A Cross Section Of The Hive

Dagnabbit! Another weekend has come and gone. How does the weekend fly by at ten times the speed of weekdays? I call shenanigans! There's a conspiracy afoot.

Poor Farmer H had to work Saturday. And he will next Saturday, too. Sure, it was only a half day. Seven to eleven-thirty. But still...the Farmer doesn't have summers off like the boys and me. He gets four weeks of vacation scattered throughout the year, to take a day here and there, or lump it together a week at a time.

Of course, my weekends are filled with work. Just not paid work. The Pony and I have started doing the Devil's shopping on Friday evenings, on the way home from school. I'm exhausted. But it saves me half a weekend day of getting up and getting there and putting stuff away.

The #1 son acts like all the world's a weekend. He comes and goes weeknights like he doesn't have to get up and apply his nose to the grindstone in his senior year honors classes. On the actual weekend, he might dismantle electronic gadgets for parts, play the piano for fun, fiddle with a photography project, spend the night at a friend's house, visit his grandma to utilize her high-speed internet for various downloads, and run the sound for the church service. As weather permits, he mows lawns or cuts firewood.

The Pony goes with the flow. He's pulled in many directions over the course of a weekend. He is my right-hand horse. My go-to guy. Shopping, gathering laundry, bagging up the cardboard for burning, holding the dustpan, tending the goats, fetching the eggs...plus special projects concocted by Farmer H. He bowls in a Saturday morning league, as does #1. His free time is spent lounging on the basement couch, reading, writing, and primarily gaming on his laptop. Don't you worry about The Pony and his heavy workload. He is compensated with fast food and books and sleepovers at his grandma's house.

We're like a hive of bees. Not that we're busy. Or hard workers. We all have our roles in keeping the Mansion running.