Life before 2008 23 Jul 2005 05:33 am
Sam Houston Historic Schoolhouse
You’ll have to bear with me and my blog I guess until I learn how to get my film shots digitized and posted on here. It’s coming, but for now it will have to all be in words.
Yesterday we woke up and after a week of mornings with serious book work for homeschool, felt like we needed a break. Fortunately there are tons of things to explore up here! I had a wild hair to go to a farm and the newspaper had a listing for corn picking. “How fun!” I thought, imagining the cool photo ops while the kids picked thier own ears of corn.
David got me directions, we lathered up with sunblock (we burn faster at this higher elevation than we did near the beach!) and we were out the door by 8. The rain clouds seemed to be approaching and I had to make myself not look at the gorgeous farm land all around us and pay attention! After a few, “ooops I missed it. Let’s turn around”, met with groans from the kids who wanted me to get my act together, we saw a little sign that said “Corn”. I got out and started unloading the kids and the two older people sitting in lawn chairs came to meet me.
“Honey? Why you gettin’ everyone out?”
“Well we’re going to pick corn!”
“Nah…it’s in the truck here. It’s already been picked. You wouldn’t want to go down in them fields. Say…you from Florida? I got a granbaby in Florida. A great granbaby actually.”
Setting my corn-picking disappointment aside I stared at her. She didn’t look a day over 45. Her arms were tanned and toned and her face was smooth. Her hands looked strong. I knew she had to be good on the farm.
“Great Grands? You can’t be old enough!!”
“Well sure I am! I got a few more down there too. It’s hot there ‘eh?”
And on we went. I bought two dozen picked ears from her, marvelling all the time of whatever fountain of youth she had. Even if she started at 16 and so did her daughter and granddaughter, she looked waaaaay good for her age.
So we got going again. I still wanted to do something “farmish” but didn’t want to waste too much precious gas exploring. We headed to the Greenbelt (more on that awesome park in another post) and roller bladed for an hour or so. The shade was cool and it’s breezy here. It makes me laugh when the locals complain about the heat and humidity! They don’t know the half of it! David said when he got home that one of his sales stops had a mechanic that was griping about how fast the grass grew. Huh? The grass here is like short carpet. You can run your toes right through it. There are almost no bugs, no sand spurs, no creepy crawlies. And they don’t mow every week either. There is some kind of scent here that I can’t quite place. It reminds me of summer visits to Rockford, Illinois when I was a kid…a mixture of hardwoods, humidity, fresh grass, and something else…
I remembered that the Sam Houston schoolhouse was within town limits. I have a neat map from the Parks and Rec department and I’ve added in all my landmarks so I can find my way around. We drove through some pretty neighborhoods; farms interspersed with clusters of houses that make it obvious some land owners sold parts of thier property at one time or another. Rolling hills, tons of trees, cows and horses, and white houses of various sizes and big white porches. Dream come true stuff for me.
I posted a link to the school house but the photo was taken in winter and won’t do the grounds justice. Everything is lush here, like Jacksonville is in May (my favorite month there). There was low Indian flute music playing, sort of quiet and meditative from some speaker. Sam Houston was from Abraham Lincoln’s time and was raised by Cherokee Indians. In his youth he ran this school house and later became governor of both Texas and Tennessee. There was a museum and then the schoolhouse itself. It only cost a dollar to get in because I was the only one over 10!
We listened to a taped tour and looked at the artifacts; the long rifle being the most interesting to Andrew and Wheaton, and Celia liking the dresses and kitchen utensils. We headed outside, around a winding path and past birdfeeders and windchimes.
The little schoolhouse is just a cabin but it was fun for the kids to see. There was a very friendly grey striped cat that visited and I think they liked him the best. I’m sure they miss Amos as much as I do and this boy let us hold him and pet him. The kids had fun juggling with the huge walnuts from the trees and they ran over the rolling hills outside. They found a cow through the trees, a foot bridge, and a deer skin stretched out to dry. There were teak chairs next to the quintessential babbling brook where I fed Rowan and sat in the shade.
There it was the end of July at lunch time and we could have stayed outside all day! Mild and breezy in the shade but hot in the sun. Birdsong, flute music, a friendly cat. No other visitors; we had the place to ourselves. The only thing that could have made it better would be to have Daddy with us and a picnic lunch. In the end, it was our hungry tumms that prompted us to leave, but at just a dollar’s admission, we’ll certainly be back!
