Country Roads, Take Me Home 11/13/2022

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Sometimes I just have to laugh at my little life.  That may have sounded like I am having a tough time of things or that I am laughing just to keep from crying. At least, that’s how it sounded to me when I just re-read the sentence. I assure you there is nothing farther from the truth. I love my little ridiculously rural and endearingly small town existence.  Some days though the significance of how foreign my life might be to those who live in a different scenario really hit home.  This past week I was simply going about my merry way, not doing anything in particular that is out of the ordinary for me and my family.  But in doing so the sheer magnitude of whatever the appropriate adjective is without me repeating myself about southern, country living.  So yes, I am about to subject you to some moments in my week that tell my little tale. Your own life will determine if what I write here makes you chuckle or furrow your brow. So let us see.

It started with an ATV ride down the tiny little roads around my home. Some of these roads are paved and some are the ever so common orange of Alabama red clay.  I know you would think it would be actually red but it looks now and has always looked to me far more on the orange scale of things. The corresponding hand and clothing staining agrees with my color analysis.  Yes, it’s just dirt. You can wash it off. But please do not expect that white t-shirt to still be white. The best you can hope for is the shade of circus peanut candy if it was a significant stain, or some tone of very warm beige if it was a minimal amount of dirt application.  We did in fact experience some of said dirt on our trek but I will get to that at the appropriate time.

We had two very specific tasks in mind. We had some leftover carrots that we wanted to feed to our neighbor’s goats and we needed to go talk to the turkeys.  I know that second thing might be a bit outlandish but, have you ever talked to turkeys?  They are very conversational if you can speak to them in sounds they understand. I am not trying to toot my own horn but I make a pretty good hen call so the gobblers that live a road or two over from our home tend to answer me pretty well. It seems though, that my daughter has learned to mimic my sounds quite well because on this particular trip he would only respond to her.  I pretended to be proud of her skills but deep down I was a tad offended that this Tom wasn’t responding to me like he used to.  She was super pleased she got a gobble every time.  It’s good that her luck with the turkeys went so well considering that the goats looked at our carrots with utter disdain and didn’t eat them. Don’t believe the old adage that goats will eat anything. Apparently they are far pickier than that.

Our next stop took us to the dead end of the road with those turkeys.  There are a few scattered homes down this road but at its end there is a small stream. It is here that we have our first experience with the orange dirt.  My daughter has to throw rocks into the deeper pool of the stream. The bigger and the deeper the sploosh the better. She found the most appropriate rocks for her tosses while I just took pictures. The scenery is lovely there now as the leaves are changing. There are so many really lovely trees. The Sweetgums really show off this time of year with their burgundies and purples. They do the best they can to redeem themselves for their little spiked balls of agony that they scatter about. Even the patches of the eternally devouring kudzu that are dying off now are bright yellow as cold weather approaches. 

Making our way to the next stop we ran into something that for some reason struck me as humorous.  The road was blocked by another ATV having a chat with someone in a truck. I chuckled thinking this is definitely a country life issue as they moved on to let us pass. We waved to them since they lived two houses from us. An ATV traffic jam has to be an adorably rural dilemma. But we turned back when we reached the end of an old dirt road that ends at a spot where there used to be a bridge but is now just an overgrown embankment with a faded guard rail. I don’t know that the rail is all that necessary now to warn people about their not being a bridge since it’s been ages since it has been gone.  Not to mention to actually get to the creek you’d have to drive though such brush your vehicle would be stopped long before you got to any danger.  There is a sign here that this area is used by the Gold Prospectors Association of America and warns that you may have to show your membership if you are found wandering about in these woods.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to bring a pan grab some dirt and see what happened. But since I am a good citizen and not a member of the GPAA I shan’t. My daughter’s only interest in this area was to pile up the dirt (resulting in the aforementioned orange hands) and inform me she was making them for ants. She poked holes in the top with her fingers and said then they could just crawl right in without so much work. She is a gentle soul that one.

So we headed home as the sun was setting. We tried to talk a few horses into trying our carrots but they couldn’t be bothered to stop grazing to let us get close enough to them.  We passed cows and dogs.  We saw people out enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. We commented on how in the winter this would be a pleasant ride as the motor is right behind the seat so our backs and rears were getting rather toasty.  We gazed at the view of miles and miles of forest from the tops of hills.  We worried about a chicken with a limp that we saw.  We laughed at baby goats bouncing around from their moms to hay bales and back.  We got home pleased with our trip.  I couldn’t help but think how blessed I am to be able to live the life I live.  It is simple but beautiful. And I happen to think, that even if this type of living isn’t one’s cup of tea, I don’t know that you could take this ride without something stirring down inside you, and whatever it is, it feels familiar.  And to me, it feels like home.