People are basically kind

What a lovely and inspiring thread....good one, R.
I agree totally with the title and feel it everyday....and when traveling I feel like there are the same people everywhere just ready to respond to friendliness.
I think everyone wants to be kind and wants to do kind things even though they don't always see how easy it can be, how simple gestures can make such a difference.

R Ranson wrote:When I was very ill, I needed a hobby to keep my mind busy. A group of people gave me a spinning wheel, loom, yarn, fibre, lessons and everything I needed for making cloth. They asked for nothing back, except that I pass the equipment and knowledge along to someone in need when I'm finished with it.

This group includes almost 200 amazing individuals (in our city alone) who are dedicated to keeping the crafts of spinning and weaving alive by teaching, public demonstrations, lending and gifting equipment and supplies, and inspiring each other to try new techniques.

That's wonderful. I drop spindle spin and tablet weave or crochet. I learned bobbin (torchon) lace from a lady involved with the rescue efforts to keep the art alive--some women started in the 1950's to work with the turn of the century child labor lacemakers to keep the art from dying. A lot of them didn't even want to talk about it, but. She was in her mid 70's at the time (mid 1990's) and taught at a serious needlework store. I wanted some 5" wide gold lace and anyone that worked with that would not make it to order or sell it. She helped me build a special fan shaped lace pillow, loaned me bobbins to replicate, and I made over 400 pairs, and learned what I had to to make my lace. I stopped by the store some years later (5) and she was still teaching, I made her cry because I was still doing lace (and had stopped by the store for some linen thread for a project). She said so few of her students kept it up after a year, to her that I was still at it over five years later meant she had succeeded in passing it on which had been her intent.

In my turn I am now teaching at the local senior center on weekends; sell readymade bobbins (I make them from dowels, beads, and wire) for cost, and am teaching others for free. A lot are bringing the grandkids when they visit, so hopefully someone will continue onwards.

So many good! I can not read all of it now. I hope to come back here and read more ... and I will look out to notice good news I can tell you

One mother's day I was extremely late to brunch where I was to meet with my adult daughters. I decided to get coffee on the way and ended up behind someone with a huge order. I was so grumpy and I guess he could see that in his rear view mirror, perhaps because I was muttering to myself and shaking my head to nobody and exasperatingly rolling my eyes thinking I was "in private." When I got up to the window the barista said "The guy in front of you got yours. He felt bad making you wait."

I spent a week in intensive care unit in hospital. The woman in the bed next to me taught me how to use a tatting shuttle to make lace. We spent a lot of time together until one morning she wasn't there when I woke up. I found out after that she was there for end of life care, knew she was dying and choose to spend her last few days teaching me this little known craft. She had no family visit her, so I like to think I made her end a little less lonely.

Here's another one: My daughter and grand daughter were sitting in a coffee shop when she got up to take her daughter to the rest room. A man that was sitting nearby got up and handed me a drawing he had made and said "Give this to your friend." It turns out he is a well known local artist who just wanted to do something nice. When he started the drawing I was still in the next door store shopping. You can see in the drawing how he realized there were three of us at the table not two and squeezed me in on the left side!



About the artist:
http://www.capitalcityweekly.com/stories/020514/ae_1192480330.shtml

Well. Now you all know where I live!

Three kinds of kindness:
1) Random, or "just for fun." A stranger covering someone else's coffee, or taking dog poop to a nearby garbage. Offering someone extra soap at the laundromat. Running after someone you don't know to hand back something they dropped. A lost mitten, propped up on a bush, or an expensive item turned in to lost and found.

One of my favorite things about being a new dog owner is the number of businesses in town that keep some dog biscuits on hand. I'm sure it encourages custom - but they will bring one out even when I've made it clear I'm just browsing.
Strangers taking grocery carts back for each other. Just that moment to connect, sort of pretending we are friends in the larger sense, even if we don't know each other yet.

2) Reciprocal, or pro bono. Keeping others' concerns or needs in mind, so that when there is an opportunity for mutual benefit, you know who would appreciate it. Finding the most beautiful way to use our recycle center's crushed glass, to encourage others to buy it and start a sustainable cycle to enable recycling it locally. (There is no market for melting it down near enough, that would pay enough, to cover the hauling.) I am serving my own interests - I want to recycle glass, I want to do some natural floors with pretty aggregate, I want to do more workshops at home instead of being on the road so much - but I'm doing it in a way that serves my community. I know I'm on the right track when someone describes what I'm doing as "the glass angel," even though it is just a sort of mutual-benefit proposal.

