The gift of friendship

I felt like we struck gold this past week.
The other day when we stopped along the road for me to take this photo, out the back door of the house came the owner. And along with him came a beautiful collie dog, which I hope to go back and photograph at a later date.
I was trying to tell him how beautiful the tree was, but he could not hear me, so he came out to the road where we were to talk to us. He ended up having Roger pull into the drive and started showing us all kinds of stuff.
Among the things he showed us were these gourds....he had a couple tractor waggons with them setting drying. I think that was the first thing he showed us...then he said come on over here. I wish I had had my camera, but the collie seemed to be afraid of it, so I put in in the car so he would come to me. But he is another story.

So he took us in a small pole barn; he had small boxes and crates of walnuts everywhere. He uses an old corn sheller to get the green hull off, then he lets them dry outside on screen frames. When they are done drying, he has a small cement mixer that he uses to tumble them to get the walnuts really clean.

He took us over to his regular garage to show us dried gourds, and also some little bitty bell peppers. He gave me some of those. While over there he also went in the house to get this photographic view he had of his farm...his wife came out and talked to us just a few minutes when we were over there.

Then he took us to another little pole barn type building to show us the corn sheller and actually ran a few walnuts through it. He showed us this thing called a Nut Wizard. He uses to pick up walnuts. Here is a link to one similar to what he had...he says it doesn't work where the grass is not mowed, but he threw walnuts down and demonstrated it to us. It really works!

I am not even beginning to tell all he told us. During the time of it, he gave me the top two gourds. Actually, he just told me to pick the ones I liked. On top of those, he gave me a couple flowers...he didn't know what they were. They have leaves/blades like maybe some type of day lily or iris.

So, Roger told him we would bring him one of my gourds. Later, I decided I would print a photo of the photo I took on my photo printer. I printed a couple 8 x10s of it, Saturday I picked out 3 or 4 gourds and we ran them out there. We really were just going to drop them off...but they insisted on us coming in. We sat and visited for probably an hour...

As we left, Helen told me not to forget my photos...she was totally surprised when I told her I printed them for them. And as we were leaving, Dick said to wait a minute...he went and got the dried apple gourd above, telling me he meant to give it to me the other day.
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Everyone knows I LOVE collies. I have never met a collie I didn't like. Diamond, their dog, was no different. He was just a tad bit shy at first, but when we went back Saturday the first thing he did was bring one of his stuffed animals and dropped it at my feet for me to throw. Every time we think of him, we smile. Maybe not as big as when we think about Lorelei, but still we smile. And we would love for the two of them to meet. I have never seen a collie that didn't like kids...at least not a regular full sized collie.
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I just had to tell this...it was like a breath of fresh air to meet and talk to Dick and Helen. He showed us some old pictures...she showed me pictures of her grand kids and great grand kids. They told us bits and pieces from their life...him more than her. He talked about the goats and goat cart he had as a kid and even showed us a picture...told us he road it to school every day.

He didn't live far from the school....he was the one that went early to start the fire before everyone else got there. He even had a picture of the old school...looked like a one-room school to me. I wish I had ask more questions. Maybe next time I will ask more. I also hope to get the courage to take photos of Diamond. I think he knows us well enough to not mind the camera now.