbox on the gravel road, the gravel continued down the long driveway to the circle drive in the front yard. The drive passed the house and opened up past the backyard to branch off to the outbuildings. It led to the old garage, Dad’s pickup on one side and a dark labyrinth of tools and junk on the other. Behind was the trash-burn barrel and discarded bits of metal, pieces and parts of old tractors and plows.

Built into a corner of the corral was the huge hay barn, open on the south and east sides. We used to climb the small bales that were stacked almost to the roof and then jump down onto the bales at the bottom. We thought it was a great game till Dad scolded us for breaking too many bales open and scattering hay all over. We still climbed the large, round bales and played tag as we ran and jumped across them, six feet off the ground. Near where the barn and corral met was the water tank, a concrete pool nearly ten feet across and three feet deep. We watched as the moss and weeds grew thick and the frogs multiplied till Dad would announce it was time to clean it out. The swamplike water was siphoned, and then all the sludge at the bottom was shoveled out, usually by whichever of us was the last to be in trouble.

Across from the back end of the corral was the enormous granary. It had three sections, the middle one big enough to drive a tractor through. It had many rooms and partitions; some held grain for the cattle, some held nothing, some held junk. The little old tractor lived there too, well past its prime. Beyond the granary was the machine barn, big enough to house the combine, Dad’s big tractor with a cab on it, and the large grain truck. The machine barn was open on the south side but deep enough to protect the expensive equipment.

I spent my days outside, exploring every nook and cranny of each building, chasing the farm cats through the grass, and climbing on every piece of machinery. Often, I would set out from the back stoop after lunch, hiking back past the corral to the long cow path that led to the big pasture. I walked the small pasture too, but it wasn’t as exciting, as you could see one end from the other. But the big pasture was at least a half mile square, full of trees and bushes and even a stream that led to a pond. Every summer, the stream would dry up to dust, but the cattle still had the pond. It was just a small pond, and we never swam in it because it was too full of frogs, bugs, turtles, and snakes.

I would explore the pasture for hours. I liked to see what animals I could find, examine the plants, and just breathe deep and enjoy the fresh air. As I got closer to the pond, I could hear the odd truck on the paved road on the other side of the pasture fence. After a couple of hours, I would be thirsty and would make the walk back to the house. I hiked all over our land, through the fields after harvest but before the next planting, the pastures, or just the roads around our acres. From gravel to dirt to the paved road and back to gravel again. I never grew tired of following a well-worn path or making a new one.

Our large backyard was our main playground. My sister was a bookworm and liked to stay inside, but my brother and I played together often. The clothesline doubled as a volleyball net. Dad even put up a basketball hoop, attaching it to the huge tree just ten feet out the back door. The ground was too uneven for decent dribbling and the hoop much too high to attempt a slam dunk. But we marked spots in the dirt to practice free throws and three-point shots. My brother was a sports fanatic, while I just wanted someone to play with. We played soccer, football, and even two-man baseball with one bat, one glove, and a can of tennis balls. He would practice tennis against the door to the old garage while I rode my bike around the yard and outbuildings. Sometimes we would race each other, usually three times around the house and back to the stoop. My brother would take second, and I came in third, with the dog taking first place.

There was a well-worn path cutting across the yard from the concrete back stoop to