I Still Live In Pumpkin Country

I still  live in pumpkin Country.
We moved out into the country 25 years ago.
Slowly,
 and now - not so slowly,
 the subdivisions have been getting closer and closer to my home.
Lately, huge metal dinosaurs have been making assault roads and lots for new houses along the southern border of our  two acres.
I have been trying to have a good attitude -  believing that perhaps a new best friend will move next door.
But mostly I've been missing
the quiet country roads and open fields filled with wheat, barley and alfalfa.
I miss watching Mr. Olsen drive past my house at twenty miles an hour with no one to honk or make him hurry along.
They built a high school just down the road and young people are always in a hurry.

But there are a few hold-outs.
I am one of them
- the pumpkin growers are another.
Pumpkins make me smile.
Lately I've been watching the farmers pile these orange orbs of sunshine into boxes and drive them to market.

 People keep asking me 
when we are going to sell our property.
But I can't bear to leave these two acres
where my children grew up.
Where else could we pull the children with red cheeks on their sleighs in the winter?
 Where else can we pick raspberries and climb apples trees in the summer?
Where else would I find such a rustic old barn and a 1950's trailer?
 Where else would I find my own private forest of thirty foot pines lovingly planted by my husband from tiny three inch starts.

Where would the quail and doves in my trees go if our sanctuary was gone?
Where else could I look out my kitchen window and see a long row of lilacs blooming in the spring?

Where else would I gather my growing family of forty-five loving sons, daughters, and grandchildren?
As the adults fill my home on Sunday evenings and fill my heart with the beautiful noise of seven conversations going on at the same time - the children discover fairy treasures left for them in the secret garden under the aging pine.
This is my home - my family - my love.