Saturday Evening

The house is filled with the aroma of frying cabbage and steaming carrots and it smells good, but there is something even more pleasant than the aroma, it is the knowledge that last year when it was fall time, Emery worked the soil, and I planted tiny carrot seeds and set out baby cabbage plants that tonight is food for our table. There is spinach too and fresh carrot bread along with some scrambled eggs. Everything except some of the makings for bread, were grown right here.
The house is toasty warm with the heat of the wood stove, the smell of mesquite and oak wood, drifting across our land. Baby goats all snuggled up in a mound of hay, close to Cinnamon. She has been taking great care of Licorices kid. I call the three of them, Faith, Hope and Charity.

Emery and I chat about this or that, its an easy kind of talk. We are best friends. Candles burn on the table and the smell of kerosene lingers in the back hall from just blowing out the lantern used to finish up the chores. Tender plants covered. Harry laying on his blanket in his house. He would rather be outside than in, he has taken on the job of watch dog and sees it as his prime objective to keep anything from getting "his" goats.

Wool socks on my feet, flannel skirt long and cozy, shawl wrapped around my shoulders as I type. Table set, waiting for Emery to get back from an errand. It will be a quiet evening. Just the kind I like, but at times it almost seems as if I can hear memories in all these rooms and down the hall. Children's voices...clumsy boy steps, and girls giggles... those were wonderful times too.

How blessed I feel tonight, thankful for this simple life.