This is where we were meant to be

I'm sitting in the sugar shack, chatting with my father-in-law about an upcoming school presentation. I can see Bob out the window driving the tractor, taking loads of scrap wood out back to burn. The girls have been wandering the woods and now are going to see if Daddy has time to play. They'll probably end up in the hay mow.

I can smell the thick, sweetness of syrup now that the kettles I'm watching are closer to a boil. It's masking the unfortunate odor of squirrel pee. This is their woods, too, and they have been into the woodpile. Addy had deposited a collection of leaves on the counter in front of me. The oniony leek smell is still faintly detectable although she ran off gnawing on the leaf half an hour ago. Outside it just smells like a spring wood -- humusy, thick, woody, a little fresh now that the trout lily leaves are fully emerged.

I don't see the girls any longer, so that likely means they've talked Daddy into a break from cleaning up the farmstead.

I don't much have to worry about them out here. Our neighbors across the road are homeschoolers with kids who love to play with ours. Down the road are a few Amish families, then of course Grandma and Grandpa are half-mile the other way. We do have the ATV-riding, doing-donuts tearing-up-the-road family in between, but it's probably better than our current neighbor in town, whom Grandma P. had dubbed Muscle Man. We even have grazed Holsteins to the northeast, and our neighbor to the north sold us our used lawn tractor and will install our carpet.

This is where we were meant to be.