April 1st is April Fool’s and there’s something deliciously spirited about that as well> there's a message for you: don't take yourself too seriously!
I leave my (Chicago) daughter’s place early – just when the first light pushes through...
Once more I take the El against the traffic. They’re heading downtown, I’m going north.
The showers come and maybe that would give someone pause – it’s damp, it’s cold, too. But April is a package deal. And I’m willing to pay this small price for the pansies in the flowerpots and fat robins in the orchard.
Welcome, April.
So, that was written in the morning – on the bus ride up north. When I arrived in Madison, to a world drenched in wet snow, the following kid rhyme got stuck in my head: roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you. With the retort: but, the roses are wilted, the violets are dead, the sugar is lumpy and so is your head! Ha ha ha! Reign in your celebration! We live in tough times alright.
The bus is late pulling in (don’t ask), Ed’s even later picking me up (again, don’t ask).
We drive over to the farmette and Ed is definitely in an Ed mood. If I say something tinged with optimism, he’ll dig hard for the counterargument.
In fact, progress at the farmhouse has been made...
...but the project is far far far from edging toward completion. I'm no longer certain that I’ll be moving into a finished product.
We haul some crates of books over from the condo and I stack them neatly in the basement. That’s about when the building team (Andy and his grandsons) alert us to the fact that the thermostat isn’t working. The place needs a little heat to warm up the boards that will be laid next week.
Ed quickly discovers that both the new thermostat and the furnace are having issues. I try to concentrate on staining a board to see if I can do an adequate job with the doors that went up on the second floor.
Suddenly, the entire farmhouse rebuild/renovation project seems a tad overwhelming. Too ambitious. Too impossible.
I suppose most everyone experiences this moment of glumness – when you patch one thing only to discover that this was a tiny nothing compared to the monster you still need to address down the road.
By a late hour, Ed identifies the needed fixes to the furnace and thermostat (or, the best guess as to the needed fixes). So I should be pleased. And I am. But there’s a reality here about April that I must admit to: it’s got tricks up its sleeve. You have to be prepared. And you have to not mind.
Of course,you are finishing your fine pine doors and knot-free frames with a combination of linseed oil and lye?
ReplyDeleteGeorge H: when we read the steps needed to properly apply linseed oil or tung oil, I recoiled. So, it's back to the Home Depot stuff -- for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteOh, your line about overwhelming, too ambitious, impossible struck a chord, as this winter we got ourselves into a big project where every thing about it seemed that way. But the customer showed up today with payment and left happy as a clam, and so now are we. You just have to persevere, and you will come out the other side and not remember (quite) how bad it seemed.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard that retort to roses are red.
ReplyDeleteI'll say this as a form of encouragement: you are one of the most tenacious people I have ever known, and get through life with such enthusiasm and even optimism that I find it contagious. I'm sure you'll wake up tomorrow (or perhaps the next day, or week) and find this project entirely worthwhile. I suspect the whole thing is a lot like parenting: tiring, exhausting, challenging, etc. while you're doing it, but eventually, everything works out okay and you can look back and be amazed at what you accomplished.