This weekend I’m vacationing in Humansville, MO.  Yes, Humansville.  Go look it up.  I’m sure it’s on some Google Map somewhere. I’m in the middle of nowhere.   Sitting in front of a bonfire.  With my laptop.  Yes, it’s City Mouse meets Country Mouse.

My internet connection is intermittent at best, meaning I’m only connected to the outside world ten minutes at a time. My good friend Mike Madden invited me down to his farm this weekend for a taste of the simple life.  He’s from around these here parts, or so he says.  I wouldn’t admit that even if I had to. He’s spent the last several years rehabbing and refurbishing an old farmhouse.   It’s his little oasis … a place where he can get away, relax and hunt snipe, or whatever it is rural people do.  It’s delightfully quiet and peaceful … save for the occasional gunshot of a hunter off in the distance.

I remember going to my grandparent’s farm growing up.  I enjoyed it from time to time.   There was always something to do on the farm, not that I ever wanted any part of it.  Walking beans?  Forget it.  Canning pickles?  Pass.  Feeding the chickens?  Sorry, I just had my nails done.

The highlight of my day was when the milkman would deliver fresh milk and cream.  I’d run willy-nilly outside so I could gossip with him.  “You know that Lurlene Davis on Route 6,” he’d say.  “Well, she is about as big as a barn.  Thought she was preggers.  Turns out she’s just big as a barn.” The milkman was my touchstone.  And for a brief while I considered a career in the dairy industry, until I realized that would require effort.

My grandma and grandpa were the hardest working people in show business.  They would toil from sun up to sun down.  That gene must have skipped a generation when it got to me.  I found stirring lemonade to be an exhausting task.

I’ve fallen in to old patterns here on Mike’s farm.  He made a hearty country breakfast while I sipped lemon verbena tea on the veranda.  Now he’s out mowing the yard.  I’m exfoliating the dead skin off the bottom of my feet.  Later, we’ll probably watch football or something at the local watering hole.  I think it’s over the ridge in the next holler … called Peoplestown or something.