Chinese Takeout: Day 900 Cane Grinding Festival in Ortona

I have lived all of my adult life in small town, rural, east central Indiana, and I LOVED it. It was the perfect place to raise a family. There's nothing like small town living, where everyone knows your name, (and your business!) and watches out for your kids. The country school my kids attended was the hub of the entire community....most of the town folk came out for the local football or basketball games. When the kids arrived for prom night dressed in their finest, the town folk lined the sidewalks with their cameras looking like paparazzi. Henry County was home to tractor pulls, the Middletown Fair, antique car shows, the local queen contest, and more. We were surrounded by cattle farms (we had a small herd of 40 cattle with my ex father-in-law), corn fields and soybean fields. Every season was beautiful in the country, but the bonfires of the fall were probably my favorite.

Fast forward thirty years....my children and step children are grown, I now have six grandchildren with another on the way in September. They are spread far and wide....currently in Indiana, Florida, and Alabama. By the time I fly home in July, I will nearly cross paths with two of my kids who are heading East as I head West. Life is funny like that.

Carissa and her husband and children (currently in Alabama) will be headed to South Korea on a new assignment with the Air Force. Grandbaby #7 will be born there.

Ellie will be leaving her job as a news
reporter for WINK in Ft. Myers, FL to join
her boyfriend who is a pilot in the Air Force.
They will be flying East for a two year stint
on the island of Okinawa, Japan.

While my kids are starting a new chapter in their lives,
I am starting another chapter in my life when I fly home to
Ortona at the end of this school year. My home in southwest
Florida is equally as rural as Indiana...small town living once more.
Only now, I am surrounded by cattle ranches, orange groves, and
sugar cane fields. I now live in Hendry-Glades County, FL, rather
than Henry County, IN. I still wake up to cows mooing in the fields.
Again, life is funny like that, and I LOVE it.

Here in Florida, I see all breeds of cattle like
I have never seen before back in Indiana.

Meet some of my neighbors :)

When I was home last winter for CNY, I missed
the Cane Grinding Festival out at the Ortona Indian
Mound. I was bummed. I love a small town festival!
This year, I wasn't going to miss out. Interestingly, my
home in Indiana was just a few miles from Mounds State
Park, another Indian burial grounds. we camped there often.
Life is funny like that, isn't it???

This park has a beautiful lake that once connected to Turkey
Creek. Len and I's home is in the Turkey Creek community.
We'd like to bring the canoe back and do some exploring here.

It looks beautiful (him, too :)

Since we have our new FitBits, we decided to ride our bikes
to the Cane Grinding Festival. Sure enough, they were
grinding cane. I had to try a glass of cane punch, which was
the sugar sweet cane mixed with sour orange juice. Delish!

The Cane Grinding Festival is the Ortona Volunteer Fire Dept's
annual fund raiser. Kind of like in Middletown, IN, the good
ol' boys were smoking and selling chicken BBQ dinners :)

Next year, we'll know to bring our lawn chairs :)

So we can listen to the bluegrass music comfortably...

...and watch the little girls clogging from the
dance studio in town (LaBelle, FL).

It was my kind of festival, the small town living

I am used to. It is world's apart from Beijing, China!

As Len and I walked through the park, I was beginning to really settle in to the idea that this will be my new home. This is the next chapter of my life, when I leave China in July.

It feels right.

After I left home last summer, and returned for the school year, Len started working on a song. He collects stories of the places he has been, the people he has met, the experiences he has had, and he sets them to music. It's one of the things I love about him. To understand his songs, you need to hear the stories that go with them. People love for him to bring his guitar where ever we go.

Anyhow, after I left last August, he started working on another song. It's not finished yet, but he played it for me a few times while I was home this winter break. It goes like this...

Coming Home to Stay

I can still, feel your body, in these sheets.

You're far from Ortona, you haven't been here in weeks.

You need a light burn, a right turn,

Someday, we both will learn,

what it means to be Coming Home to Stay.