That's what friends are for.....

How blessed am I to live in the Ozarks!  It isn't as if I never had friends when I lived in other parts of the country.  But true friendship takes on a whole new meaning when people you hardly know gather together and give you a hand when you need it.  Case in point is shown in the picture above.  This was our home-to-be in the Irish Wilderness just about 40 years ago this coming summer.  I was pregnant.  Andy was trying to get the house ready for us to move in the following summer.  And we had no roof.  But our Wilderness neighbors, without us even hinting that we needed help, arrived on the scene one fine Saturday morning and started to work.  The ladies brought dinner and the men brought their ladders and nails and know-how.  Before nightfall there was a fine roof on our house and we were well on our way to making a home to live in.   When I struggled to find words to thank these people for what they had done for us, this is what they said. That's what friends are for....
Over the years I have remembered that very first act of kindness that was given to us in that tight-knit community.  And here in Gainesville I can see the same spirit alive and well.  In a few weeks we will have the Relay for Life.  This past year has seen all sorts of fundraisers for sick babies and their parents, neighbors suffering from awful illnesses, families torn and battered by life-gone-wrong.  We are together here in the world.  For better or for worse.  And somehow we will make it work out.  Because that's what friends are for.

May Days

As I was traveling this week I spied a church sign that read May is God's Apology for February.

And I said to myself, "Indeed!"

May in the Ozarks.  It can be fickle, as any time during the change of seasons can be.  One day you shiver and pile on the extra sweater or coat.  The next you are sweltering in eighty degree weather that threatens to give you heat stroke.

May is the month we love.  Early mornings bring us sunrises that blind you with golden beams outlining each dew-tipped blade of grass.  Mist rises from the river valley like smoke from dampened fires.  Birds greet the day with  trilling songs to call their mates to nest and bower. 

At noon we seek the cooler shadows down under the trees.  Moist earth crumbles in your fingers as you test the garden plot.  Do I dare put out my tender plants now?  Will frost some night creep up and bite the budding flowers on tomato and cucumber?  Can I bear the heartache of planting again?  And again?

Early evening brings the promise of rain.  We need it badly now.  We listen to the weather forecast and try to plan for the next day or two.

And the mowing.  Always the mowing.  Just as soon as you cut the grass it hops up again, twice as thick and three times as tall. 

I'll not complain.  Spring has returned with green hills and swaying grass, lovely mornings and spectacular sunsets. 

May is here.  Thank You God.