12 Happy Chickens

Growing up I worked on a horse farm named Kingsport Horse Farm. They raised the most beautiful Thoroughbreds and my school bus passed by the place every morning and afternoon. I think I was in the 5Th grade when I started bugging my parents and the owners of the horse farm to let me work there after school. It took a whole year of getting my grades up (that was the requisite) but when I was in the 6Th grade I was finally allowed to feed horses every day after school and clean stalls on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I loved it. They did not pay much and sometimes they didn’t pay at all- but I worked there ’till I was a junior in high school when they quite paying the paychecks- I think they still owe me $90.00. From there I moved on to cleaning house for a local Judge and motel rooms at a local hotel. I knew exactly where money came from, and I wanted more. In fact I would have quit school and went to work- to me money was more interesting than sitting in a class room, and I hated school anyhow so it made sense.

Needless to say my parents made me go and I finished high school, enrolling in Law Enforcement for college. By the time summer came to a close I was not going back to school- and they couldn’t make me. I reasoned that I didn’t want to waste my parents money on something I was not sure of since I really disliked school. To me it was a good choice, and I am still happy with it today, but things change.

I use to made $46,000.00 a year up until I married. Unfortunatly that took care of the fun and games so to speak. Husband didn’t like my job, I was never home and I wanted to be with him. Since our marriage I have had to reinvent myself. And I wasn’t going to go work some place just to work. I loved my old job- because it really wasn’t a job at all and I was damn good at it and I wanted that again. But as you get older things change. Life changes.

Fast forward a few years- I don’t make what I use to but I own my own business, work from home, and love it. I find it funny though because I am doing things that I use to be against; like going to school. School actually comes to me once a month but I am liking it and the teacher. She teaches me all about business-my business and how to run it and I figure I will have a huge degree by the time I’m done because I enjoy it so.

I now have another school I want to go to and this is the real reason for this post. John C. Campbell Folk School.

John C. Campbell Folk School provides experiences in non-competitive learning and community life that are joyful and enlivening. Located in scenic Brasstown, North Carolina, the Folk School offers year-round weeklong and weekend classes for adults in craft, art, music, dance, cooking, gardening, nature studies, photography and writing.

Doesn’t it sound just wonderful? I have yet to decide what exactly I want to go to the school for, but I have narrowed my choices down to photography, pottery, beginning clawhammer banjo or beginning fiddle. I really love music, bluegrass is a favorite so the fiddle and banjo really have my interest piqued. I guess I might just have to plan on 4 trips instead of one.

 That is when my business takes off in leaps and bounds…and life changes once again.