The Levee

I met this woman while walking on the river a few weeks back. She's 82 but is the feistiest, most alive person I've ever seen. If I had been asked to guess how old she was I would have said 65, max. She has 5 acres of ranch land amongst all these luxurious, modern homes, and she works 9-5 feeding her animals, chopping wood, repairing the barn and house, and shooting squirrels with her bb gun (I guess they eat away at her levee). She's taken a real fondness for me, so whenever I walk by and her dogs start barking all crazy (they're really overprotective) she pops up somewhere with a tool belt around her waist and starts telling me stories. Yesterday she said she hasn't visited a doctor in 20 years! She broke a bone in her left hand and she refused to have a cast or splint put on it, and when I asked if she needed help moving this huge branch that was in her yard, she waved me off with a a laugh, then hopped on her tractor, moved it by the barn, and busted out a chainsaw and started cutting away. In the past week she's shown me her humongous Bee's Nest (there were thousands of bees everywhere but I was too scared to get close), her 140 year old pear tree that is held up by four pieces of thin bark that is absolutely hollow in the center, and she then took me over to her grapefruit tree and gave me two of the most beautiful (and tasty) pieces of fruit to take home. It's weird but just seeing her go everyday - I mean she works harder by noon than I do all day - has been quite refreshing. Her husband travels all year and she spends the time with the horses and dogs and river cats and geese and chickens, and she couldn't be more content.

Sometimes I need examples like this to keep my sanity. Well that, and ceiling cat.