The Minnesota Farm Woman

I was going to write this column yesterday, but was just too feckless. The cold and rainy weather following last week’s hot and humid days only proved that Mother Nature is a fickle female. The damp chill made me want to curl up in bed with the heated mattress pad at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, kind of like those frigid, freezing winter days of not so long ago. Instead, I made a fantastic and flavorful pot of soup, and as I chopped vegetables, fantasized about life in general. Well, that and watched reruns of Judge Judy. We are, for the most part, living the dream, and are very fortunate, but to be fair, a little more money and a little less work would be fantastic. Fairly recently, I turned sixty years old, with the years between my forties and fifties seeming to flash by in an instant. Sixty. How the heck did that happen? What words starting with F can describe sixty? Formidable? Frolicsome? Foxy? I doubt it. Sixty is too old to be fetching and too young to be flamboyant or flashy. I’ll save that for my 90’s. In my sixties, I would like to be fair, friendly, flexible, and forgiving. All of that while flourishing as a famous author who writes fascinating stories about an old Farm Woman who solves mysteries while raising chickens and making fabulous soups. Not out of her chickens, of course. How’s that for a funny flight of imagination? I should make soup more often.