Sometimes I get an ache for wide open space (insert Dixie Chicks song here) and would give almost anything to ride a three wheeler with Jeff and laugh and sing “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” with him.  I left the farm for college when I was 17, jaunted back a few summers and then moved away permanently when I was 21.  It’s funny how I can never really get the nostalgia out of my system.  I’d love to get in a big pick-up truck and blare “Copperline Road” as we head off to go mudding somewhere in Tremont.  Jeff was my annoying big brother who was just too close to my age, too into my business, a total antagonist, and a massive bathroom hog growing up, but he was my friend and confidant more than anything else.  We fought and screamed and yelled—I broke some of his wood working projects for 4-H one year, just to spite him, and then lied about it when dad questioned me.  He got even when he cut my Barbie’s hair off and promised me it would grow back so I kept checking for growth and nothing happened.  We slammed doors and acted crazy, but we were partners in crime, too.  One year we decided that we’d had enough of having to plant, weed, and harvest disgusting vegetables, so we dug all the lima beans up out of the garden soil and just told mom that they didn’t come up that year. When a few still came up, we fed them to the sheep and never spoke of it again.  His independent shenanigans were priceless, too, as he didn’t need help from me to be ornery.  In high school, even though I was dating “a very nice boy” by my grandmother’s standards, Jeff came into my room where Nate and I were appropriately sitting at an arm’s length.  He had a loaded shot gun in tow, and pumped it for effect—just in case.  I don’t think Nate every really recovered from that one.   Jeff used to get up at 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings, knowing that I was going to sleep in until at least 7, and shoot squirrels and rabbits from the roof, making sure to hit the tin on the hog house a couple of times to wake me.  There were times I wanted to strangle him, but was half his size and couldn’t do anything about it.  And then he would stand up for me as a bratty little freshman who was scared to death in a new school, protect me from “the bad boys” and listen to me cry when one of them broke my heart.  He let me tag along when he got his driver’s license and included me in social events when he could have easily left me at home.  He was obnoxiously loud, didn’t understand that farting in public wasn’t socially acceptable, and was brassy and rough around the edges—actually, I suppose all of these details are still painfully accurate.  He recently moved his family to another ranch in Arizona and is, by my standards, a bona fide cowboy.  Jeff and I turned out so differently as adults, but I know that he always has my back—he’ll fight my battles even when I don’t ask him to, and has never judged me for making choices that don’t align with how we were raised. I know he’d never want the life I chose and vice versa, but he sees beyond that and accepts me without asking a bunch of silly questions or making condescending comments.  The crazy thing about Jeff is that he’s still childish, unrefined, and throws reason and caution to the wind, but he loves unconditionally like no one else I’ll ever know and has helped me be courageous enough to choose what I want in life—and for that, I am eternally grateful.