There is a group in Portland, OR called "Move By Bike," that will rally a half-dozen or more people with cargo bikes, trikes, and trailers, to help anyone move house. The deal is you have to feed the crew, and it helps if there is a silly theme so they can all dress up in costumes and look forward to themed food. (The idea is to prove that you can do things without a car, but to do it in a bigger group for safety and support.) We had such a low budget the first time we needed to move Ernie during his recovery, that we decided the theme was "FEMA Move-By-Bike," with tarps as the suggested costume, and served a Cajun seafood stew and French Onion Soup in honor of Katrina victims. One of our close friends looked up the safe route, and brought a trailer capable of hauling something like 300 lbs. They/we hauled everything Ernie had, including a dresser and futon-framed bed, about 5 miles across town, all in one trip; helped set up some of it; and made it a great deal of fun.


3) Family.
Speaking of angels, one year I was in New Zealand for a full-year WWOOFing and work-abroad experience, and my father's 50th and grandmothers 80th birthday party occurred mid-year. I could not afford $2500 round-trip to fly home for a party and return... and I selfishly wanted to complete my planned stay. But I heard that my sister was not going due to financial straights. And she was not too far away in the US - a $250 one-hop plane ticket, round trip. I could spare that much, and called and asked if I could send her in my stead (and asked her a favor in return, to take a full-length poster of me that I was arranging to have made, so I could be as "present" as possible). She cried - she and her young husband were trying so hard to get out of debt, and my father was one of the people encouraging them to stick with that resolution, and she had given up and handed it over to God, thinking it would take a miracle to get her there.
So I was her miracle that year.
She took the poster, taped up on a wall, and my siblings all made post-its of things I would say, and changed them from time to time so people could have "conversations" with me.
One of my cousins fed "me" cake. They sent me pictures. Some of the family I've talked to, later on, have to be reminded that I wasn't actually there to remember the party.

A few years later, just after Ernie got hurt and we got married, my grandmother (who I'd been serving as a part-time caregiver) passed away, leaving me without a job in winter 2008. We'd also had to move mid-winter, unexpectedly, because of a landlord who needed his house back.
My sister decided to retroactively call that old plane ticket a loan, and sent me the money around Christmas. Others were equally generous, with less excuse. We did appreciate all the second hand clothes, over-ripe zucchini, and spare pieces of fabric or dishes from Grandma's house clean-up that helped stretch our resources, but they are not quite the same as being given carte blanche to take care of whatever you need, without having to ask. Or my dad coming over with tools, hands in wet mud in mid-winter, or anything else we asked for, on the slightest excuse for some of Ernie's home cooking.

4) Divine timing / agape:
Working in a science museum, I was asked to help with a Latinas en Ciencia event - an all-girls science sleepover, with all female staff, for the families' comfort. I was a physics/chemistry educator, who had been studying Spanish for about 6 months in order to be more use for this program. But the event was a Valentine's theme, so instead of flasks and beakers, we had a heart-themed party with a heart maze in tape on the carpet, and a sheeps'-heart dissection. I had never done one myself, but agreed to copy what the biology teacher did at the other end of the table, so more girls could see.
As we were waiting for the girls to finish their labyrinth game, I got talking to one of the chaperones. She was an older sister of one of the girls, and had trained as a veterinarian in Argentina before coming to the States. Had not been able to practice here, since the license doesn't transfer. Sort of at loose ends, starting over in a new place, with not many advantages besides family.

I asked, "How do you like sheep's hearts?
"If it's OK with my colleague, would you be interested in taking my place in the demonstration, so the girls can learn from a real expert?"

Her face lit up, and she agreed. My co-worker was fine with the swap.
I got to watch my new acquaintance completely transformed, animated, in her element. Of course, her excited and technical Spanish was too rapid for me to follow, but she had all the girls bent over and riveted.

In five years at that job, I still feel like one of the best days' work I did was the night I stood back and did nothing.

