A New Twist on the Homestead






First of all, let me make this clear. We have no business being at the Homestead in the first place, let alone hanging out here up to a week, but we do from time to time. Oh, we could afford to stop by the wee village of Hot Springs and have a Subway sandwich in the “Duck Inn’ (preferably with a $1 off coupon) or show up for some free tea and crumpets (whatever crumpets are) at the Homestead’s tea time, but nothing beyond that. So how do we end up here? Well, we are beyond blessed with an uber-generous friend with a time-share with the Homestead’s Owners Club. This one is literally a time-share because she definitely shares her time with us. In return we let her — and try to behave while staying here under her name.

So we’ve been here so many times that some staff members know Sam by name, even without the silver spoon in his mouth. I guess by translation that means they know my name too — Sam’s mommy. It took me well over 30 years of my life to make it to the Homestead for the first time, but Sam’s been coming here since he was a baby with a rubber ducky wearing a straw hat in his delivered Pac ‘N’ Play. However, this time we really changed things up — we brought FRIENDS, another Mommy-little-man duo, leaving both daddies back in the “rear” (as we’d say in the Army) working away to subsidize our lifestyle. So it has the four of us on a four-day “double date.” What a completely different experience it has been with Sam having a playmate his own age (instead of me) and me having a playmate my own age who drinks wine instead of chocolate milk, shops for clothes instead of Matchboxes, and eats vegetables without any nagging. Oh, it’s been niiiiiiice, so nice that the time has flown by.

My friend and I were pleasantly surprised how well the boys were getting along, both being only children and not used to having to share or interact with someone on a 24 hour basis. They were like brothers — brothers who are best buddies and don’t fight that is. They played Army soldier, built forts out of the couch cushions, and went on mini-hikes together. That was until today when Sam lost it over having to share a new set of plastic dinosaurs from the rank grocery store down the street. Not pretty, and I’m his mother. After the drama of the Refusal to Share Incident, Sam’s poor friend replied, “Well, I’m not going to invite you to my birthday party.” (FYI – His birthday is in March, and we are currently in mid-October.) Hey, I don’t blame him — I’d axe him off my future birthday party list as well. In his defense Sam is usually great about sharing, plus he was exhausted. He woke up bursting with energy at 5:30 AM and hadn’t gotten as much sleep as usual the last couple of days. And so, Operation Separation was set into motion — scatter! My friend swept her son off into the car, and we pealed out ourselves just to drive around and hopefully to get Sam to sleep.

Well, we stumbled upon a local apple butter festival in Hot Springs. What is an apple butter festival you ask? Before today I had no idea. Well, people make homemade apple butter, apple cider, caramel apples, and anything else apple-related. (I must clarify — no apple sauce though. Don’t want to lead you astray.) So what the big deal? Well, it is the sheer magnitude of the endeavor — the most humungous copper pots I’ve ever seen in my life. (Maybe they are left over from the Middle Ages.)

Well, all five of the massive kettles were filled to the brim with apple butter in the making. They were set on top of an open fire, and people were stirring them with a disturbingly large extended spoon sort of thing. It was amazing — within ten minutes of leaving the poshity-posh Homestead, we were experiencing something totally (e) other — a country apple butter jamboree. It was a whole different world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way… I’d love for Sam to grow up able to function well in both environments, appreciating them for what they are, neither superior. (I will skip my updated version of the “I Have a Dream” speech.)

After we did some arts and crafts and wandered around literally smelling apples in the air, Sam picked out the largest caramel apple I’ve ever seen. Atta boy! And then we were headed back to the genteel Homestead and our buddies. All offenses were forgotten and forgiven, and we were back in action happy to be reunited with our double dates. All we needed was to escape our world for a while, and we did. We have the caramel apple to prove it!

LibbY

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