When Daily Life Is An Adventure: Keeping busy on weekends

The ranch is in the middle of other farmland. We're in central Arkansas, in the hill country just above the flat delta land. There closest major city is Little Rock, the state's capitol-45 minutes away. Closer than that, there's a few towns, but between the towns, not even a convenience store. Gas stations are few and far between and traffic lights are non-existent.

So we're left up to our own devices to entertain ourselves during time off. It's a working ranch, which means work 7 days a week, but the weekends are slower, and we only have minimal chores. Sometimes we get days off in the middle of the week, and those are considered 'weekends'.

One of our options is going into one of the major towns to grocery shop. This is a favorite activity of everyone, since the closest grocery stores are not that high-quality. Plus, everyone's interested in organic products. Can't really find that in the middle of rural America. Unfortunately.

There are a few events in the area, from a Seder celebration to a Mountain Daffodil Festival to a fundraiser on public television that needs phone answerers. We tend to keep busy with the events that crop up.

There's also the library. I've had tons of time to read, which is a great end to the work day, and a great way to spend lazy days off. When I spend 12 hours at work on a work day, I spend a good portion of days off on the couch with a book.

There's a permanent flea market at the next town over that we go to on weekends. We browse people's remnants and hand-me-downs. It's full of kitsch, stories and a few suspicious items. The creepiest thing we found was a bundle of 28 pairs of children's panties, labeled as such, "some only worn a couple times." ...Only in Arkansas.

There's plenty to do on the ranch, at home, with cooking and cleaning piling up to be done en masse on the weekends. There are also copious amounts of potlucks and get-togethers.

All in all, we enjoy ourselves here on the ranch. It's a very close community comprised of people from all over the nation and the world. Not the Arkansas I was expecting to find.