Weekend guests...

.... and for a change, our guests were real people, not the local wildlife. Miss C and one of her friends got here early Saturday morning, spent the day, stayed the night, then left in mid-afternoon today for the drive back to Clear Lake.

C had her kayak tied up on top of her car, and the kids drove to the lake on Saturday after breakfast for swimming and boating. C knows better than to ask me to join her in anything to do with the water, so while they went to the lake, I went to the little resale shop on the way into town, then drove further into town and bought some extra groceries. I knew those kids weren't going to enjoy a nice big salad after a day on the lake.

Every time C drives out here, whether by herself or with a friend, she gets to talking about "life in the city" and how it's getting too big, too busy, too crowded, too everything. She is a small-town girl at heart, and she would be perfectly content taking care of horses and cows, and she would truly love to raise a pig. Not for meat, mind you, but for a pet. C stays in the guest rooms over the barn, and she loves it there. Two bedrooms above the barn, so plenty of room for her and her friend, and last night they were playing Dominoes "till the coyotes started howling," and she said they had the mega-set of Dominoes spread all over the living room floor up there.

The kids picked a huge bowl of plums from the trees out by the barn, and had just as much fun eating them as they did picking them. C's friend took pictures of the ears of corn on the stalks, the roses blooming, and the grapes growing on the vines out back. They sat on the fence and watched the sun setting, they sat in the breeze on the front porch after dinner, they walked down the hill and fed apple slices to our neighbor's horses. They found things to do even when there really wasn't all that much to do because it was so blessed hot these past two days. I love the fact that C has always chosen her friends well.... all of her friends like life the same way-- simple.

Before we went upstairs to bed last night, I saw the kids out on the back porch of the barn, shining the big flashlight down into the pastures-- C told me this morning that they were trying to find raccoons or foxes, coyotes or deer-- anything on four legs that comes out at night. Actually, we couldn't really see the kids in the dark last night.... all I saw was the large beam of the flashlight and I figured out what they were doing. This was the first time that C brought her friend S here, and she called me when they got back to Clear Lake this evening. She said that they hadn't even driven down our hill yet and S was asking her "So... when are we coming back here?"

Everybody loves it here. No matter their age, no matter their background... doesn't matter where they live. One visit here and they're hooked on our little corner of the Hill Country.