I met some of my people today. They came and fixed my perpetually stopped up kitchen sink, replaced a water hogging, leaky, cracked, stained toilet and put a new metal roof on my tool shed and didn't charge me enough.
I made out a check payable to the local building supply company where my Grandpa had bought nails from the current owners Grandpa and left the amount blank so they could fill it in later after all of the necessary items needed to complete the job were purchased.
On breaks we talked about the price of horses, the fatness of commercially grown chickens and the wholesomeness of fresh cows' milk and the delight of homemade buttermilk and when it was paired with onion and cornbread was once called "supper".
Honest, hardworking, good tempered. You know, the kind of folks that made this country great.
I think about what my farrier once said after his mule-wrestling to get "Happy Jack Frost" to stand still while he had his hooves trimmed: "One lady I shoe for asked me if I thought it would be alright if her 18 year old son could cut the trees in her backyard down with a chainsaw." I told her, "that depends." He then told me a story about how when he was 14 years old and went to work with his Dad and Uncles and they put him out on an old road bed with a chainsaw, bottle of mixing oil and a baloney sandwich and told him to clear it by dark and they'd be back to pick him up later that evening.
My people have character or are characters. Not just a homogenized blend like "that skim milk you get from the grocery store these days"..it "tastes like water".
At least that's what my people say.
I think you chose well. Many of us would love such a life. You are certainly blessed!
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