Grasping the Allure of a "Staycation"

Last weekend, like fools, we had plans to head out of town late Friday morning for a family wedding. The foolishness was in expecting to leave town at the height of spring growing season and amidst all the other chaos that defines this time of year.

In order to do this, we had lined up some friends to help with various tasks (egg collection, dog-sitting, goat feeding, plant-watering, etc.). As luck would have it, we discovered had a bit of G.I. trouble on Thursday evening and one of our chickens had taken ill. Thus, we had to make a morning run for some probiotics and take the time to quarantine our sick chicken.

We irrigated the large fields outside, topped off all the animals’ watering and food vessels, and left the littlest goat’s bottle in the barn fridge. We were committed to making a big produce delivery before leaving, so there was that, too. Oh, and we had a crew of painters arrive at 9 to finish some work. Come 10 a.m., I hadn’t even thought about packing, and it was just as well, because that’s about the time my son lost his breakfast.

Isn’t that just the way it is?

This actually ended up being a merciful occurrence. I took a moment’s time out and acknowledged that I couldn’t really take Billy on a trip where he might potentially be miserable and/or cause others to get sick. He was disappointed, but I breathed a sigh of relief. This meant that we had virtually no obligations for the remainder of the day, which is so unusual that we didn’t quite know what to do.

It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and because I had been up during the night with my feverish boy, I went in search of this thing, I think it’s called a “lounge chair," and I set it up on the porch and did what I think they call “lounging.” I’m pretty sure the last time I did it there was a nursing child attached to me. It was quite nice.

Billy didn’t feel all that bad, so he sat outside and kept me entertained with his 6-year-old musings. At some point while lying there, I started to embrace the concept of the “staycation.” The trick, I think, is to make arrangements just as you would if you were actually going somewhere. You’d also want to get all the laundry done before the staycation began and then insist that everyone remain naked for the duration.

If my spouse reads this, he’ll be penning-in staycations on the calendar for the rest of the year.