Where it all began

Spent the day where it all began in White Oak Mississippi. This was my grandparents place – a small place in the country that grew tons of purple hull peas, tomatoes, catfish, cows and chickens.

When I was a young lad, spending every weekend in White Oak and Raleigh was an inconvenience. My friends would always ride bikes, or play with toys over the weekends. My punishment was to run around on 100 acres to fish, hunt, and grow my imagination. It was so hard.

Today, I can’t think of a better way to have grown up with the chance to develop imagination and breathe clean air.

Today we cleaned up some pine tree’s that had fallen down, cut some mimosa limbs and generally cleaned up. Dad was excited to have his bush hog working again and bush hogged a number of areas. Thomas was excited to climb the mimosa to cut the limb down.

All of us were excited to spend time with my Mom – on the eve of the eve of her birthday. This is a special year for her, and she was surprised to see us – I called about 2 hours out, we talked for about 20 minutes before I casually asked that since we were in Meridian, would she mind if I stopped in to spend the night.

It is always special to spend time with Mom and Dad, but was extra special this year, since I had not been down in over 7 months. Work had been so busy, that taking more than a day or two was not possible – or so it seemed.

One of the goals that I have on the other side of this transition is to re prioritize my life. Faith, Family, Friends – not work, not money, not busyness.

It was great to be back at the start of my outdoor education – and I made a pledge to structure my life to be able to make this a priority – spend quality time with family, and spend time restoring the land at White Oak.