HOMESTEAD FARMS WITH SATELLITES AND INTEGRAL KINSHIP
If I walked the designated route, being careful not to disturb any plants, I could inch through my mother's garden and then through my aunt's garden to meet my cousin at his front door. Then the two of us would walk through the south raspberry rows, past the crab apple trees, to where the mustard lettuce wandered up to our grandparent's farmhouse. It was the original homestead house where grandma tended the wood cook stove while a few other relatives were still in the fields working before the lunch she was making with wild mustard and some early corn. My cousin and I could earn a few coins picking raspberries, or harvesting cucumbers, or we could just goof off exploring the old barn and some new plowed dirt. Black soil from ancient river flooding and years of careful farm enrichment. That evening back at my cousin's home or my home we might have a visit from the grandparent's before they drove 8 miles to the Lolo ranch for their dairy cow chores. The ranch i