You can take the girl out of the farm…

I always loved going to work with my dad - I mean, how many five-year-olds get to ride on a Caterpillar (where is my ear protection, btw)?

See that Mac truck in the background? I spent many hours riding along while hauling hay or cattle, and Dad would let me pull the cord to honk the big horn. Kid heaven.

This is how I grew up. Playing and working on the farm - which were often the same thing - especially when I was with my cousins.

Anne, Dad and Cousin trapping gophers circa 1972

I remember very well going out to trap gophers with dad. He would set a trap and then walk shovel-over-shoulder to the next gopher mound. I would be straggling behind asking him to ‘wait up’. Let’s be honest, my ‘wait up’ calls were likely emphatic cries of a three-year-old thinking the world was ending. Dad never did ‘wait up’ (there was a job to be done!) but would encourage me to keep following and assure me that I would catch up at the next gopher hole.

He was right.

I grew up, went away to college, got married, moved even further away, raised three amazing children, got a job, got another job - always with the goal of somehow making it back home - back to the farm. Twenty-seven years later I made it back to the Walla Walla Valley!

Throw in a couple more jobs and a few more years trying to figure out how I could farm, and here I am today…

Still catching up.