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["roxann" <roxann AT ancientearthwisdom.com>]

Bev,

Our community is like yours. It is not one planned and tended out of desire, 
but evolved from necessity. Everyone is far away from each other here, but we 
stop on the dirt road when we pass to chat and catch up on happenings in the 
area. When calves need pulling we get calls at 4 a.m., since that seems to be 
the favorite time for birthing issues out here. I've spent all afternoon with 
the neighbor's horse trying to keep it from going down when it had colic, 
waiting for them to get here and bring the vet. turned out to have twisted 
gut and nothing i did was going to help anyway. since i pass their place on 
my way out to work early mornings, when foals are due i'm the one on watch. 
hehe, the one thing that brings everyone together it seems is snake killing. 
if someone stops on the road to get out and kill a snake, if others pull up 
they all get out and grab a rock, to be sure the sucker is dead. they're 
really scared of them out here, i guess because of how far from medical help 
we are the only good snakes are dead snakes to them.

but we don't socialize much other than that sort of thing. they call and 
check on us and we call to see if anyone needs anything when we go to town. 
there are very distinct boundaries around things like firewood and hay, so 
each to his own on that unless someone is sick and needs help. no one asks 
how much you paid the neighbor for hay, that's strictly personal business.

roxann