Basket Full of Sweetness, and Stepping Back in Time

A quick trip to the feed store took me back in time...our feed store is a co-op. It is in the town square, an old store front, pottery crocks and butter chuns sit neatly on the shelves along with the modern needs of any farm. The wooden floors creak when you walk across them. Old men, with wrinkles as numerous as their years load your feed for you with a smile and talk about the weather and the crops. Its the place you buy your seed in spring and hay in winter.
Today children all lined up near a big old scale, gunny sacks in hand waiting their turn to have the pecans weighed that they had gathered and brought to the feed store to sell. 22 lbs announced the man. News worthy of a big smile for one little girl, 11 lbs for a tiny bit of a child, her gunny sack as large as she was. Sacks piled up in the corner, mounting up higher and higher as the children had their pecans weighed. It felt like a moment from Little House on the Prairie. I paid for my feed, had it loaded into the back of our station wagon, asked the man if he has to crack all those pecans and he said, "yup, but I have the help of a shelling machine." He told me he hoped no more kids came in today with more pecans, "too many now to do", he said.
I had a smile on my face all the way home, feeling good about what I had seen. Children picking up pecans for a little bit of money. Hope in their eyes for a good total. I wished for my camera but then some moments are just lost in a photo and in stopping to take out the camera.
The kittens are growing. Had to snap some pictures in the sunshine of the afternoon.