What's in a name and other blogging questions

Who in the world am I?

Ah, that's the great puzzle!

                                                                                             LEWIS CARROLL

  Do you ever wonder how some blog's names came to be?  Some are self-explanatory, many others are not.  In this post, I attempt to explain how my blog came to be named.  I'd love to hear about yours.

 

   When I decided to blog, my first thought was what will I name it?   I wanted my blog to be a journal of musings and memories, with some photos capturing those sweet, simple things that I love.  The name I ended up choosing has to do with how being a farmer's daughter shaped who I am and to honor my father.

    My father was a farmer, a very good one.  He was also a great story teller who had many friends.  He "didn't suffer fools gladly" as the saying goes and was often short on patience and quick tempered, his temper made it difficult at home for all of us sometimes.  I loved him very much but sometimes I wasn't sure I liked him. And he loved me... after all, my mother told me he did.  Although sometimes I doubted that.  He didn't understand girls, and he probably never knew much about what I thought or dreamed of.  I know that my two brothers had their struggles also.  They both tried farming with him, even though my younger brother was a college graduate with a business degree.  Neither one was able to work to suit my father for long.  Each of them finally left the farm, my older brother bought his own farm and my younger brother went back into the business world.  They remained in close touch with our dad, though, and always loved him and never held his controlling ways against him.

   I will always be grateful to my father for the excellent care he gave my mother after she contracted the fatal disease that would claim her life in 2 short years at the age of 59.  The same disease that took her father before her and would later claim the lives of my two dear brothers before they were 50.  Even today, I still have a hard time saying the name of that horrid, devastating disease - ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  Back to my father...he rarely left my mother's side when the disease started paralyzing her body and she needed constant care.  He took her to Florida and Colorado to try treatments that looked promising...only to find out they didn't make any difference at all.  But the bottom line is, he never left her side...he was always there for whatever she needed.  I will always love him for that.  

   After my precious mother passed away, my father visited us often and called nearly every day. He was a good grandfather to my children and he was very fond of my husband, in fact I used to tease my husband that I thought Dad liked him more than me!  He could still be cranky and obstinate and bossy, but we were all used to it by then.  Eventually, I realized that my own shyness and introverted ways made me more sensitive to this headstrong father of mine.  When I was finally able to stand up for myself and throw off the Cowardly Lion ways, I became a much stronger person and I wouldn't let him (or anyone else) intimidate me any longer.  I won't tell you how old I was before I was able to do this...:)  

  We did have good times with the Farmer.  He told us many stories over and over as he got older, but they were always fun to hear again.  He loved to play card games and loved to win.  His favorite expression when he was winning was that "it's just like shooting fish in a barrel."  He knew a lot of people and enjoyed visiting with them, it was a shame that his hearing was nearly gone and that frustrated him.  A hearing aid couldn't help him, the doctor said.  The Farmer lived to be 91, he never really got over the tragedy that struck our family, he missed his wife and sons every day.  And I miss them, too, and him very much. 

  That's a little bit about how I arrived at the name for my blog, The Farmer's Daughter.  I will have to delve into the other areas of blogging that I was going to talk about another time, this has turned out to be a longer post than I intended it to be.  It has been quite therapeutic, though!   

  

Until next time...