Sometimes people daydream about country life as serene, quiet, and slow. Living over 60 miles from the nearest Target and even a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor may lead you to believe life is boring and/or isolated. I suppose there are moments like that, but few and far between.
My experience is that there is always someone calling for a get together or just dropping by. The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of examples. Just two weeks ago our town of 90 hosted thousands for the biannual international pilgrimage of treasure hunting - also known as Texas Antiques Week with Junk-o-Rama prom as the social highlight.
The John Evans Band lays down the rockabilly...and then...Two Tons of Steel shows up. Meanwhile....Miranda Lambert starts dancing along in the crowd within arm's reach.
Seriously!?!
Forgive me the terrible phone photos.
For two weeks, twice a year, people come from all over the country to shop in fields and old dance halls. There's live music, book signings, blogger luncheons, and fashion shows. Sometimes it almost feels like a sort of SXSW of boho living.
Even as the crowds subside and the tents are packed up, country life bustles on.
The following Tuesday I got a phone call from a friend who owns a wonderful family dairy - The Jersey Barnyard. For those of you who reside in dixie, it's the home of Belle (as in Blue Bell), the singing cow of our youth. They were in the midst of a magazine photo shoot for Cowboys and Indians and needed a few kids to show off their educational/petting zoo side. So I grabbed my little one from day care and she got to milk her first cow. I doubt you'll see any of her in the published article as she acted deadly afraid of cow udders until the photographer had moved on. Once she discovered there was milk in there...she had to stick her hands in the spray and play with it.
In the days following, it was time to prepare for the Barndance. Three years ago we built a dance floor in the barn and now twice a year...it's a line dancing extravaganza. Beside cleaning out the space which is a working barn every other day of the week, preparation involves the time-honored tradition of walking an invitation over to the new neighbors with a jar of homemade marmalade. Seriously, who gets to do stuff like this anymore? They loved it! She gave us big hugs for the welcome and brought her whole family.
The dance floor was packed with family and friends as my cousin led classic line dances of the 80s.
Sometimes we wonder if our uber-utilitarian German-farmer great-grandparents would roll their eyes at holding a hoe-down out here, but then I hear stories from older locals who remember coming over to play dominoes or to help with other farm chores. Life out here is less like a CountryTime Lemonade ad and more like, well...I'm not sure yet, but something else.
We're along for the ride.
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