Life outside of time: Community Planting

I have always dreamed of living in a community of people who help each other. And here I am, living the dream! We moved to Georgia from Virginia 7 years ago, this July. When we lived in Virginia, we lived on an Army base. We were all women with children about the same age with husbands overseas. We depended on each other for companionship as well as child care when we needed to go to the store right quick, or when we needed to complain or be uplifted. It was like an extended family. Someone was always home...But when I got here, it was hard to start over in a new place. Though everyone I lived next to was nice, it took awhile to really get settled and get to know them. Four years actually. People that aren't in survival situations, like wives with deployed spouses and small children, just aren't forthright in letting you into their personal lives. You can't just run to your neighbor if you need something, or are just lonely. But when my husband was deployed, God opened the curtain and let my neighbors in. It all started when a dear friend of mine initiated a work party to fix the rest of my fixer-upper house for a present for my husband serving in Iraq. It was my first taste of community in GA. A whole bunch of people showed up, some I knew and a lot I didn't. It was amazing to see how much people really care about those soldiers serving. And a neighbor came over and asked what was going on and it opened the door to a friendship.
By-and-by, we have helped each other out in various ways and he asked if we would like to use his back 2 acres for planting. Of course we jumped at this opportunity to learn how to farm on a larger scale, so we agreed and set to work. My husband was over there killing himself with a hand tiller and another neighbor took pity on him and asked if we would like to use his tractor. Well, yeah! Then he brought us manure from a Friend of his who has horses, and a dump truck and he put several loads of manure on it all for us, and then used his front loader to spread it out for us!
So that brings me back to the present and Planting day for the big field. It went wonderfully. My sister came over and gave us a hand in planting corn, beans, sorghum, chicken feed crops, and melons. And then when we thought we were all done, we remembered it was time to mound the potatoes which are huge! WE worked for 5 hours and had a ball, everything is better with lots of Friends, family and fun. So as we finished up our wonderful land-lender brought us out some cold beer on tap! It can't get better than that. It was his birthday and we sat around and visited for awhile and my sister's oldest son and his friend came over and had a drink with us too. Of course, the neighbor with the tractor saw us all over there and came by to see, and talked with us for a while. And last but not least Willow got to play with a little girl 2 houses down, who is just her age, while we worked so everyone was happy, down to the littlest "who". We are truly blessed!