It was too hot to blog…
Sorry I’ve been away from my appointed task here. Guess that heat wave was frying my brain, because I couldn’t think of anything to talk about. I just buried myself in here with the A/C going and kept working.
The kids and grandkids, meanwhile, have been busy as beavers down at the creek. They’ve been engineering some sort of dam to create a swimming area. Every afternoon would find them splashing and having the time of their lives down there. Some are even eagerly checking out the rocks they’re moving in case they find gold.
Now, that’s not a pipe dream. A check on gold in Virginia showed there were only two areas in southwest Virginia known for gold mines, and they were Floyd and Patrick counties. A couple of the kids are hoping to find enough gold to pay off the house so we don’t have to move. And that’s a neat dream on their part. This old house is the only home most of them have ever known, kids and grandkids alike.
At one point a couple of years ago, there were fourteen of us living in this place! Seven large bedrooms made that workable. My son and his two daughters lived with us from the time his marriage broke up, and various of the other older kids moved out and then back in again. My daughter and her husband and little girl moved in to await the finishing of the house up the hill from us, and their second daughter was born while they were living here. Believe it or not, it worked out quite well.
And then my son got married and moved out with the girls. The following month another son moved to Roanoke. And two months after that my daughter and her family moved into the house up the hill. Suddenly we had only six people living here. I had to learn to cook all over again. It was quieter, too.
Lately, though, things have been more like they used to be. The grandkids come here to spend their time in the creek and play games, and the adults sit on the deck and have dinner or just visit in the cool of the evening. On the weekends most of us get together for church and have a family potluck back here at the house. We’re thinking this week we might set up the projector and show some DVD’s outside in the yard and have our own family theater night, especially since the heat wave has broken for a little while.