Compassion: Ernie being lightning-fast to catch the door for someone in a walker, or clear space for a wheelchair.
"Been-there-done-that" has a whole other feeling from charitable pity, or oblivious/late offers of help.

Decency/reciprocity: a kid who is on a "freegan" / broke streak, being invited out for drinks by some friends, allowing himself a taste here or there before finally letting a close friend buy him his own. Not wanting to be a moocher, though, so he runs over to a business he knows and brings back some high-end dumpstered chocolate. "Freeganism" generally comes across as entitled crap, but the urge to reciprocate being so strong that he will not take a free drink without giving something back, there's a wishfully-contributing citizen peeking out there.
Friends who probably never ate out of a dumpster in their lives, taking a polite taste, to honor his gesture of reciprocity.

Guardians: On a solo travel to Edinburgh for a friend's wedding, alone with suitcases on a bus to a budget hostel in a strange country. A pushing young rascal spots me, and commences being alarmingly charming. I am playing along (I find it hard, when travelling, not to be overweeningly friendly to everyone as a sort of personal defence), but recognizing all the signs of a con artist, and really hoping that he gets off before my stop. I don't want a stranger shadowing me, or offering misdirecting "advice," as I try to find the hostel.
The bus driver (who knows where I'm going) stops at a public circle well ahead of my stop, lets the young man know he's getting off here whether he planned to or not, and he can complain to the next bus driver if he wants. After the bus starts moving again, a disapproving elder from the back of the bus, looks like Ben Franklin in sweatpants, booms out a warning to me between furrowed brows, "Ye dinna want to be talking to just anyone like that, lassie, he could be ennibody!" The strongest Scots brogue I heard in my time there, unforgettable.

Courage: Neighbors attending meetings, in a different house every time, to orchestrate the eviction of a drug-house in their neighborhood. Knowing that last time the neighborhood did this, without the rotating meeting place, the organizer's car was bombed. Lessons learned become a nationwide training program on landlord-tenant rights, police rights and responsibilities, and community tools for keeping illegal activity off a rental property.

Chivalry: Running out of gas for the first time, on a road trip, on the exit ramp within sight of a gas station. Ernie refusing to let me get out of the car, preferring to push the car uphill on crutches rather than expose me to traffic. The next car that comes to the exit ramp slowing down, stopping short of the intersection, backing up. "I would have stopped sooner," says the driver, "But I had to convince myself that I just saw what I saw." Ernie and the car safely tucked off to the side; a ride to the gas station, a deposit on a loaner gas can (they have 3 or 4 lined up by the shop ready to go, it really is a long gap between stations there), and everyone is back on the road.

Joy and sorrow: A funeral for our "retired" EMS manager, with a fire-chief's sendoff from a dozen departments (this involves, among other things, two extension-ladder trucks with a flag big enough to drape a tender waving high above the entrance to the high school, the only place in town with room for a 200-person crowd). It comes out in the memorial that at least 5 people remember him as their irreplaceable best friend, the person in the world who knew them best of all.

A Fisher House (housing for family of hospitalized service members and veterans) that spills over with donated food like the loaves and fishes; so much so that volunteers have to be signed up to date it on arrival, and remove expired items weekly.
A yoga instructor who volunteers to give weekly classes at the military medical center gardens, and always brings a memento for the constantly-rotating family and rehab participants. An inspiration card. A smooth stone. A sample-packet of comforting aromatherapy oils. (Is it just me, or does it take a special courage to bring 'yoga' and 'military' into a garden together? She did not seem to feel the slightest doubt about what she could offer, and her confidence was well-placed.)

A table overflowing with three tiers of clipboard sign-ups for similar volunteer and organizational opportunities - bus-to-the-Zoo trips, horseback trail rides from the barracks stables, knitting, computer classes, restaurant dinner parties.

People who train and groom their dogs to an exquisite standard as therapy dogs, to visit hospitals and rehab centers where they don't necessarily know anyone but the staff.

Offering cuts in the grocery line to someone with two items.

Declining cuts in the grocery line because you don't need to hurry with your day.

Center for the Intrepid medical / technical staff who give out their personal cell phone numbers to dozens of patients each week, so that you can text them a question without waiting to put a call through the receptionist. They're all too busy helping people to sit at one desk all day.

The home folks, knowing we will be arriving late, having a fire going and hot food waiting (well past their bedtime at 11 pm).

