Robin

I've known Robin since I was ten and she was eight. Her father was the high school librarian and also served unofficially as an extraordinary historian of all things Brrrrrr Lake. She fell right in the middle of a large batch of kids and tells stories of ALL nine members of the family piling into the front of a pickup and heading out across the state to visit grandparents! Obviously this was pre-seatbelt days. Clown car???!!!! "She's TOUCHING me!!" Robin and I played sports together and attended summer girls' camp. Now in our 50's our paths cross again--we serve together in our church's young women's program. I really need to sit down and interview her because just the few facts I've gathered about her take my breath away. Most recently she showed up at our door with fresh hamburger--lots of it. Their cow had stumbled and lamed itself coming up the hill from getting a drink, so they'd had to butcher it!!! Not take it down to the market--BUTCHER it!!! Right there. Right now. I know Robin's house burned to the ground a few years back, and the community rallied to put up a new log house for them. But the rest of the story is that that house was her husband's family's original ancestral dwelling. Rustic. Robin's two daughters didn't know indoor plumbing until they were...wait for it...wait for it--14!!!!! That meant they were carrying water from a pump, heating it on a woodstove for dishes, and bathing in a galvanized tub!!!!! Am I going to run out of exclmation points????? Robin and Tim are quite the couple. They are employed by a sheep rancher and spend long months living in a sheep camp in the summer way far away from all things civiilized.
They also spend days and days and days on horses "escorting" those wooly lambs to and fro across the valley. When you look up "work ethic" in the dictionary be prepared to see THEM! They embody the principles of thrift, industry, no frills living. I stand totally in awe of them. Last night I watched Robin in action yet again, this time...playing the violin in an orchestra. A true Renaissance woman. If things "go down", I am planning to sprint down the road to Robin's house and know that if ANYONE is going to survive whatever an apocalypse might send our way, she will!!