People are scary... In the computer age, you don't know your neighbors the way you used to... or that is, you have millions more neighbors... people that you've never met that know all of your secrets. Sometimes this is great. I've met women all over the country through online playgroups for my two kids. We've visited with them, exchanged pen pal letters for the bigger one, and stickers for the little one. Holiday gifts have been sent and received, some random packages that you find on your doorstep when you come home for no reason other than your friends were thinking of you. We've supported one another through marriages, divorces, new babies and loss of babies. The internet is a grand thing. Its kind of fun going through customs into Canada, how long will you be staying? Just the day. Purpose of visit? Seeing friends. How do you know these friends? Umm... we met on the internet.... I usually skip that answer and go with we're part of a parenting group!
So why is it, that I go to buy something on Craigslist, and find myself paralyzed with fear? Oh, right... psychotic sickos.. that's why. So we plan ahead. I'm buying something for $1... it is perfectly reasonable that this woman wouldn't want to drive to meet me somewhere (cause there goes the profit margin!), so she gives me her home address. I run it through google maps, print it out, set it on the ledge to the stairs and leave the house. (Note to my friends, if I ever turn up missing, I don't have my directions with me... that's my "insurance" policy, memorize the directions and leave them at home for the hubby to find). The woman's house is all of 4 miles away through 3 backroads (we're kind of neighbors). When I arrive ten minutes later than I planned (oops), she comes to the door and she asks the inevitable "did you find it OK?" This is where I excercise my insurance policy "oh yes, good thing it was easy to get here, since I left my directions at home!" Now she knows that I've left a trail right to her doorstep if she pulls any funny stuff. I pull out my dollar and we make the exchange.
Then she surprises me. I'm still on guard, I don't know this woman. She asks, "do you want some perennials to take with you?" I only brought my dollar with me, so I politely decline, when she explains that she rescued these from her friends greenhouse, they were headed for the trash, and she wants to give them a second chance. We proceeded to load my car up with a flat of creeping phlox, a flat of portulaca, a HUGE hibiscus, and 2 more flats of perennials. As I'm about to get into the car with the kids, she asks if they'd like to see some chickens. Now my guard is up again. But, the kids want to see chickens, what can you do.
Off we go up into her yard, where she has 4 week old chicks, and some 8 week old chicks, and a batch of 4 freshly hatched bantams with their momma (and daddy and aunts) and a big (HUGE) ol Rooster named Rodney, and a bunch more up in a little shed that she let out to run around beneath a mulberry tree. My kids, not known for being brave, boldly followed the largest chickens right over to the mulberry tree and stood in the middle while the birds munched. The rooster came over and joined us for some of our visit. They were in awe! She had chickens with funny hair doos and a bunch of eggs she'd already collected. She talked to me about how the chickens would get broody if she didn't pick their eggs up soon enough, so she'd have to let them hatch. She showed us themomma bantam sitting right on her day old chicks.The kids laughed as Rodney the rooster attempted to... ahem.... get a piggie back ride As we were headed back to the car, we saw even more chickens. They'd just built them a new coop. and put it out under the mulberry tree. Already thinking like a farmer, my big guy noticed that the holes in the chicken wire were big enough for the mulberries to fall through, and my little one pointed out the rectangle of picked clean grass beside the cage (where they had been the day before.). And then we left. So what started out as an overcautious trip to pick on one silly little thing turned into a lesson on farming for my kids, and landscape work for me. A little fear seems healthy, as long as you can still put it aside when the time comes!
Editing to add a pic of our columbine rock garden...
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