In my little town...

When I first dated Nicolas, fifteen years ago, I had mostly lived in big northern cities. Except for college, and some time in the near-to-Boston suburb of Newton, I'd lived in Boston and NY. When I moved to Atlanta I didn't have a car, or air-conditioning, in a city where both are pretty necessary for survival. Atlanta was supposed to be a pit stop on my way to Seattle and graduate school......

This, I fear, is about to turn into a major digression - about meeting and falling in love with my Belgian farmer. I'll save that for another night.

I'll just skip to the point (that I would have spent paragraphs of your time, those who were still here, getting to. ) The point is that I was a big-city girl with ignorant ideas about small town life. Even when I had already moved here, I still hung on to my big-city ways. I would farm during the day and then commute in to Atlanta to direct plays at night. I got my hair cut in Atlanta. I frequented the Atlanta thrift stores and bars and movie theaters. After having kids, I brought them into the city to hang out with my city friends' kids and felt the need to do city things. Just this past spring, I still drove Jesse an hour away to take a homeschool class he wanted to do, once a week. But over time, it has gotten less appealing to drive so far, not to mention the point that gas has started to become a luxury item.

I am becoming even more aware of and grateful for the people and resources out here. Actually, there are a lot. I can go weeks now without going into Atlanta. I think it may have been a month since my last visit. That's got to be a record.

This weekend was a great example of how much we can do out here within a ten-mile radius. On Saturday morning, we met local friends at the 6,400 acre Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center for a butterfly talk and walk. Charlie Elliot, only ten minutes down the road, sponsors several free workshops about nature and animals (plus camps, bird competitions, volunteer opportunities). The southern gentleman talking yesterday was filled with information about the butterflies that we could hope to find in our area. When the talk ended and we left the conference room to find the cool butterflies that we'd seen in his slides, I was very excited to finally be able to give one a name. Gillen, maintaining his cool on the very hot day, was eager to check them off on our butterfly list.

But the butterflies must have heard that we were coming (or they were all hanging out in Claudia or Gillen's gardens). We only found one.

We did see a bunch of dragonflies:I am looking forward to going to the dragonfly talk at Charlie Elliott in August.

The boys were just happy to find good temporary walking sticks:Later that day, we went to another nearby small town - Rutledge, where our kids (except for Jesse, who had been sick) had taken part in an art camp all week. The camp culminated in a celebration on Sat. afternoon and evening that included a blow up water slide, hot dogs and corn for the camp members, a short version of High School Musical (that they had put together in four days!) and all of their art work displayed in Rutledge's center of town square.

This should hold them off for a while on any need for a far-away water park:The following are three pictures from their High School Musical production, which was so sweet.
Some communal food art that the camp created- our more overgrown okra made an appearance here:
They created several of these sculptures, all with recycled materials. This one is from Gillen's group. The reason that we have cool opportunities like this, locally, is because of amazing people like these below. Ed and Molly are the couple that sponsored this camp. They live in Rutledge now, where they have an art studio and a sandwich/ice cream shop (housed in a train caboose that they moved there - this shouldn't just be parenthetical - it is so cool). They used to live right here, where I now sit, under this tin roof. While living here, Ed created this house's side porch, back deck, and the entire second floor and staircase, with his own hands, and his increasingly aching back. Their businesses pulled them to Rutledge. I drove by this house, eleven years ago, and was enchanted by the landscaping, and by the flowers that were painted on the windows. I never dreamed that we could live here. It turned out that not a lot of other people appreciated this old house, or even gave it a chance once they found out it didn't have air-conditioning. Ed and Molly let us rent it until we could buy it. They too are from Mass. Plus, I think they saw how much we appreciated their hundred year old, well loved home. And they are just good people.
Below is Eva, who put up the camp. She also works on our farm and teaches yoga in all of the surrounding towns. Yet another example of a talented, community-minded, generous local. I am appreciating our life out here, this moment. It would be nice to have a movie theater more nearby, or a bigger group of very local, like-minded home schoolers. But I will bide my time. I remember the years when I wondered if we'd have air conditioning. We got the air several years ago so I will wait optimistically on the rest.