Feb.1994, we had the worst ice storm I've ever seen. At the time, I lived on top of a mountain and the road was rough in good weather but with the ice it was nearly impassible. We had no phone and the tree limbs breaking knocked out the electricity for a week. My family had no way to reach me. Somehow my neighbor made it to my house to tell me that he had heard from my family. My mom had died.
The day of her funeral, the sun was shining and the ice had melted. On the way to the cemetery I saw a man who had pulled off the road to let the funeral procession pass. He stood outside of his vehicle, head bowed, hat in hand.
My neighbor went out of his way on an awful night and a stranger took the time to show respect. "People are basically kind."

This just came across my facebook feed and it immediately made me think if this thread:

This seems small in comparison to all of the above, but I want to offer the following...
We have red clay here, gardens need more than just red clay so I called a man who had an ad in the local paper for a load of topsoil to put in a new area my son is fixing up for me. He gave me the price and it was reasonable but then he said he would be also charging for the delivery which would be an extra $25. I agreed like a big girl and never said a word or gave any indication that that $25. was going to be a stretch for me. I knew the Lord would figure it out for me ultimately. Well doggone it He sure did! The fella named Jimmy showed up with his dump truck delivery and was as gracious as he could be, he dumped the dirt right were it was needed and then I pulled out my checkbook. "OK, how much total?" I asked, to be sure I was correct when I wrote out the check. He said "no delivery fee Rose, just the cost of the dirt will be fine."
Often I feel down about things too, I find that focusing on helping someone else with something no matter how small, gives me the boost I need.

In my town is a Facebook page called 'Buy Nothing Mukilteo' where many people post items they no longer need or want. Other people put in a request to be selected to receive them. People put amazing items on this page and gift them to others in the community.

I'm a grandmother trying to not spend lots of money on my Grandkids and still spoil them. I watch this Facebook page and pick up various things that others have made available.

I've received a mini pie baker, Star Wars PEZ dispensers (4) and a watering can for the garden. People are very nice on this page. It is a pleasure to watch and restores my belief in the generosity of people.

Our town had the Farmer's Market shut down by some official from the state capitol. I have stepped up as I have space, that is easy to find, and have studied our cottage industry laws to a flinder (last year when I wanted to participate in the market). I am going to be sponsoring this year's, and educating everyone on how to stay within our state's legal guidelines. We NEED this market. So giving back to my community.

I went to a Seedy Saturday exchange and left my packets of carefully-labeled seeds on a table, for anyone to take as they like, and wandered off to look at what other seeds people were offering.
When I got back someone had taken seeds and left me a lunar planting calendar in exchange ... one that I had wanted to buy several months before but hadn't been able to afford! what a kindness to leave a calendar in exchange for a few bean seeds.

I found the person who left it in order to thank him and when he learned of my financial situation he offered me a free membership to his ecological gardening group. So in exchange I translated a presentation on seed-saving that he had attended but not fully understood, from English to French so he could know what had been said.

That whole exchange really made my week.

Good day to all ! Moving into Cache Valley in northern Utah was the best idea my brother could ever suggest to me. Right away on the instant upon arrival there were neighbors coming over eagerly wanting to help me unpack my moving trailer. There was pleasant conversation and laughs. After a day or two of settling in, a far off neighbor came over with a plate of cookies and some kind welcoming words. Not long after these heart warming experiences I saw a microscopic sized ATV with a plow attached and it was zooming back and forth down my 1000 foot driveway spewing snow into the air. I ran after the thing to thank the human that was driving it. Turned out to be my neighbor across the country road that I live on. After chatting with him for a few minutes I realized that he was an unusually kind person. Something magical happened in my life from that point on- something that I treasure. It is this special feeling of giving from your heart with the intent of creating as much happiness as possible. I'm thinking more along the lines of giving people your happiest face, best smile, and try to make others laugh as much as possible. Be a clown. Run a ways to open a door for someone. Give things away that you were going to sell. This sort of list can go on forever.

As you let this 'giving from your heart' grow- why then you automatically become a much happier person than you ever have been by a long shot. Things that normally would have made you depressed will just disappear out of your mind. A soothing and relaxed feeling pervades your body as if you have been receiving a therapeutic massage every hour of your life.

