The Best Place to Live

By Don Beman


Every now and then there’s a point where someone says to themselves this is the life, the best there ever was, and I want to take a picture of it, to preserve it, to keep it close to me.
What happens is that even if the picture is taken, it fades ever so slightly to a whole bunch just as the memories themselves fade and that magic moment loses the clarity it had when it occurred.
Well, most of the time that happens. Once in a while, there’s an exception.
Jessica Callens is one of those people who was able to capture that moment — lots of them — and preserve them so they remain clear and crisp in her own mind, and she can share them with others, possibly bringing back some of their own memories.
She wrote a book, “Down on the Farm,” subtitled “Real life stories and photographs by a Minnesota farm girl.”
Callens said sharing something special is what she had in mind, not just preserving something for her own benefit.
“I want people to be drawn into the stories and share the excitement and the peace,” she said. “It makes me happy when someone says they read my book and it reminded them of something from their own past.”
Callens calls her family “my inspiration” and rates farms as a great place to grow up and to live.
“I love the farm life,” she said.
The book itself contains both prose and poetry and covers everything from milking cows and farm auctions to the holidays and the elderly. If she had to pick one part as her favorite, she said it was the Old Farmer.
“It’s based on my grandfather,” she said.
The book is available at Bound to Read in Marshall, Barnes and Noble and multiple on line book stores as well as direct from the author at www.jessicacallens.com
Its easy to see where the book, and the person who wrote it, came from.
Turning in the lane of the Callens farm just east of St. Leo on a crisp fall afternoon, with the sun sinking slightly in the western sky of blue, is like going home even when it isn’t really your home. Sheep stand together in the shade of a tree on the other side of the yard fence from them. They partially block the lane and watch as the vehicle goes out and around them. Later, they graze off in another direction.
Once past the sheep and the stucco house, the lane turns to the left and the gate to the back of the house. You face the farm buildings and see activity — a horse in a small pen straight ahead, chickens pecking away as they roam toward the back of the yard to the right, and people doing what needs to be done at the moment on what is a real family farm. As Callens talked about her book, the rest of the family stopped for a break, then went back to their appointed tasks in an easy manner born of familiarity and family.
It was just like in the book.
Callens said she didn’t start out to write a book. But she did write stories about life on the farm. She said people suggested that she put them in a book. She said she found a publisher that looked promising and sent off her material.
“They liked it,” she said.
Callens said she has been writing one thing or another as long as she has been able to write.
In the early days it was mysteries.
“I used to go to the Canby library and I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys,” she said. “I wrote mysteries.”
Those stories evolved into tales about farm life, which she has also shared with the Minneota Mascot. Writing isn’t the only thing she does. She does her share of the family and farm work. The Callens Family is also known for being musicians and entertainers and at one time or another have performed throughout the area, sharing their entertainment and their inspiration. Jessica is also involved in the music of the St. Leo Catholic Church as choir director and organist.
If you haven’t counted them as you listened during a performance or saw them in a newspaper photo, there are nine children — six girls and three boys.
“I’ve realized what a treasure this family is. We see each other all day. We work together. We’re on the road together. Its wonderful,” she said.
With all the activity, there might appear to be little opportunity for writing. Callens said she did get a computer upstairs, but she finds herself pulled back into the family group when someone needs a shoe tied or she just moves back downstairs on her own to be where everyone is gathered.
“The silence upstairs kind of bugs me sometimes and I come back downstairs,” she said.
The Callens’ children are home schooled and Callens said that’s one reason she has had time to write through the years. The sooner she finished her school work, the more time she had for something else. Callens is now 19 and continues to write, study music and she also teaches piano.
She has no roadmap for what comes next. But she has an idea how it may work.
“I know that I want to keep on writing and I want to continue in music,” she said.
Callens also knows that she wants to live in a rural area.
“It doesn’t have to be here, but farm life is what I love — its very, very special,” she said.
The rest, she said, only God knows. She doesn’t. Yet.