We started our weekend early. Seeing it’s summer and all. Jett had a sleepover Thursday night. I always enjoy having extra kids over. There’s always lots of noise and activity and many rules are lifted…for a limited time. Although they spend much time playing indoors since it’s so incredibly hot outside, the late afternoon/early evening is generally spent outside running around, jumping on the trampoline, blowing bubbles, conversing with cats, chasing chickens, squirting the hose, doing flips on the hammock and taking turns on the tire swing. Since it’s prime season, we also went blackberry picking which the kids love despite the thorns. I don’t know which they like more — eating them or seeing their fingers turn blue.
Most of Jett’s friends don’t live out in the country like us, but “in town.” We’re 15-20 minutes away in any direction from the nearest cities of note — Moultrie to the north, Thomasville and Quitman to the south. Now to be fair, we do live about 6 minutes from the town of Pavo, but frankly there isn’t much there aside from the post office, police station, feed store, requisite Dollar Store (amazing, they really are everywhere) and the one-room library. It’s kind of sad. And there are thousands of small towns that were once vibrant and alive which are now crumbling and dying. When I drive through, I always try to picture what they were like in their heyday. I think it might have been a cool place to live, but considering these towns are decaying because people leave for greener pastures, maybe I’m being too idealistic. Then again, maybe many were quietly driven out by economic and political forces. That’s not too idealistic.
Since we’re so far out, we do a lot of driving. Even with these ridiculous gas prices. I’m so used to driving 15-20 minutes to get anywhere, I don’t even blink an eye when it comes to driving an hour or more to visit someplace. Today we drove to Albany for my cousin’s daughter’s 4th birthday (princess party, of course). It’s about an hour drive each way. There’s no traffic; it’s a scenic drive — no problem. As much as gas is, I still pump it in and drive where I want or need like a good American. It’s tough to commute out here and there’s no public transportation. We’re looking for a new used vehicle and I’m hoping we can find a diesel that we can convert to veggie oil or something similar. I also plan on getting a horse or two so I suppose if gas gets too crazy we’ll always have backup transportation.
Back at the farm, we had to repair the mower again. Grrr. I’m about to invest in more goats — it takes a bit longer to get the grass cut short, but they’re more reliable and less trouble than our mower. All they ask is a few pears now and then and access to some leafy greens and water. They’re very self-reliant. The chickens seem to be acclimating to their new diet as we got 6 (!) eggs today, as opposed to the 0-2 they’ve been contributing. I gave them new bedding yesterday and I swear the cushier their laying box is, the more eggs they lay. I guess everyone and everything just needs a little reward and comfort now and then for all their hard work.