Birch Candlesticks and New Friendships
This time of year is busy. Busy for everyone.
Finding extra time to do anything is almost out of the question. In addition to taking care of our families every day needs, we are all running around buying the perfect Christmas gifts, wrapping said gifts, sending Christmas cards, decorating our homes, menu planning for guests, and working. Can’t forget about going to work. 🙂
I find myself in the same holiday busy theme as everyone else. The birch candle holders are selling so well, that I was running low on good, dry branches. So when I needed to actually purchase some birch branches, I turned to a local Craigslist ad.
Laura was the person behind the ad and she lived about 5 miles from me. Perfect. I can just zip over to her house, grab some new branches and get back to work filling orders.
But Laura had other plans.
When I arrived at her house, she was outside doing the evening chores of feeding all of her rescue animals.
In my mind rescue animals are dogs and cats, maybe a horse, possibly an old goat.
Laura had the rescue dogs but she also had this beauty.
This is Thanks. No joke and better yet, Thanks used to have a female mate named Giving, but she passed away last winter prior to Laura taking in Thanks. Sad. What is a Thanks turkey without a Giving mate? 🙂
Thanks is a Royal Palm Turkey and is a very endangered breed. Laura had to promise that Thanks wouldn’t end up on her table before she was allowed to take him in.
As I mentioned, I was in a bit of a rush. Laura had also come from a full days work but asked if I wanted to take a little walk on a path around her six acre property. Thanks would come along.
My initial thought was, No, but thank you for asking.
And then I thought, how many more opportunities will I ever have, to go and walk with a turkey. ( I did actually think that.)
Laura and I started to chat and walk and Thanks followed.
He followed us on the path as we walked past her pond and beautiful birch trees,
He followed us as Laura showed me where she had planted her garden and where she was working on a green house made from her collection of free doors and windows.
Everything was so rustic and eclectic. And yet somehow natural and calming at the same time.
When the three of us finished our little walking path tour we ended at the dilapidated barn where she stored all of her birch.
I was not allowed to walk past the Moosehead doorway because the barn was severely leaning and was only being supported by scaffolding on the left hand side.
If that barn could tell stories. I can only imagine.
After risking her life to retrieve 5 long branches, we carried and loaded them into the truck. For someone who was soooo busy, me, I spent another hour talking to Laura about….well almost everything.
What started out to be a quick run to get some supplies turned in to a relaxing, out of the ordinary routine and the start of a new friendship with Laura and Thanks.
Happy Monday All. See you Wednesday,
Wendy
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