I'm Feeling Rich Again

Feeling rich has taken on many different meanings over the years.  I'm not talking about feeling fortunate - like I feel fortunate that I live close to my children and their children and I can see them often.  Or that I feel fortunate to have lunch with my daughter nearly every week.  Or that I feel fortunate that we are all in good health.  I'm talking about feeling rich.

When we were in college, feeling rich was having enough money to buy two deserts and two coffees when we walked into town for an evening.  That was so much better than having to share that strawberry-banana sundae.  In graduate school, feeling rich was having enough money left at the end of the month to buy a bag of potatoes.  We ate a whole lot of pan fried potatoes in those days.  When we lived in Simonton, TX we had a huge fireplace that really did inhale firewood.  Feeling rich then was a full half cord of wood stacked out back.

These days feeling rich is having a barn full of hay.  I ran out of hay on Christmas.  That week was fairly mild and rainy so I wasn't worried.  This past week was much colder although still with lots of rain.  I was beginning to panic slightly.  I had called my hay man before Christmas but because I had said I didn't need a rush delivery, just sometime in the next week, I sort of got pushed to the back of line and forgotten about.  I called Larry yesterday and he groveled about forgetting me.  My concern was that something terrible might have happened.  I was thrilled he had only forgotten me and I told him so.  He was here with two of his grandsons and 75 bales of hay bright and early this morning.

So I'm feeling rich again.  I used to buy 150 - 200 bales at a time but have discovered that while that means not needing to call Larry again too soon, sometimes it means moldy hay by the time I get to the last few bales.  I like Larry so seeing him more often is fun and 75 bales makes me very happy.  And feeling  completely rich.