Wonderful Fair Week

 

The weather has been nearly perfect this week for my local home town fair.  We are usually guaranteed a week of rain during the fair but this week only one night had any rain at all.   

 

 

We indulgenced in not so Whole30 fair treats. 

 

 

I volunteered in the Senior Arts department

 

We made memories with great friends

 

 

 

We rode and rode and rode...

 

We got to see some beautiful animals.

 

The week has been very full, tiring and family focused and that is what has made it such a great week.  It will be hard to see it end and our thoughts go back to preparing for school and a return to racing but just like that summer seems to be slipping away.  I'm so glad for crazy busy weeks like this one when we have made such wonderful memories.

 

Tell me about your hometown  fair.  Do you take your kids now? 

CFEs, Rural Life and a Perfect Moment

 

It started as an off run.  You know that feeling when you legs and your mind just don't seem to speak each other's language.  My back was sore, my hamstrings tight and my mind just wasn't into it.  But there are many days when my runs are a struggle to get started and end up being blissfully sweet in the end.  So I pushed on feeling like a slug.

 

 

 As I pushed up the first long steep hill it started.  A feeling most every runner has felt, often at the most inopportune times.  We try to ignore it but sooner or later we are all reduced by that stomach sickening feeling of needing to find a bathroom...now.

 

 

My run continued up that hill and the next and the next but finally at the end of a long decline I made a sharp right turn into the corn field to cop a squat.  A corn field emergency.  They may not be very glamorous but growing up a farm kid they just a part of the way we lived.  Outside.

 

 

 

It was much easier to duck among the corn stalks than run into the house when we were in the midst of the hours spent outside playing anything and everything with nothing.  I want that simple life mentality for my kids too.  They have been getting big doses of that these past weeks.  Playing in the corn fields, spending our days outside, visiting with family that includes other beyond the family we created and giving out time to help our community.  It makes me giddy to see my children enjoying the same things I enjoyed as a child.  This is the life I wish we could live every single day. 

 

 

 As I sit outside in my backyard watching LBM run barefoot between excitedly watching the farmer teet the hay and running through the rows of corn, I'm afraid to move.  As if some how I will disturb the perfection in this moment.  So for now I'll sit here in my still sweaty running clothes watching my children live a perfect childhood day.



Everyone Eats a Little Dirt aka A County Fair

One week a year we press the

We stay up late.  We eat bad food.  We get dirty.  We get rained on. 

We give our time to our great rural home town tradition.

I volunteer with the Senior Arts division so that means lots of this

and this.

But it also means some of these

And some of these

And nightly turns at this

But a couple of days spent doing this.

and this

and this.

Every year we have some of this

We even had a little of this

And a dose of that

We had our turn at lots of this.

Then no fair would be complete without S'ghetti Girl's annual photo of this

It was a week of a lot of fun, togetherness and running.

and even a bit of the actual running kind.

The things that make me run fast

Rural living is really hard to beat.  Fresh air, local milk, eggs, meat and produce all grown or raise by someone you actually know.  Small schools.  Low crime rates.  The comfort of knowing your neighbors, their kids, their kid's kids...you get the idea. 

However there are things about rural living that take a bit of getting used to.  But since I grew up here I usually don't even notice things like extra mud on the roads when the farmers are planting, noisy tractors out working super early in the morning and late into the evening or the extra fragrant air that results from too many large mammals in too little space.

Yesterday was an exception to that reality.  I should have known something was different.  Because yesterday a trifeceta of factors aligned; first the temperatures tops out at 94 with high humidity, then the local farmer decided that it would be a good day to begin emptying his slurry storage tank

and it was the day for my long hilly route.

9.5 hilly miles in 1:17

Yet another example of the things that make me run fast.

Day # 722

Tearing Down

This post has little to do with running but everything to do with who I am and the kind of people I am raising my children to be. 

It's been a constant in my life.  Although my view of it has changed over the years my Pappy Max's barn has always been there as a symbol of some many things I believe my grandfather and father stood for.  It was about a way of life.  A kind of integrity not often found.

The boards and beams of our barn will be used by others and in that way they live on.

Our barn stood for hard work. The kind of work that few people do any more. The work that starts before the sun rises, blisters your hands, wearies your back, ends after the sun sets but fills your soul. 

That barn represented an escape. It housed days and days of youthful adventures. Within it's wooden walls I created worlds and lives and escaped the youthful boredom of rural living.

It represented a source of pride.  Although I would grumble at every chore my sisters and I were charged with doing, I found a sense of pride in doing them well.  I was proud to be a part of something that had stood for so long.  The sense of neighborhood and community with all the farmers gathered in our barn yard as the auctioneer sing-songed the bids as we held a cattle auction in the spring.
 

The barn represented history and family.  Being a creative child I would linger in the thoughts of my grandfather and his father's hands at work on the very boards of that barn.  I enjoyed imagining that my hand lay where theirs had been.  I felt connected to a history of my family that I would never know in this life.

