Country Friday Nights

When many of my city friends learn that we live 12 miles from the nearest town (of any kind), they are aghast and proceed to inform me about how they could "never do that" and ask me repeatedly "but what do you DO?". They cannot conceive of entertaining themselves on a Friday night without nonstop access to city entertainment: Concerts, restaurants, shopping,art shows, you name it.

Well, here is what I do on a Friday night:

First you go hay shopping and swoon over gorgeous, freshly-baled third cutting alfalfa. I mean swoon--city women freak out over nice shoes, country girls freak out over nice hay. I don't think I've ever had a better time "shopping".

Then you drive your hay home. It's 9 miles but you have to go slow with a hay rack so that 9 miles takes 45 minutes.

During that 45 minute drive, you get to listen to the bullfrogs, crickets and the rest of the country evening orchestra start up while watching a perfect pink sunset on your right and a jaw-dropping beautiful moonrise on your left.

You can take the time to stop the truck and get out with your daughter to pick cattails and wildflowers. You're not blocking traffic because there is none. Gravel roads mean you don't see a single other vehicle for nearly an hour. While you are stopped, you can watch the deer come out to graze, the owls roost in the big cottonwoods and the red fox scuttle home to their kits.

Once you are home, you are greeted by your "crowd"--dogs, horses, cats and even the chickens come running to say hello. You get them fed, tuck them in for the night and go to bed knowing you have made not just your day better, but the day better for many others. Then you sit outside, watch the moon arc over the sky and listen to the coyotes get their party started in the meadow next door.

I have spent many Friday nights in both the country and the city and for my part, the country wins hands down every time. I can't conceive of a better place to be. Tonight was one of those nights so perfect that I had to pinch myself to make sure it was real.

I wrote that a few years ago and it still holds true today.