Work bees, "barn-raising" circles, etc

every year we (our church) gets together and makes apple cider. Most everybody from the age of 5 up works but it is fun so isn't really too much work. The children espically love it because they get to be "grown" up and work with the grown ups. At the end there is a dinner and a sing.

This year we made 260+ gallons of cider!

We do that a lot in our neighborhood. No one here farms full-time. Most of us have full or part-time jobs off the farm/homestead, and side jobs here and there, but we make time to help each other out. Sometimes it's helping to build something--we spent two full weekends re-roofing a neighborhood house this past fall, helped build a barn, erected a sawmill building. Other times it's sharing equipment (I have a JD ride on mower and a woodsplitter available to me whenever I want, for example), other times its sharing material (a neighbor needed to plastic in part of their porch, and I happened to have a TON of extra plastic).

Occasionally it is formal (with the roof, barn-building), but other times people just start showing up and it is like one big party. One friend/neighbor had to dig up his propane line (can't remember why) and people were just stopping in (either driving or walking by) and there were at least 8 of us digging and laughing and having a great time. I feel SO lucky to live here in this community! We have had a community garden the past two years, and we've all shared in the fun/hardships of that endeavor, we watch each other's kids, we drive each other to drop off/pick up cars, we go to the dump together, we celebrate holidays together.........I had Xmas dinner at one neighbor's house, then a group of us went up to a different neighbors' for a bonfire and game night.

Ok, I could go on and on.......oh, and I live in Northern New England.....we just got slammed with snow. My good buddy (yes, another neighbor) came by and plowed me out. Life is good..........

~farmer

A couple years ago we called and got an estimate to fell 7 big trees, $900. just to put them on the ground. No clean up, no cutting, no nothing. Well, we couldn't afford it.

Hubby was talking to the guys at work about it. Turns out one of the guys used to work cutting trees. When the factory made them take mandatory days off they, the guy who could cut, and two other friends who just didn't have to do anything. They said they would come up and cut down the trees and the only price they wanted was my homemade noodles! Wow! Homemade noodles and I get the trees down, I'm in. I know making noodles feels like it's worth $900. sometimes lol

The guys cut the trees down, cleaned up the brush and even spent the rest of that day cutting into wood ready for the stove, until the daylight was gone. all that for the price of my noodles. The guys had fun, I could hear them out there laughing and ribbing each other.

Some people don't realize the fun they are missing sometimes. Our Church does these kinds of things for people all the time. A sad thing that too many people are missing out on some great opportunities.

I just thought of another... when we moved here 12 yrs. ago we were renting this place. We were able to buy it 2 yrs. later. But, when we moved in, the neighbor was a rough looking guy. Long, stringy hair, beard. Just looked really tough and not the kind of guy you'd want hanging around. He drank and swore ALOT.

One day hubby got stuck in the driveway and here comes the ole man from the mountain lol. He helped hubby out. He has been the best neighbor we could have ever had. If he's out and sees us in the garden or something he will holler out to us.

Last winter we were getting a big load of wood delivered. The driveway was snow covered and the guy couldn't get the wagon in the end of the lane. He kept getting stuck in the snow. Yep, you guessed it. Here comes the neighbor with his tractor and he stayed out there and talked and helped the guys unload 2 cords of wood!

I hope he never moves away, he's been a great neighbor. Now if we could just win him to the Lord...