It was a fun, exciting, and tiring weekend for me.
Saturday saw Whitney, Joey, and I head up in the Green Dragon to Joe Huber Family Farm, just north of Louisville in Starlight, Indiana.
Huber’s is a Louisvillian tradition, apparently, though I’d never heard of it. (Gotta say I love the name more than Georgetown’s own Double Stink Hog Farm) Anyway, Joe Huber has invented the best racket since Tom Sawyer himself: He gets thousands of city folk per year to PAY HIM to harvest his own produce. But hey, when in Rome, right?
Kidding aside, the Blackberries we harvested and peaches we bought were both delicious. Oh, and while you’re in the fields, you get to eat all the blackberries you want right off the bush. I consumed roughly half my weight in blackberries in 45 minutes’ time. (Warning, blackberries are about 30% indigestible material…YMMV)
After the pickin’ (my ‘g’ mysteriously goes away whenever I’m in the country…go figure), we settled-up with the cashier for the fruit and some apple-butter, then hit the wine shop (YEAH!), the gift shop (somewhat disappointing), and the petting zoo.
At the petting zoo, I had my first experience with the terror associated with parenting. Namely, I came close to seriously injuring Joey. Here’s the deal.
We were having a great time at the petting zoo/playground; Joey was a little afraid of the animals, but he was really enjoying chasing the flock of geese. We had reservations for dinner at the restaurant 1/2 mile down the road for 4, and it was time to go. Whitney called him, and he didn’t come, so I set after the little guy. He didn’t notice me running behind him, and I scooped him up, intending to surprise/scare/delight him. (Wild ideas…the kid inspires me, what can I say?)
Well, my good fortune ran out the second I got Joey off his feet. The ground beneath me went from grass to a paved walkway suddenly and somehow my feet got tangled up. I was out of balance for a step or two and my cerebellum finally understood: You’re falling, pal.
I had maybe a split second to do something before I squashed Joey, so I thrust him out in front of me horizontally, landing him on his side in the grass on the other side of the walkway. After that, I came down on my side like a sack of potatoes, my Voigtlander camera clattering beside us.
Joey was scared to death, but pretty-much unhurt. He was back to his normal self by the time we got to the restaurant. Well, by that point, I wasn’t.
Understand, I’ve had nightmares for months now where Joey’s in my charge and he gets hurt or killed: Car accidents, falls, etc. In each case, I’m completely helpless to stop it, but vaguely at fault, and Whitney never speaks to me again. Doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to figure that one out–I’m afraid of hurting the little guy. I’m a klutz.
So, for a while there at the restaurant, I was really shaken. And shaking. I’m 6'2" pushing 240…if I’d landed on him…
But, he made it through just fine, and by the end of the day when we were over at Stu and Cathy’s house, he was saying ‘You didn’t mean to…it was an accident." Yikes…what kind of world is it when the 3 year old is trying to encourage the man 8 times his age?