The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

*Inspired by a true friend, her bottle of wine, and my bottle of whiskey.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere watching my parents squeeze a living out of the Missouri Breaks Gumbo, I heard them exclaim in frustration many times, "It's just a piece of dirt!" Looking back, I cannot imagine life without that piece of dirt, that place where my heart goes to grow and heal, and the only place that will ever be my home.

When I was small there wasn't anything I wasn't a part of on the farm. Cleaning and filling drills in the spring, haying, fencing, and branding in the summer, harvest in the fall,...