I woke up yesterday, scrounged around for a clean t-shirt and quickly came to the conclusion it was laundry day. I’ve told you before, I like to do my laundry out at the farm. There are several reasons for that. First, the gas and water are free and who doesn’t like free stuff, right? Second, we have one of those new-fangled washers without an agitator. They are supposed to save power and water but you can only wash a third of the amount at a time, and the cycles last three times as long. So, I can’t figure out how that saves energy. Also, you need a degree in engineering to work the darned thing and no matter how many times Mr. FixIt shows me…I just don’t get it. It’s far easier and less stressful for me to make a bi-monthly pilgrimage out to the farm for a little R&R and laundry time.

Going out to the farm doesn’t mean I can just throw the laundry in the truck and go. I stay at least one, maybe two or three, nights on this trips and I need stuff. An overnight bag, toiletries, medications, reading material, my iPad-iPhone-Laptop and assorted chargers, my lap desk, my fuzzy blanket that I sleep with, plus the laundry. Then I have to stop at the store on the way to the farm and get food because we don’t keep much out there. It’s quite a chore to make the trek out there and then pack it all up to come back home.

I was emptying the groceries and assorted items from the truck yesterday when it dawned on me…I forgot the bag of clothes hangers. We partially dry most of our clothes and hang them up to finish to reduce wrinkling and shrinkage. I remembered going into the spare room to get the bag of hangers and somehow got distracted by something and left without it. It wasn’t going to do me much good to do laundry without them. And I hated the idea of driving back home to get them and coming back out to the farm…a total of sixty-six miles. 

I texted Mr. FixIt with my dilemma. I asked if he would bring the bag of hangers out along with the push mower. The grass was in desperate need of mowing and it will be raining for the next several days. Fortunately, I have a very accommodating husband. He brought my hangers and the mower. We took turns mowing and had it done in about ninety minutes. Then I fixed us a nice early supper. We sat out on the front porch to enjoy our meal while we admired our handiwork. The birds were singing. The mama robin was swooping back and forth gathering worms for her babies nesting in the rhododendron. The creek gurgled softly next to the house.

Everything is getting green. The wildflowers are starting to bloom. There are Trillium showing their white, three-petalled blossoms on the bank beyond the driveway. Mayapples, violets (Johnny Jump Ups), Bee Balm, Wild Blue Phlox, Snowdrops, White Clover, Dogwood, Redbud…and a variety of flowering shrubs I haven’t identified yet. I did find some of the Carolina Spicebush that I was afraid was lost to the guys who cleared out the creek last year. I’ll get more pictures today, if it isn’t raining too much.

I do so love it here. When I walked in yesterday, I took a deep breath. I swear…my grandma will live forever in that first breath when I walk in her home. It’s like she is right there in the kitchen, welcoming us in. As I lay here in her bed, propped up on the pillows with the window wide open, I wonder what she would think of the person I’ve become. I am so vastly different than I was when I last saw her in 1998. She didn’t get to see me at my best. She didn’t get to see me as a Christian. I know that would have pleased her to no end. 

I think she’d be proud of who I am now.

❤️

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

Isaiah 1:16-17 ESV