Town or city folks' perceptions of "country living" will never cease to baffle me.
Example one. I have an acquaintance in town who is a few years younger than I am. She lives with her husband and four kids who range from around 10 to 23ish. A few days ago she sent me email asking if my son could come stack a load of firewood for her. From her perspective it probably seemed like "oh, these Farm People stack wood all the time! Totally a good job for him!"
From our perspective, Son is working all the hours of the day either on school stuff, OUR farm work, or his pt job at the school gym. He barely has time to eat, much less take on chores for another family. And MY perspective is; why in that house of SIX able-bodied people is there no one who will take the time to stack some wood? They could do it all together and be done in no time? Yes, they're busy, but so are we! I told her no politely, and it was no big deal, but . . left me with questions.
A few years ago I mentioned to a guest of my father's that I would need to cut down some little pawpaw seedlings that were growing right underneath the parent tree. Pawpaw aren't very transplantable, because they have a tap root and they die if it gets damaged at all. In our heavy clay soils, there would be no practical way to gently dig even a small one up without damaging the root at least a little. The elderly lady I was speaking to made puppy eyes (seriously? making puppy eyes at me?) and sweetly cooed, "but can't you t-r-y?"
I did not throw up. I did tell her "No" very bluntly. Because on this land which contains literally thousands of trees and more work than I can ever possibly do, it is not worth my time to try to 'rescue' a seedling that came up in the wrong spot. I can plant other trees in better spots! Just by tossing a ripe fruit down in the fall and letting nature handle it!
Anyway. Folks are weird sometimes. THEY have busy lives and sometimes more work than they can handle. But we, taking care of this farm, do not. ?