Thursday, April 21, 2011

A Day of Shopping

When you live out in the country every trip to town is planned. It is a 15 mile drive to the nearest town, Rocksprings. Rocksprings has a few stores I can shop at, but for real shopping one must drive an hour to Kerrville. Yesterday as the sun was just coming up I picked up a neighbor (and her dog Lucky) and we made the trip to Kerrville. By going together we saved money on gas and had each other to keep company.

First stop, we dropped Lucky off at the groomers to have all her fur cut off. It is starting to feel like summer here and the poor dog has been hot.

Texas prefers one’s car be inspected in the county where it is registered, but often in these rural counties there is no one licensed to do car inspections, which is the case for me. The TV in the small waiting room at the shop was tuned to a Turkey Hunting show. As soon as the male customer’s car was done and he left, we grabbed the remote and changed it to something more to our liking—the Food Network. After my car was finished we found two carnations on the dash board.

Next we headed out to the dirt store. Okay, that is not the name of the place, but that is what I wanted to buy. This land produces rocks, not good gardening soil. To grow a good vegetable garden one basically has to buy gardening soil. After looking around at a few sources, I decided on the place I wanted to purchase it and yesterday wrote a check. This morning a dump truck arrived with that precious soil. I have already started hauling some of it to the raised garden bed. A lot more needs to be hauled over before I can start planting my first vegetable garden. I am praying for a bountiful crop to share with others.

After a few more stops, including getting groceries, we picked up Lucky, who was thrilled to see us, and headed home. The entire trip took over seven hours to complete. But that is life when one lives so far from the city.