Next stop, onion picking! Samantha planted close to a hundred onions, we pulled them out of the ground and it made you cry like a baby. They smelled so strong even though they were not yet fully grown. The farm used to have an apple tree but it had so many apples on it that it split in half. I learned that when you pick onions you should pick one with the biggest top and also use a shovel because they do not like being pulled out of the ground. Samantha screamed when she pulled her onion out of the ground, a bunch of worms accompanied the onion.
While Samantha was struggling her grandpa said to her I’m going to have to send you to the city Samantha Grandpa drove us all around the property, through the grass on the hills and down by the pond that they fish at in the warm weather. We were off-roading while dodging cows and blackberry bushes. When we approached Samantha’s house there was an old wagon wheel with a big letter D on the front of it representing her last name. Her house was on the middle of a hill with a bunch of mountains in the background and quite a few cows in her backyard of the house.
It was a lot prettier than I thought it would be since her grandfathers’ house was sitting on the road. Samantha and I decided to drive her four wheeler around her house, I have to admit I was a little nervous at first because my dad always told me to never ride them because of how dangerous they are. Samantha drove up her long gravel driveway with me on the back going just under forty miles per hour, my eyes were watering and the breeze was so chilly on my face. When we got to the top of her half a mile-long driveway she told me that I could drive it.
I got on and had to make a 180 degree turn while never having driven one of these before she told me to squeeze this lever and the other one but let go of the other once we went for a second in order to switch the gears, this was foreign to me. I started to drive the four wheeler, both of us jerking back and forth because it was like a new driver with a gas pedal. They stomp on the gas and pull their foot off and keep doing that until everyone has whiplash. Samantha and I could not stop laughing but once I got past that turn it was all straight ahead from there even though I only went fifteen miles per hour but it felt like one hundred.
Her family has a gun case and Samantha has a pink gun, it was actually pretty cute. The only issue was that her grandpa said Samantha couldn’t shoot because she can’t wink. He drove us down to where he would usually go out hunting on their property, driving over a bunch of broom straw (looks like wheat/hay sticking out of the ground). In front of the old abandoned house that the family used to live in was a Pecan tree, it was gorgeous. We headed back to her grandfathers’ house and showed us down to his basement where he kept a ton of interesting old antiques.
He had a box of random old small antiques he bought, offering the things to Samantha and I. Down in the basement I saw a big blue machine that had saw on it, I thought oh this is probably to help him cut wood so he doesn’t have to do it himself but I might as well ask to make sure. So I asked what the contraption did and he answered me back saying Oh that’s a cutter for the pig’s bones. I was horrified. We traveled back upstairs where the three of us would sit and talk for a few minutes before Samantha and I left to head to dinner with her parents.
Samantha grabbed a box from a desk that said CANDY on the side and asked if I would like piece, of course I said sure. I went to open the wooden box and out popped a fake rat that grabbed my hand and I screamed with the most disgusted look on my face, a nostril flare with my head pushed back and eyebrows pointing down look. Her grandfather and her laughed because they’d never gotten someone with that joke before in all of the many years that they’ve tried to play it on new people. Once done this opened up her grandfather’s vision that I would be easily tricked.
He brought over a game that had five large pieces that were all different shapes he said Here is a trick, why don’t you try and make these five pieces into a square? I tried and tried until I couldn’t think of any other ways. I made it into a triangle and a square but one of the pieces was missing. He started chuckling at me until I gave it to him to show me how to do, it finally made sense. Her grandfather had a very strong country accent, something I was not used to hearing. I never realized that even people that are from the same state as me could have such a different way of saying and doing things.
After her grandfather joked with me a bit more we headed back over to Samantha’s house to meet her family. We were supposed to go to Samantha’s little sisters’ tennis match but the opposing team never showed up which made them excited because its probably the only game they would have count as a win and they didn’t even have to play for it. The team is so small that they have the better eighth graders play up in the high school division. Since the game was cancelled we went to have dinner early because Samantha and I were so hungry that we could eat a cow.
We went to a little Italian restaurant where they knew everyone that came in and the woman that worked there. She was the mother to a daughter that supposedly was not a nice girl and no one cared much for. When we walked in she started going on and on about how Samantha’s grandfather came in earlier and was cracking jokes with her but she didn’t have the patience so she waited in the back of the restaurant until he left. The family told me that everyone knows her grandfather because his family has been around for so long and he has one of the largest farms in the area.
I asked Samantha’s dad a few questions about the town and living in such a small place. Well, a lot of people do rastling here. Whats rastling? What do you mean whats rastling? Her mother chimed in He means wrestling! Ohhhh. That makes sense. He went on to tell me about the size of the town and a few other minute details that I found extremely interesting. The population is just over 1,000 people with only one stoplight in the whole town. We have 3 cops and I know all three of them, one is even my cousin.
One time, Samantha was driving reckless and got pulled over by the cop we aren’t particularly friends with and he made her ticket just below reckless because my cousin saw him and told him to go easy on her. We don’t have a shortage of dumbasses here. Everywhere we went Samantha said she knew someone from high school that was working there. We went to one of the only grocery stores in town called Family Dollar to rent a Redbox movie and get supplies for making s’mores. Once we got everything we needed we drove to the local school to pick up Samantha’s little sister.
We drove down a long twisting neighborhood to get to the school. Once we got there Samantha told me about how the middle school and high school are connected as one building and the parking lots are extremely small fitting maybe 50 cars. The high schools by my house have enough parking for a small country. We picked her up by the softball field and she told us about how she didn’t even have to pay to get into the softball game because she came from another sporting event. So, their mom called the principal also known as their cousin to make sure this was actually allowed and she said
Nope. But she did it the right way so let her be because nobody caught her. I couldn’t believe their family had all of these connections to everyone in the community. They both really could never truly get into any trouble because they knew everyone and a lot of them were family members. We drove back to Samantha’s house and watched her little sister try on a dress for her 8th grade prom. She looked gorgeous. After this we went to make s’mores in the kitchen since it was a little rainy outside. They were ooey gooey and messy, just the way I like my s’mores.
They have two puppy beagles that they keep outside in the back of the house, they were so cute! We fed them and played with them a little bit because they were so excited to see us. Then ran back inside to get cozy in our PJs and watch a movie with each other. Her father had to wake up at the very early hour of 430am because he had a job in Lynchburg, only an hour away but he had to be there by 6am. He woke up at 330 to run and feed the cows, which we had done the night before. The rest of the family didn’t have to be out and about until 8 the next morning so Samantha and I took the liberty of sleeping in on the couches.
Though we woke up to the Cows mooing so loudly and the dogs barking and whatever intrigued them. Samantha had class the next morning so we had to leave around 10 in the morning which gave us enough time to eat some breakfast and say goodbye to all of the animals. I had a great time being on a farm for the first time even if it was a beef farm and I’m a vegetarian. Her grandfather offered me a place to stay anytime I want in the summer to come back and help them with the farm. I just might have to take him up on that offer.
