Greetings! Welcome to my dream…

Well, it may seem small at first glance, as dreams go.  I grew up in this small crook of the woods in Cottondale, Florida, in the typical 1950’s small farmer’s family, where the land we lived on had been parcelled out and handed down among the heirs of my great-great-grandfather’s 1873 homestead parcel.  We grew mostly everything we needed, and a monthly run to the store in “town” for flour, sugar and staples supplied the rest. Over the course of my early childhood though, the economy was changing, sadly, to a state where family farming could no longer support a family of eight on a forty acre plot.  By my teens, my dad had sold the farm and moved on to the city, but I believe I carried a piece of that dirt in my spirit all these years.  I have always been obsessed with “growing food”, even if it was just sprouts in a tray on the window sill or pots of lettuce, onions and herbs on the patio.  (Heck, I even get excited about growing bacteria and yeast – I brew my own kombucha).

Long story short, 7 years ago (nudged by my brother) when 22 acres of the old farmland from my great-great-grandpa’s original homestead in Cottondale came up for sale, I bought it! I had no idea what in the world I’d do with it (I am a database developer by profession, and I live in a city!) but I was in love with the idea of it.  Native Americans hunted on that land; we used to find their arrowheads everywhere.  My folks scrapped out rocks and plowed it with mules; they hung on while it gave way to tractors and fertilizer that came in bags; they fed and raised families off of it.  Their headstones all read “DILMORE” in the cemetery at the Baptist church.  So there you have it.  I owed 22 acres of farmland (well, there is that little bit of swamp...) in the northwest Florida panhandle, about thirty miles due south of Dothan, Alabama.

So, no problem.  I always loved this satsuma tree that used to grow by our porchside back when we lived there.  So I know! I’ll just get a couple hundred satsuma trees and plant them.  I’ll throw a little fertilizer on them once in a while, and I’ll have myself a sweet little satsuma grove.

You can stop laughing now…