My name is Nancy Thompson

My name is Nancy Thompson. My husband Tim and I live in South West Iowa just on the edge of town, Neola, Iowa. I'm a retired nurse and my husband works at a VA Hospital. Our place is just under an acre, with fertile bottom land along side a short creek and a small wooded area. It's wonderfully beautiful here.

We moved to Iowa from California in 2000 after it became clear that my Mother was ill and wanted us near. It was decided to sell our roofing business, rent out the house and pack up 35 years of living and move back "home."

I really thought that after so many trips back here over a 25 year span of marriage that my California husband had been through every type of midwest weather possible. But nothing prepared us for the thunder and lightening, rain, hail and then snow that followed us across the country that October and greeted us as we opened the truck packed with our worldly goods and continued almost without ceasing until the following March.

Mom, on the other hand couldn't hold on much longer but that's another story that I will some day get into when I'm able to without weeping. I have the gardening gene of my Grandfather and we have a large garden in it's second year at our home. It's also my third year of gardening in the midwest after so many years in California. As of today we are eating the last of the radishes and starting on collard greens and broccoli. We garden organically and with the help of my sister's horse farm have almost an unending supply of organic stuff, old hay, grass and you know what.

In addition to the garden we also can most of our food that we have grown and share with family and neighbors. I volunteer for Meals on Wheels and enjoy the visits too. Sewing some of our clothes is a hobby and enjoyable too. Over the years I've sewn several quilts and also inherited my Grandmother's quilt top box which was full of tops she and her sister had sewn together by hand and didn't have time to finish.

Those are my winter projects and I've finished 4 of them so far. I've worked on a lot of different crafts but rarely keep any for myself.

Reading is another of my favorite pastimes. I've got several poetry books that belonged to one of my grandparents and I enjoy reading through them too. We heat with wood and that also keeps us busy, harvesting and gathering fuel to last sometimes painfully long winters.

It's troubling to me how times are changing for the worse and important for someone to hold onto the old and simple ways of the past so we can then pass them onto our children and on and perhaps on it goes.