All my smiley happy faced neighbors keep on giving and I gladly keep giving back. It's the best disease you could ever catch.

R Ranson wrote:The people at premies.com are kind, helpful and full of good ideas. They don't focus on the problems and bitch and complain all day, they go out there and actually do things that can lead to solutions to some of the biggest problems in the world. You guys inspire me!

x2!

Six years ago I drove my vw bug on the 40 through the mojave desert.
At the kelbaker road exit (#68 I think) the bug conked out. I got off the freeway and after some tinkering found a broken distributor.

I decided to hitch to the nearest town
It was hot, people wouldn't even offer me the back of their truck. I was not impressed with humanity.

Finally a couple in an SUV did stop. They drove me 17 miles to town.(yes, a hell of a lot farther than I thought) then they waited for me to check the store and drove me back to my car. 34 miles out of their way, my faith in humanity a bit restored.

A couple years later I parked my truck at a different part of kelbaker road to get some sleep. I got up at 5:00am and stepped outside when a sedan pulled up near me. They were nearly out of gas on a very empty road.
When the driver told me this I just smiled and pulled the five gallon jug of gas off the back of my truck.

Being able to pay it back is great!

The reason I'm specific about the location is because last year I stopped at kelbaker road to rest and I parked my civic right where my vw bug had been parked.

After resting I drove about 100 feet and the car stopped. Broken distributor.

I don't stop at kelbaker road anymore.

Recently I was at a home depot scouting out materials I needed to screen red clay for my rocket mass heater project. While checking out the hardware cloth. I noticed a petite woman and her young young child checking out the 90lbs bags of concrete. I doubt she weighed more than that bag. I knew for sure she was not gona lift that bag into her cart so I walked over and asked her which one she needed and put in in the cart for her. I was really surprised at how thankful she was. For me it was just a matter of simple courtesy. Then later on when I had finished my shopping I saw here again at her car trying to figure a way to get the bag into her car and again I walked over and did the lifting for her and again she seemed inordinately pleased to be assisted.

I am always willing to help a person in need when circumstances allow and would live tho think most people are. Sometimes is it the small things that make the most difference.

He he, well the last few days I had a bad allergy/sinus problem so was under the weather for a bit. Those plants sitting in pots needed transplanting but I just wasn't up to it. I took some old screens I had laying around and laid them on top of the raised bed with the plants under them. Three days later I saw my free range dinosaurs got into them and all but decimated them!!! I wanted to cry but then the thought came to me "A challenge!" I am going to see if I can make them grow anyway and who cares if I have to start some seedlings late to replace them. So my curiosity is going full fledged now and I get to experience whether or not I am good at reviving some green stuff. (I don't mean paper money, heavens I don't even know what that is!)
Its a glass half full or half empty sort of thing...

This is a lovely thread

A few years back, a trainee doctor from Spain turned up at my workplace for work experience. The place she was due to stay in was no longer available (due to the owner's wife having an affair so she was using the spare bedroom) :-/ The trainee, Laura, spoke very little English and had never been here before. Another trainee (John) offered to take her to visit some spare rooms available. Predictably, these were all grotty. Anyway, we had a spare room so she ended up living with us... for 8 months!

Her English improved, and she passed her qualifications. Laura and John ended up going out, and this August they will be getting married! (and we'll be going to the wedding in Spain)

Just goes to show that helping someone else out, even if it inconveniences you, often ends up paying you back.

Here's one (well, two actually).

The people who work behind the scenes to keep permies a kind and gentle place to be.

Paul for his awesome words.

I'm sad today.  

Anyone have any more examples to add to this thread of people being kind?

I'm sorry you're sad!  I wish I could help you feel better.  In my own life I rarely encounter mean people, hardly ever even on the internet because I don't hang out in mean places.  So, in my own personal world, most people are kind.  That's all I can offer right now.  I don't have any global examples, just local ones.  Someone here on permies (Judith) is sending out free books to whoever wants them!  How nice is that?  Also, someone on here (Karen) just bought one of my embroideries, which is tremendously kind because now I will have money to buy some seeds!  

