Living with my adult children wasn't the retirement I imagined. It's crowded but wonderful.

• My husband and I retired to our Oregon farm full time.
• We now share the farmhouse with our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.
• Multi-generational living has brought both chaos and deep joy.

When I witnessed Maria and Stephen being tender and silly with their son, when Stephen and I cooked dinner together, and when I stood under a star-splashed sky, the inconveniences of us all living in one home felt trivial. I was grateful we made this move.

I grew up living with multiple generations

It’s natural to me to have family on one property. I partially grew up on a family ranch in Tenino, Washington, with grandparents, parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Each family had their own trailer — single-wides with tinny front doors and thin walls. I shared a room with my two sisters in bunk beds stacked three high, me in the middle bunk.

I spent weekends and chunks of summers on that ranch, romping with my posse of sisters and cousins, riding horses, swimming in the icy river, teasing chickens, and building forts out of hay bales in the red barn. I watched calves, colts/fillies, and piglets being born. Countless hours were spent roaming in the woods, talking to fairies, following my imagination. I got to be myself in dusty Wranglers and mud-covered Justin cowboy boots. The Bar P, as it was called, balanced out living in the suburbs with all its rules and the ways I was expected to be a polite girl. The ranch was freedom.

Half a century later, my husband and I created our own multi-generational farm.

My son, daughter-in-law, and 2-year-old grandson live in Southern California and visit when they can. We’ll make room for them if they want farm life too.

Last summer, my son and his family stayed with us, soon after my daughter’s son was born. While my 2-year-old grandson fed the ducks and “drove” the tractor, my daughter nursed her newborn, my son-in-law grilled delicious burgers, and my son told the best stories — my heart boomed. I thought of my grandparents gathering us all around the picnic table or the campfire, and understood to the bone why they cherished having their progeny together. How ranch time was bliss time for them, like it was for me now. How freedom is being outdoors with my family, with room to ponder the sky and dream.