City Girl? Country Girl?

I think I am officially a part-time resident of Roswell, Georgia. 

I now have a primary care physician here and I like him. Already he has made a difference in my health. Today I began a four-week schedule of physical therapy. I have joined a gym and I go there once a week to walk in the water at the pool. 

Tonight I realized I am truly learning to live as a city person. I called and ordered dinner for myself, drove over in the dark of night, and picked it up. I don't like to drive at night, and driving in the city at night is a little scary with all the traffic and bright lights in my eyes. But I made it and did not get lost.

If you live in a city or have lived in a city, you probably smile at my being concerned about going out at night and bringing home my dinner. But I have always lived a rural life and I love it. I can drive all over Clay County NC day or night with no qualms. And when we complain about the traffic it is because the summer people have arrived for a few months. I might have to wait a few minutes before I can drive out on Highway 64 and head to Hayesville five miles down the road. I admit, I don't drive at night much anymore even in North Carolina, because my vision is not so good. Here in Roswell, I ride with my sister or her husband driving. My car sits in the yard covered with pollen most of the time. 

But this week I decided to get out and do some things on my own. The exciting part of that is I have begun my deck garden here like the one I have at home. The shocker is how expensive everything is in the city. But I forgot that as I potted plants and got my hands really dirty again.

Got my hummingbird feeder up but so far no one has visited

I saw these cute little birds that hang on my pots and love the owl and the cardinal.

As you can see, a lovely little lake lies beyond my deck. Today the ducks were loud and flapping away.

Lexie loves our deck and is very happy to be outside when I am working with the plants.

In the big blue pot is an azalea with some creeping jenny at the base of it. It will be pretty. 
The yellow flower claims to be a pollinator and will entice birds, bees, and butterflies.

Although I plan to go back to Hayesville for most of the summer months, I will come back here often to visit, see my doctor and spend time in my comfortable apartment. I am so fortunate! Gay has a housekeeper come every couple of weeks and she cleans my place as well. In Hayesville, it has become very hard for me to find help. Wish I could do all my housework as I once did, but sadly I have to depend on others for the hard stuff.

Her is another of my poems for you. 

Gardening Then and Now, July 2015

                 By Glenda Council Beall 

Once tall azaleas sprawled
across my ground, pinks, whites
and lavenders. Outside my door,
blue hydrangeas bloomed.

Gardenias’ fragrance filled
my yard space, sent me back
in time to bell-shaped skirts,
verandahs in a fantasy southland.

Today I water red geraniums,
pink petunias in pots stacked
and spread across my porch perched
above tree limbs decorated with yellow
finches, Carolina wrens, and blue buntings.

I watch tomato vines, squash blossoms,
a spineless melon plant climb up wire cages.
No longer do I wipe sweat, kneel on hard soil,
bend to dig in dirt, and pray the deer don’t eat

my seedlings. From my easy chair, I observe
my favorite things in my container garden—hovering
hummingbirds, butterflies, and squirrels. I smile
as a doe and two young fawns pass by below.

Ten Most Stressful Cities - Not Hayesville

I couldn’t help but notice that Hayesville, NC was not mentioned in the Ten Most Stressful Cities in the country this week.


That is one of the reasons we moved here. Tiny town, in a small county in the mountains where we felt we were in a time warp. Back to the late fifties, I thought.

And even now, fifteen years later, I love this quiet, laid back lifestyle. I don’t know how folks live in a big city. Barnes and Noble book stores, Target, nor fancy restaurants are worth the traffic, the lack of neighbors who reach out and care, and the knowledge that the good people of the town outnumber the bad and the good folks are there for you.

While my sister in Atlanta likes the anonymity of shopping at Publix where nobody knows her name, I enjoy going to our one supermarket and running into several people I know. Recently I saw Alice, my neighbor, with an older woman who turned out to be the mother of Alice’s partner. Immediately we began talking, and soon I found that Dot was from near my mother’s home town. Within the next few weeks Dot was signed up for one of my classes. Now she and I are friends all because we met in the supermarket.
I doubt I’d ever have met her if we had been in a big city store. I doubt I would have known Alice was my neighbor.

Yesterday my sister from Atlanta visited me. Before she left to go home I noticed a low tire on her car. We drove down to Rich’s garage. He has been extremely helpful to me since my husband passed away. Although he was busy, he stopped and removed the nail and plugged her tire.