I'm childless but I have neighbors with kids on both sides. One side the woman remarried a much older man who was willing to be a father to her three young sons. Two are slightly autistic and oldest has aspergers too. Oldest is interested in mechanics and his new dad is NOT inclined. Today was nice and I did oil, filters and fluids on my small pickup and hosted my helpers to get dirty and learn parts of a pickup and engine, hold wrenches, fetch bits I dropped. Yes GIRLS can do this too. I felt sorry for my dad many years ago, so it felt good to pass it on. We had a cookies and milk break (they like my homemade milks and the cookies were gluten free but had frosting so okay) when we got done. (8, almost 7, and 5 if you want to know ages). Mom had wondered why things got so quiet at her place and came looking for them as we admired the pickup and made crumbs, and gave me a loaf of banana bread, still warm, in gratitude. (my hubby can eat it, he thought it divine). So being kind all the way around.

I'm also 'on' to play "Santa Stopped" on Christmas Eve. I stop by a few neighbor houses about 7:30 with a chunk of 2x4 with a few bits of chain and a few jingle bells tied to it, on a long twine. I sneak up, toss it up on the roof and drag it off (we usually don't have snow that night) then slurk off. Did it 2 years ago the first time, for the same boys, and mom said they never got in bed that fast in their lives!!! Last year I did three houses, and this year will do four. I can only do a small area as I walk. The families keep the dogs in and the kids away from the windows and Santa can visit and leave because they were still up. Do not do it onto a tiled roof, and be careful about doing it onto tin. Asphalt shingles work about the best.

People are basically kind.
It's the core of the human heart.

To help, and love, and nuture others
It is only doing our part.

Our part is really the simple things
That brings happiness to others.

It doesn't need to cost a lot
To lift our sisters and brothers.

A kind word, to share a meal
Can make a difference
in how others feel.

It can be as simple as a smile,
Or just sit and visit for awhile.

It doesn't have to cost a dime
To show you care and spend some time.

Some who have much less than us
Aren't concerned with all the fuss

Of all the cold material things
This holiday season nowadays brings.

Some things are valued so much more
Than expensive gifts from a store.

Things that stay within your soul
And connect humanity as a whole.

What can you do to spread some cheer?
Brighten the holiday and the new year.

Thanks guys.

Your examples of kindness are kindness.  

I had a call to come now from the hospice nurse, my mom was at the end. I had to take a grueling bus ride (even for bereavement a flight was out of my budget). I found that on the long trips, the long haul passengers, had a sort of tribe group. Members came and went as we got to our destinations or got on to start the trip. We made quick friendships, looked after each other's stuff, etc. And. When someone was in need we helped. At a fairly small station at 3 am, a fellow with type I diabetes and no right leg, was stranded with several hours to go yet on his trip, and didn't have enough fundage to buy anything decent at the lunch counter thing they'd opened because of busses coming through about then and a lot of passengers (c'mon, $6 for a boiled hotdog on a bun?). He needed to do his insulin. I gave him one of my orange juices, others gave nuts and crackers and one of the poor working class fellows bought him that hot dog. Together we found him enough calories to take his blood sugar reading, and give himself his shot. I told him to break his sharp and I'd haul it to the bathroom hazardous waste bin. So, he got fixed up, and had enough stuff left for his next food time to get him to where he needed to go. Another place a few stops before, a woman with three kids under three was travelling and I lugged her luggage from bus side to clear it while she herded kidlets. I think she packed anvils but. She got sorted. Just a few of the many during four total days on the bus that I encountered... so yes, people can still be kind. Understanding. And paying it forward.

What a great topic.

I try to be modest whenever possible, and so my favourite philosophy is something like: "when you do things right, people won't know you've done anything at all". I remember back when I was travelling around more I had a spare 20L jerry-can because of how sparse the towns are spread out here - some don't even have gas stations. I was visiting a friend who said he was on hard times and might not even have enough gas to make it to the closest town to fill up. When I left for the night, I put the jerry-can next to his van door. He figured out 2 years later that I was the one that left it there and he thanked me for it and returned the jerry-can haha.  

When I was younger we were on a family road-trip and it was getting close to midnight in an area we didn't know. A massive storm was coming up, possibly tornadoes, so we pulled into the next village, Kayville. We got some food at the bar while planning to park the camper on the street. A guy in the bar said that we should get the camper out of the open since it'd likely hail and invited us to park it in his yard. In the morning, he had to get to work(farmer), but said we could use his kitchen and shower. "you can steal anything you want, just don't touch my john deere collection". (he had like 50+ collectables) We sent him a postcard when we got back thanking him again.

