Mayberry ... ........May Be

The other day I took the kids and the dog and went on one of our frequent walks. I thought I would take you along since this is one of the reasons I really love our town.

We headed out for the one mile walk to the post office and I told the kids we could also pick up and ice cream at the general store. Nothing like a little ice cream to get us all motivated. We took our dog, Freckles, with us off leash. There is no reason to leash her on the low traffic roads around our house.

The first encounter we had was with a nice couple who stopped us to see where we lived. They were headed home from the church at the end of the street and had not run across us before. They were thrilled to hear a " nice family " had bought the Marshalls old house and welcomed us to the community. It is a bit of a late welcoming since we have lived here a year and a half, but a nice thought anyway.

Then we ran across Leon and his wife out messing around in their yard. We stopped to chat and he took us on a tour of the old store building where he grew up and which was the center of life in the town at one time. It was fun to hear the old stories and take a tour back in time. We also found out that a few people in town have chipper shredders and would be happy to loan us one so we will not have to rent one.

Heading around the bend and down the hill the family who has a pick your own orchard and also a pet camel where out working in their orchard. Of course the kids had to corner them and ask exactly how Matilda was doing as I dragged them across to the post office.

Now the post office is a whole nother can of worms. We don't have the luxury of mail delivery. Yes, that is right no post man comes any where near my house. In our rural area you have to haul your lazy carcass all the way up to the post office to get your mail every day. The postmistress wanted to know how our new goose was doing. Oh, and yes the dog went in the building with us.

We then headed across the parking lot to the general store. You can do your laundry, get your hair cut, buy something to eat from the grill, sell everything from your fresh eggs to your fresh produce, buy any type of grocery item that you need, rent movies, and get gas. We picked out an ice cream for all of us and chatted with the clerk. She had given me the number for the handy man who installed our fence and was wanting to make sure I was happy. Then we popped our heads into the salon and said "hello " to the hairsylist. She, of course, had to check out my oldests hair since she had just dyed it the day before. Her current client just loved our dog and made sure we knew she thought she was " the sweetest dog".

Heading home we ran across some people hauling brush to the dump. They stopped in the middle of the road and we talked about how nice a day it was turning out to be.

Then my oldest just had to ride ahead a bit so he could catch up with some friends and make important plans for playing later that day. You see their grandparents live next door so when they are visiting they hop the fence a play for a bit.


Like I said earlier this is why I love this town. We took a little stroll to get our mail and ice cream and it took us 2 hours. We ended up having a wonderful adventure and it seems to work that way every time. We may run across different people on different days but it is all a little, well Mayberry. Every walk seems to root us more firmly in the community. I wonder what the next one will hold.