Last weekend Christine and I visited North Carolina for the first time. The reason was to attend the wedding of grandson, Ross, third son of Barry and Mary, to a very nice young lady, Marina Light.

On the way, we stopped at the home of a cousin, Claudette Krizek, in Ashville.

Claudette and I hadn’t seen each other in about 20 years but we found plenty to talk about.

She recalled visiting the farm each summer while she was growing up was an annual highlight for her and her siblings.

She recalled the freedom she felt on the farm, mostly because we didn’t take naps like her mother required.

Hint: The cousins’ (Craig, Sylvia Sue and Claudette) visit was a highlight of the farm kids, too. We still had our chores, too, but the visiting cousins thought they were fun. (We loved the help.)

Additionally, the field work slacked off at that time. That could have been because the summer crops were laid by but it also might have been because Dad and his brother, Albert, enjoyed the time together.

And there were big meals – breakfast, lunch (dinner for country kids) and supper (dinner for townies), all happily prepared by Mother with Aunt Claudia helping.

Nothing was spared for those meals, which Claudette recalled as table “groaners” (there was so much food loaded on it for two families with growing children).

I don’t remember a cross word spoken by anyone during those times.

Claudette and I shared memories related by older family members – mostly our fathers– about our paternal grandmother, which neither of us got to know because of her early death.

Grandmother Reid was an outdoor lady, loving farm work and the animals. We’d all been told how she’d check the harness daily of the work mules and horses before they went into the field to make sure there were no mistakes made that would cause sores on the draft animals and loved quail so much that she would hatch out clutches of quail eggs disturbed by farm work and raise the babies in a bird cage, releasing them when they were big enough to fend for themselves.

Our dads said it was ordinary to see dozens of quail eating with Grandmother’s chickens. (She also had a strict no-hunting policy.)

North Carolina is an interesting state, despite its super- abundance of trees and bushes. Even though I’m no tree aficionado, I thought the clouds hovering over the tree-covered Great Smoky Mountain tops were beautiful.

The area around Ashville was hard hit by Hurricane Helene last year and there were still hundreds – probably thousands – of piles of logs in the woods where they fell. State crews were busy cleaning up the log piles and turning the wood into mulch. Many trucks were observed daily hauling loads of logs and mulch.

My cousin said she was out of electricity and water for three weeks due to storm damage.

She was proud of her neighbors who pulled together and helped each other out of trouble caused by the storm.

She said neighbors brought buckets of water to each other to help ease the suffering.

She also reported FEMA contributed greatly in helping North Carolinians dig out of its morass.

Government statistics reported more than $455 million was approved for North Carolina survivors to help pay for food, medicine, housing assistance and home repairs. More than $22.4 million has been provided to nearly 7,900 North Carolinians to repair or replace private roads and bridges damaged by Helene.

Highway crews were busy throughout the parts of the state we saw while driving southeast from Ashville to the town (I think it is Morehead City) on the Atlantic coast where Ross and Marina were married.

I didn’t see any fields of crops until we were almost to our destination. I think I then saw some sugar cane, cotton, roasting ear patches and maybe one small (an acre maybe) patch of tobacco.

I didn’t get out to check mostly because we were driving through downpours of rain and we were in bumper to bumper traffic much of the way.

Enough about North Carolina. I decided it’s a good place to visit. People were friendly, including those we encountered on the streets, in airports and in stores.

I was checking the weather daily while I was gone to see how the wheat harvest was coming along here.

Apparently it rained here, too. My rain gauge Sunday showed a little over 1.5 inches. I heard producers had a pretty decent harvest run on Thursday and Friday but I noticed Sunday there were still numerous unharvested fields. I know our farmers will get it in the bin as soon as possible. “Determined” should be part of each one’s name.

On the bright side, pasture and lawn grasses are flourishing. (Sadly, weeds too.)