Leaving Virginia is never easy.

The kids say exactly what I feel when they say, “I want to be at our home, but I don’t want to ever leave the farm.”

No matter what, when you pull into that glorious driveway at Gray Mountain Farm, you enter a different dimension somehow.

I’ve written about it before.

Time moves differently out there in the green grassy fields in the shadow of Chestnut Mountain.

You begin your stay thinking you have all the time in the world.  You end your stay wondering where on earth the days went.  No one goes to bed early and when you wake up, there’s still stuff to talk about.  Food is constantly being made or being put away.  We hardly leave the farm and yet we find endless activities to occupy our time.

The children to adult ratio is wildly skewed and this year the big kids finally tapped into a touch of their potential when they scurried inside all in unison when they realized that all of the adults were congregated on the back porch together.  The doors were locked and negotiation notes were pasted to the window.

“We’ll unlock the doors if we can watch a show,” they declared.  Giddy with power and fear and their attempt at an overthrow of authority, the nearly dozen children giggled uncontrollably.  Papa Dale feigned serious anger and pulled out his “in charge” voice and the kids ping-ponged between hysterical laughter and a touch of genuine concern.  Was Papa Dale serious?  Was he only joking?  Should they unlock the doors or keep up the battle?

The great thing about the farm is that it feels like real life takes a back seat and you get to indulge in pretend life.  Days spent laughing.  Kids fishing and running and strengthening relationships wth the grown ups and the kids in their lives.  Pretend life because the internet can’t really reach you and everyone works together to feed, entertain and care for all the children like some sort of lovely but loud commune.

The high feeling of the beauty of it all does make the crash a little heavy when you coast into your own driveway, gas tank on E and body too tired from too many late night conversations and the mail stacked high and the house smelling funky from the stuffiness of being empty for a week.

Real life away from the farm just seems so full of responsibility.

And who wants to wake up to responsibility?

So I’ll spend the next few days like I always do after my annual summer farm excursion – a little glassy eyed and a little shell shocked at the list of all the Real Life Responsibilities knocking on my door here in the flatlands and off the mountain top.

But always and forever, despite the residual disappointment of not dwelling in some sort of farm limbo forever, I am continually grateful for all that the July Fourth tradition brings to my family and all the ways the farm and the people there build us up and fill us full and hold us close.

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