Our Rural Roots

Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, Contributor

Each year, as the temperatures get warmer, and we all survive the end-of-school chaos, a familiar message starts to pop up across social media: "You only get 18 summers with your kids, so you better make them count."

This can just about send me into a mental spiral that goes something like this: "Only 18 summers? My kids are 9 and 8, how can we be halfway done? We haven't made any good memories! How will I find the time/money/energy to cure this terrible problem? Is it too late to save their childhood? We've never even been to Disney World!"

This is when I usually take a deep breath (I'd say a good, slow, deep breath might be the best medicine of all) and think of my own childhood summers.

All these years later, I do not remember the things that were fancy or expensive. I just remember the times we were together.

I remember swimming in the irrigation ditch while my dad set siphon tubes. I think about loading up in my Gran's little Datsun pickup to drive up the road to my Aunt Jean's house where we could pick green beans out of the garden and then spend the afternoon snapping them on the front porch. I remember walking show pigs with my mom every evening in the pasture. There are long nights at the barn, the smell of freshly cut hay from the swather and driving to the north pasture to watch the fireworks over the lake at the nearest town. My sun-drenched recollections include just taking time to lift my face to the sun and soaking it all in.

We may only get 18 summers with our kids at home, but if we do them right, they can include a lifetime of simple yet profound memories. Disney World fast pass not required.

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-- Tiffany Dowell Lashmet juggles family, farming, writing, livestock and a career in ag law from the Texas Panhandle. Follow her blog at https://alwaysafarmkid.com/…, alwaysafarmkid on Instagram and @TiffDowell on social platform X.

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