This farmstead is not too far down the road from us. I love the word which apparently was first used in 1807 and simply refers to the farm and its buildings. Can you even imagine living in the late 1800s on these plains? There were no buildings; you lived in a small underground dug out. We complain about long winters now, but then, you stayed in that tiny space and only ventured out to feed your livestock when it stormed. There was no sitting in the window seat wrapped in a blanket sipping hot cocoa with marshmallows and gazing out at the blowing snow. Still, I think I would have loved that life–carving something out of nothing, working hard from dawn to dusk and knowing that when your head hit the pillow at dark, you’d accomplished something with your sore muscles a witness.