Girl of the Woods

Hey readers and friends. Things have been a little quiet around here for a while, and I really don't like that. I still do Top Ten Tuesday, Book of the Week, and a Lately post once a month, but I want to do more. I have some ideas that I'm working on, but for now, to fill up some of the void, I thought I'd write a little bit about where I live.

I live in a really small town called Waldron. The town consists of a small Walmart, a grocery store, and a few restaurants. We have a McDonald's, Sonic, Subway, and Pizza Hut, and that's it for the chains. There's a church on nearly every corner in town. There just isn't much to Waldron.

I live on the outskirts of town. Our house is about eight miles out of town. The house is situated by the highway, but it's mostly trees behind us, and across from us. We have neighbors, but you can't see their house from ours for the trees. It's pretty quiet, save for the traffic, mostly truck drivers traveling through on their way to make deliveries.

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with living out here. Maybe hate is too strong a word, though. My least favorite part of living out here is summer. I think I would hate summer no matter where I lived, but summer in the woods of Arkansas is terrible. We live in a very humid climate where the air grows so thick and sticky sometimes it's suffocating. There are bugs of every sort; fire ants, spiders, mosquitoes, scorpions (!). It is terrible. And snakes. Ugh, the snakes. Thankfully, though, they're mostly king snakes, which are not poisonous. I like to keep my distance all the same. I've never seen a bear, but a few years ago, a neighbor told me she'd seen the biggest bear in her life near our house on her way to work early one morning. Thankfully, I never saw it. I hope I never do.

Spring is okay, at least for the first few weeks. We have some pretty flowers that grow of their own accord, and some of them smell fantastic. But spring doesn't last long here, and by the middle of May, we're back into summer.

When I talk about living out in the woods in the summer, it sounds awful. But then we have autumn, and that is wonderful. I think it would be a waste to live in town during the fall. We have so many trees around us that turn glorious shades of gold, russet, red, and even burgundy. The weather feels so lovely and I just long for that feeling fall brings. There isn't anything like it. We usually try to grow pumpkins in our back yard. Last year, the bugs got them before they were ready to be picked, but we're getting closer to harvest time and the ones that have grown voluntarily this summer are still here. They've grown wildly this year, more than they ever have before. I can't wait to decorate them.

The glory that is fall.

While living out in the middle of nowhere has its downside, there are plenty of things that I love about it. I hope you're all doing well today. Have a great weekend.

-Miranda Atchley