This was a wonderful weekend.
For some reason, something in me turned off, after all the whirling of my schedule and just settled.
It was gorgeous. Picture perfect weather.
We spent Saturday, once arrived at the farm, doing odds and ends. Bray off with the kids while his mother and I sipped champagne in the breeze of the back porch as the sun set and moon rose.
And then Sunday, oh Sunday, we had a full blown Louisiana crawfish boil. The kids cousins that they adore and worship were there from Austin and they ran around non-stop. The tables were set out on the back lawn and the kids played with the crawfish like it was Christmas morning. The bigs taught the littles how to keep from getting pinched and they all stood back as grandfather tossed them into the spicy boiling pot.
It was perfect. Local neighbors and family all in a muddle of crawfish, corn and potatoes, beer, and piles of paper towels well-used from all the peeling. Laughter from the older set mixed with kids squeals as they raced from backyard to front yard riding the buggy and digging for worms.
It was a gift of a day. Messy. Funny. Joyful. Just plain FULL. Full of life and characters and stories but completely devoid of technology and work and stress.
As the crawfish boil started to simmer down, Bray took a truck load of kids, 11 to be exact (how do people have 11 kids he asked as we bumped over the expanse of fields), on a hunt for wild blackberries. The Pied Piper of children and blackberry hunting – I believe he must have gone on three excursions. They tumbled out of the truck, bigs paired with littles, and exclaimed to no one in particular their magical discoveries. They used cups and cowboy hats to gather the beautiful dark berries and then dumped them all in an ever-filling metal pail. Two pails were filled and fingers were stained from the little hands eating as many as they contributed to the community bucket. (The smell of blackberry cobbler is wafting through my kitchen as I type.)
Simple pleasure. A late night arrival back in town last night with dozing children full of memories and sad to leave. I can tackle anything after 36 hours of sun and wind and land and animals and food and family.
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