Life in the Ozarks

As I sit here on this lovely Saturday morning, eating Slim Jim brand beef jerky (they are experts in all things dehydrated you know?) and nursing a helluva sunburn from horseback riding yesterday (should have taken the sunscreen), I am just so happy and content to be here in the Missouri Ozarks.
Of course everything is budding and blooming right now and there was a section of road on the way into work that just had me reeling with the green-ness of it all. I'm certain there are more beautiful places in the world, but in my travels, I haven't seen any yet. And how about the fact that in my 9 mile drive to work, I never have to so much as roll one tire tread onto a highway - it's backroads all the way. Cattle and horses, green pastures and woods, the folks you meet driving really do wave at you. Then I drive into this tiny town where I work (population 1,400 - who would believe there had been a Ford franchise here for over 50 years!?) and there is Main Street with the historical buildings, flea markets, the feed and seed with farmers sitting out front selling their vegetable plants - soon they will be selling their vegetables - and a lovely park right on the creek. Don't get any grand illusions of dangling your feet in there, though. Crane Creek will turn you blue with cold in mere minutes even in the hottest temperatures.
This is a place where the old arts are still alive - quilting, weaving, canning (yes, I consider being able to have fresh tasting veggies in midst of winter an art), leatherworking, instrument making - among many others. A place where you know if every computerized thing in the world disappeared one day, the folks here would survive - make that THRIVE - quite nicely.
So, I guess this is what "they" call waxing nostalgic. I'm not sure exactly why they call it that, but wax on glasshoppah - wax on!!