back home

I did not think that I would be washing windows today. All nine, the ones that separate the kitchen from the porch. They just seemed dirty. Even Ed commented on it.

So ho hum, we’re home. Tired, so tired that I even slept during the drive from Milwaukee, waking occasionally to ask – Ed, are you okay? Sure you’re okay? Go to sleep, he’d answer, rather predictably.


This morning, I did the first think you want to do when returning to a farmette. I surveyed the state of the crops. Well, not really crops -- we don't grow those, but we do have a fine share of tomatoes creeping around the wood chips. Here's today's haul:


 


...and there are the perennials, the ever faithful, ever expanding and reblooming perennials.   And the nasturtium. Monet would be proud of me.





In fact, the entire farmhouse looks, to me, so very splendid. Dappled with color...





...but also ready for the next stage of renovation. We had stared at front porches and entrances up and down the Gaspe Peninsula and came to the conclusion that the easy way out may not be the best way out for the farmhouse. There are some pretty porches out there and we ought to do well by the farmhouse. So we are imagining and drawing plans.

But let me repeat, the place, in my eyes, is lovely already.


Isis greeted us as we pulled into the dirt driveway. Atta cat, Isis. Loyal to the core. He’s been hanging with us all day as I, well, washed windows, pruned plants while Ed worked on installing a windshield on my Rosie.

And I spun out to the store on Rosie, and she felt smooth and wonderful, and my older daughter came over and we all went out for a snack at the Oasis, and can I be any more enraptured with the everyday?

Nope.


P.S. I received a lot of feedback on my bear encounter on the Canadian hiking trail. And I read how so many would never venture out to the parks here, or in Canada without firearm. Well now, I have to respond. With two points. First, I consider myself to be an okay marksperson. I learned at army training camp (in Poland). But no way would I think that I, nor anyone could shoot at a charging animal while hiking. Oh! Bear! Let me reach into my pack and get out the gun and aim and fire! Such fantasy. Second point: between 2007 and 2009, 446 pedestrians were killed just in New York City.  About 148 per year. Between 1960 and 2009, 55 people were killed by black bears in Canada and the United States combined. True, most of those were in Canada, but still. You gotta have perspective.

By the way, Ed uses similar data comparisons to convince me that my fear of being struck by lightening in a storm while hiking is irrational. There are fifty deaths per year in this country from lightening strikes. You could say one per state per year. All of Canada has, on the average, 3.4 lightening related deaths per year. He runs that statistic by me and it has no effect. When I am hiking and there is a storm raging, I want shelter. Fast.