The barn represented taking chances.  I remember climbing into the rafters and jumping into grain filled gravity bins below with my heart pounding in exhilaration.  My heart was also pounding the day my mother caught me with a boy in the haymile.

It's probably the same for many family farmers.  The barn is a central part of family life and takes on a life of it's own.  That life, the life of our family barn is coming to an end.  It's hard to imagine what my view will look like without it.  Tearing down walls is rarely an easy thing to do.  I am thankful for all the time I had growing up on the rural farm.  I am hopeful as I look to see what reality lays beyond those comfortable walls of my past.  But I won't forget the lessons I learned and I will share those memories with my children so that in the retelling of them, they will live on in our family always.

Cove Creek Farm

Doris June Barrack Diehl and Max Robert Diehl

gone but never forgotten

may I live to make them proud.

sometimes you just shake your head

I had this whole long great recap of my big Fourth of July Holiday Weekend planned for you today BUT sometimes things happen that you just have to share.

Army Son aka Gamer Son was home alone.  That should have been my first concern. 

Then the majority of the work day goes by and I haven't heard from him all day.  That should have been clue number two.

When the phone finally rings at work, I am on another important call and can't take it right away. 

The message:  It's your son.  You might need to go home right away. 

Being the calm cool collected person I am, I dial my home number and wait while it rings.

"hello?"

"Hi Gamer Son.  I got a message from you.  I need to come home?"

"Yeah well.  Ummm.  I was burning  boxesandIwentinsideforaquickdrinkandsmelledsmokeandtheyardwasonfirebutitdidn'tgetintotheshedIcheckedit!"

breathe.breathe.breathe.

"Gamer Son.  So you had boxes you just had to burn unattended on one of the driest and hottest days of the year?  And you caught the backyard and maybe the shed on fire?  Is that right?"

"It's no big deal!  It's not that bad!  I just wanted to tell you now before you got home and freaked out." 

Sometimes you just shake your head....and go for a run.

Off to remove all incendiary devices from my home.  I recommend you do the same.

When you bring nature home

When I run on the roads I like to actually run on the soft shoulder that we have near my home.  This time of year that often means running in the weeds a bit.  As the townships and boroughs attempt to keep up with the side of the road maintenance I am left running with knee high nature flicking at my legs.

Tuesday morning I brought some of that nature home with me.

A dog tick.

I didn't notice it until I was in the kitchen gathering things for my work day.  Let me tell you I flipped out calmly removed the tick from behind my knee.  The lovely little critter hadn't been there long which was evident from the lack of blood in her when I squished her.

It wasn't until a day later that I noticed I had brought something else home.

Poison Oak.


I thought I would be more educational to show you photos to help you avoid the same misery
instead of the grossness of the giant blisters it caused.

Well, I'm think it's poison oak.  It could be sumac.  It's not poison ivy.  The welts are too big.  The really bad thing is I must have touched it with my hands because it is spotted in all kinds of places. 
We all remember to apply our sunscreen and carry our water maybe this post will help you avoid some less remembered warm weather nuisances.

Off to bath in calamine lotion.

Have you noticed the...

....Fresh air?

The only time we notice air is when its not so fresh.

Or causing us to have a little extra resistance in our daily run.

But it really isn't about Fresh Air; it's about a fresh perspective.

And fresh view on how life can be for some children who otherwise wouldn't know the experience of getting out of their urban surroundings and being part of nature, making friends and see the world in a fresh new way.

I'm sure many of you can remember when you took those first steps to your fresh start.

Those first few times you stepped out into the fresh air to change your life and begin your fresh start to a healthier lifestyle.

How better to help others than by running.

How can you help?
 

By running with the Fresh Air Fund Racers

at the NYC Half Marathon on March 20th.

A great city. A great run. A giving heart.

Or consider hosting a child for the summer.   Share the simple things you enjoy everyday with a child whose daily life doesn't include them.  See what true enjoyment is through the eyes of a child maybe enjoying the fresh air and rural surroundings for the first time.

No matter what you do to help...

you'll simply never step outside again without thinking about that Fresh Air!

Left or Right

Ginny at Happy Feet 26.2 commented on my new header photo.

You can see it up there.  Take a look.

Do you notice anything?

Well, Ginny did.  She busted me on running on the right hand side of the road.

I am a believer in running against traffic or on the left hand side.  I like to be responsible for seeing the traffic and getting out of their way.  I don't leave my body out there for others to avoid hitting.

Now I live in an extermely rural area.  The fact that there is a line on the road is a relatively recent event.  Yeah, event.  Not a whole lot happens in my area.  Not a neighborhood an area, a cove, a hollow.

So if you notice in other photos that I stand in the middle of the road or run there, don't be suprised.  However, it is not done as an example to other runners.  My running behavior is the result of running in the kind of area I live in for my entire life.

Hope your enjoying your Holiday Weekend
no matter what side of the road you run on!