Because of the draught last summer everyone around here is short on hay. Despite this, two neighbours have sold us  some. Both of them brought us just one round bale, because that's all they could share. But they took the time to bring it to us despite there really not being any material reward for selling one bale of hay.

We still can't keep cows through this winter, though, there just isn't enough hay for them. Our last cow left yesterday, we sold her to a dairy farmer up North (where apparently they did have some rain last summer and therefore enough hay).

I was feeling sad yesterday after the cow left and went to bed. My son put a blanket on me and put some of his favourite cuddly toys next to me.

Nina Jay wrote:Because of the draught last summer everyone around here is short on hay. Despite this, two neighbours have sold us  some. Both of them brought us just one round bale, because that's all they could share. But they took the time to bring it to us despite there really not being any material reward for selling one bale of hay.

We still can't keep cows through this winter, though, there just isn't enough hay for them. Our last cow left yesterday, we sold her to a dairy farmer up North (where apparently they did have some rain last summer and therefore enough hay).

I was feeling sad yesterday after the cow left and went to bed. My son put a blanket on me and put some of his favourite cuddly toys next to me.

Nina: I am sorry for your loss. Last year after a logger stole my wood that was supposed to go towards paying my property taxes, I had to sell off most of my flock of sheep instead. It was a very melancholy feeling hearing them bleat and baa, then silence in the barns as the cattle truck rattled away.

I am sorry for your loss and know exactly how you feel. Empathy and hugs...

Back in the 1980's a guy and his family were on a much needed family vacation, going to Acadia National Park when their car broke down in Camden, Maine. It was a transmission, and not a fast, easy fix, so seeing that man was on vacation with his family, told him he could use his car all week. The man was blown away that a mechanic would let some guy use his private car all week who was a complete stranger.

That generosity never left the man.

A banker, the man rose in ranks until he was president of the company, and when a call center was needed, he put that call center in Camden, Maine as a way of saying thanks. In the end call centers went in at Rockland, Orono, Belfast, Northport, Wilton and Houlton...hundreds of jobs, all because one mechanic was nice.

Thank you so much for the empathy, Travis! Your post was yet another example of kindness right there before my eyes

I loved your story about how generosity generated more generosity.

There are so many stories like that, where help comes really unexpectedly from somewhere you never thought it would.  Lending a car to a stranger is a big leap of faith, maybe that's why it created a big wave of goodness in the recipient. Believing without any proof that the other person is a good decent person who will return the car, there's something magical there, I can't really explain this phenomen, but it's powerful.

Started car pooling with a guy from work that became legally blind this last year and unable to drive. I think I have found a new friend and have engaging conversations on the commute.

My husband and I went on a 10 day vacation in early November. This is the first vacation that we've had since we got married on Summer Solstice 2014. Less than 3 months after we got married my husband was put on oxygen 24/7 you cant fly with oxygen tanks. So I finally saved up enough money to get him a portable oxygen  concentrator that is allowed on planes. while we were away, there were 3 snow storms 2 of which dropped 8" of snow each. Heading home from the airport we were worried if we could even get into our driveway. Low and behold our drive was clear! Our new neighbor, had snow blown our     600 ft driveway twice while we were gone. Now that my friends is a great neighbor.

This thread was my "something beautiful" tonight between work and sleep.
Thanks for sharing.

End of October I moved in to a new neighborhood in a new town.  Neighbors have been wonderful. I need someone to tend the goats for me post surgery, when I cannot lift more than 10 pounds.  A neighbor will be feeding the goats twice a day, and carrying water
Another neighbor helped move the washer and dryer that came with the house out and the new set in, and will finish installing them in a couple of days.  

These are people I never met until 10 weeks ago.  I'd say that's pretty generous, pretty kind.

We had someone whose house burned down in our area. No one knew them. Had ever met them. Nothing. We (people in the area) had a fundraiser for them and bought their kids clothes and Christmas gifts.

Our tractor is rather small. If it snows a lot it can't handle snow blowing it out. So, we resigned ourselves to ages stuck in our house only to have the neighbor come with his big construction tractor and dig us out. So nice!