ONE OF THOSE DAYS

 I really didnt know what to expect for today when I made plans this week to visit with an internet garden forum friend.

Last week she had posted a thread stating she had some pepper plants that she would really love a home for before they became compost fodder.

I , not so suprisingly, am with plants like some are with animals, I simply must save all I can with in my power and these plants definately were within my power range!

I had briefly met this lady once before at a gardening festival, and had corresponded by postal mail in a seed swap, but this would be my first face to face

and for me face to faces sometimes frighten me....for the most part because I have releaved myself of all but one mask( the work mask). You know me, the what you see is what you get type.

So, this morning I loaded the dog , the paper with my directions,  my planting flats from the hot house, an heirloom cucumber, a thai gourd, and a black pepper plant from my garden for the hour trip through an area of my Missouri hills I was unfamiliar with.

I wanted to bring my camera, but I remembered from our brief meeting before that she did not care for pictures, and me being the ever clicking digital nut that I am, felt it would be to much for me to behave  knowing I had it with me!

I wish now that I had. If only to record the drive itself, up 65 across to Nixa, through Clever, and onto Hurley. What was an hour drive seemed like minutes winding through old farming towns, across rivers and creeks to a little ole town that boasts the WW cafe, home of the best pie around!

I made one stop, just to confirm directions, at a real grocery store, that sat across the road from a feed store and down the road from at least two churches. Everyone waved as I past cars, farms and houses with folks setting on their porches. "K turns into A and T's but just go straight...." and they weren't lying!

When I reached my destination, the whole minutes to hours thing flipped as I walked into a tiny hunderd year old home( in which not one inch of it was  plumb as she put it, she just had it re roofed she joked) with a root cellar in back.....our visit seem so short as we worked our way through her garden, sampling rattle snake green beans( which I WILL be growing nest year, absolutely marvelous and made my tummy feel good) and basil and pineapple tomatillas. Ahh the joy of organic gardening organic living, pick and eat, pick and eat. We talked peppers, we talked sweet potatoes(which I also got to bring home starts of),and garlic( yup got that too).  I was amazed at( again) the similarities of another gardeners garden.....to my own. She had been there now for three years, it gave me so much hope, right there on the side of a hill on the border of the woods, just like me. Using those things that nature and refuse provide...green living as they call it now, and of course   straw bales. She uses hay, I use straw....subtle differences.

The whole morning I did not have to search for one thing to say, and as the afternoon aproached( she had an appointment at 1) we barely had time to get in the fact that I grew garlic chives and that on our next visit I would bring her some , discuss the three varities of mulberry trees that bordered her piece of land, and the fact that I was a baker and could make cream puffs( though she could not eat them...no glutens)

As I drove away, I could not help but think, a year ago I could have missed this day..... this drive, these people, this life.

I stopped back in at the grocery store on my way back home, left the car running and went inside, picked up a treat for the dog and a pop for myself...."did ya find it" they asked...." yes sir I did"

A year ago I was wondering if I had what it took to even do this, was I nuts.....

From time to time, I still have those thoughts, when I miss my family and long time friends and kooshie comforts, like my water bed, and carpet!

Today I realize, I AM actually homesteading, even if I made it here with a few of my posessions in tact, and that is why it takes so long to get things done, by the rules of this fast paced world we have created, doing things without big machinery by hand(without a bank loan...ha) takes an enormous amout of effort and sweat, but it does create a bond, almost a cosmic bond with others that have done or are doing the same thing, as silly as that may seem to some, so naturally simple it is.