“Five dollars, Ma’am,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.”
And soon she was on her way.

Although we know each other and know more than we need to know about each other, the folks in our town are not malicious in their gossip. At least I’ve not found anyone to be so. Most of the talk regards concern for each other. “Have you heard that Alma is back in the hospital?” I overheard a woman asking a man in line at Ingles. “Yes, she fell last week and I think she might have a broken leg.”

Best of all, I can travel anywhere in our county and feel safe. I don’t know of any “bad” neighborhoods. People are open and friendly. They smile and speak to me when I meet them on the street or in a store even if we don’t know each other personally. We see each other around town and feel we know each other.

The youth of our area make me proud. Young men open doors for me and are gracious when they do. In a restaurant, eating alone and doing some writing, I was surprised to have a young man who worked there come over and begin a conversation. He was curious about my writing, and soon he was seated and telling me about his life, his problems and his decision to go to college in the fall. I don’t think this would ever happen in a big city. First of all, I’d not likely become friendly with a teenager in Atlanta. I wouldn’t be comfortable. Our crime rate is low in our little town. Not like the city I moved from in Georgia. When I go back there to visit, I’m warned to hold my purse close to my side and keep an eye out for anyone around me. No one ever says that in Hayesville.

I hired a couple of local high school boys to move some furniture for me, a heavy chest had to go downstairs and another moved upstairs. They resisted the twenty dollars I paid them saying “This is too much. You don’t have to pay us that much.” Respectful and generous -- someone instilled good values in these boys. 

I am a small town girl, a rural life girl, a person who loves the open spaces, fields of green that go on and on until they reach the trees along the creek. When the sun is setting over the mountains and glistens pink on the lake, I offer my thanks for the life I have in this wonderful place.

I LOVE THE COUNTRY LIFE

I think I came into the world loving animals. I remember Mother keeping little baby chicks in a box by the heater. We weren't allowed to play with them. And somewhere in my early memory, I see a very little piglet, all pink and noisily sucking a bottle, the milk running from his mouth. The runt was often separated from the litter and fed by hand. He was not strong enough to wiggle his little body in between his siblings to nurse.

I will not eat veal because I could not put it into my mouth without seeing the precious face of a calf like the ones who lived in our barn. Always curious, the sweet little muzzle would poke through the fence and if I extended my little girl finger, the calf's rough tongue gently wrapped and pulled it into his mouth where it was sucked like kids suck a candy cane.

I've read where the calves raised for veal are kept in a tiny space with no opportunity to run outside, kick up their heels and enjoy the short time before being killed.

Pam's Jack. I love this face.

Having always lived in rural areas, having grown up with animals, having had pets, dogs, cats, horses, I can't imagine living in a large city such as New York or Los Angeles. Like Barbara Mandrell, I was country when country wasn't cool. And I love the country life. It is a rich life where, with today's technology, I can enjoy my love of learning things I don't experience in my daily life, and I can enjoy the joys of nature that I see every day. Sitting on our deck we hear the donkeys a few miles down the road when they break into their afternoon braying that goes on and on.

Just a short drive takes us to a Lama farm where we can learn all about this animal who was not among our farm animals fifty years ago.

I can sit in my living room and see and hear the most beautiful voices in the world on my television set, or visit countries I'd love to see by simply tuning to the Travel Channel. It matters not where we live today. No longer are the children in most rural areas limited in their opportunities for education.

Our rural county, Clay, in NC has been rated one of the best school systems in the state. I think this proves that tons of money is not what makes a good school. It depends on good caring teachers, the community leaders and the parents who take time to be a part of their childrens' lives.

I wish more people cared for the animals in their lives. We face the euthanization of many dogs and cats in today's economy as families move away and leave their domestic pets because they can't feed them anymore or for whatever reasons. Owning a pet is a commitment that some folks don't take seriously. No one should take a dog or cat unless they plan to keep and care for that pet as long as the pet lives. If they cannot, for some reason, take care of the pet, the kind thing to do is turn the animal in to the local shelter or find a good home with someone they trust.

I believe the Creator meant for us, the more intelligent species, to care for those animals in our care. That is why I kept Pretty Thing, my 32 year old horse until her quality of life was gone. And putting her down was one of the saddest days of my life. I'll never forget it.

Those are the joys and the sorrows of rural living and I'd not want to change one thing about my country roots.

If you like cute photos of farm animals, visit Pam on Georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com