Fan of farmland

Riding into rural Minnesota is a spiritual experience. It's also a place I can loose myself just looking off into the rolling hills and let my imagination run wild. I'm a romantic when it comes to this lifestyle. Early mornings, working all day, quiet evenings by the fire with a glass of whiskey and the dog keeping your feet warm. What more could you want? Well the city life has its perks too. A night life for one.

It's very clear in rural Minnesota that people who are proud of their life make it known. Biblical passages on signs, murals on buildings, lawn art, and little craft stores running out of their barn. Sometime their messages are encouraging and others are to instill fear. Some are just fun, like a town sign listing its inhabitants. The last line of that sign was "and 2 dogs."

Farmland just isn't scenic. Your sense of smell is also stimulated or punished, depending on your taste. There are earthy smells. The dairy farm or recently turned soil has a sweet smell. The smell reminds me of having dirt under my finger nails when I was prepping some dirt for a hobby vegetable farm. That smell awakens memories of having dirt run ground between my fingers and palms, then dry up and crack at all the joints of my fingers.

I think back about a bike tour I did a few years back where I road in south-west Minnesota for 5 days. There are things I saw and people I met that made me proud to live in this country. A different lifestyle and from the outsider's view point a simpler one.