what'll it be like?

My mother tells me (on the phone, from Berkeley) – you better not have early morning classes. How can you dig yourself out of your farmhouse on time when the snows come next winter??

Ed tells me – I think there’s room for the box elder beetles to come into the farmhouse, even with the new screens up on the windows.

Eh. I continue. That’s what happens when you feel the squeeze of nay-sayers: you learn to not listen. Or shrug your shoulders. Or something.


I stop by the farmhouse on my way to class. The warm Sunday has really pushed everything forward at an accelerated rate. The huge willows on the farmette are buoyant and flecked in leaf buds...







The patch of planted lilies and daffodils (and as of today – of parsley, chives and mint) is speckled with new growth.





Yes, it’s lovely and lively out there, on the farm. I can’t think about beetles and snowstorms now. Too much going on at the moment. Can’t worry beyond this month.

seasonal blooms

Big heat wave. Eighty degrees in the afternoon. So odd, so wonderful, all at the same time.

It’s the day to push things forward at the farmhouse. Really make a dent, so that the crew can move rapidly toward the finale in the next few days.

Stain doors, build closet storage, vacuum off weeks of construction dust.

And I’m also starting to move things in. Welcome! Flowers, let’s start with flowers. (Wouldn’t you start with flowers in a move?)





On the odd, random shelf in the foyer, the one I painted yesterday (in the unfinished vestibule), I place my Polish carvings. The little ones. As if intended for a farmhouse.






We continue. Hauling the Craigs List armoire up the stairs... (Can you lift your end?  No... Try using your foot to help... Okay, I think... Okay...)





Sweeping off the bugs from the windows. Using the air compressor to blast construction dust off of tables and chairs that for some reason we hadn't cleared out before this all began. Buried now under construction grime.

In the middle of the afternoon we pause. Call it a coffee break (espresso from EVP – now the closest, and most wonderful café for me). With some baked goods. Shared with Isis, the cat who is absolutely thrilled to have us there for such long stretches of the day.





But the break can't last long. In the afternoon, we're furiously at it again. And I think – there’s a good side to doing so much of this yourself. You look forward not just to the end of it all, but also to the incremental stages along the way. To your efforts at creating something different. Fresh. It takes time, all of it takes so much time -- but it's not downtime for you. Time means that you have a chance to fix details, to change things. To do it well. Time becomes your friend.


Outside, the clouds are coming in. Stormy clouds. No matter, we did a lion’s share of work today. A final little piece --  I plant some pansies outside the entrance. The big clay pots that lined my condo balcony are at the farmhouse. It's time to fill them with seasonal flowers.

house, continued

Oh, you old farmhouse! How long have we been chiseling away, nailing, sanding, staining, sealing? Since December? You’re not nearly finished! Who takes so long to get ready to show her face in public??






Weekend: Home Depot. Return this, buy that. Wrong adhesive, new whatever, can’t even remember. I have pages and pages of notes on what we purchased and when and another set on what we returned and why.

At the house, we check for leaks, carry in crates of books (last load of those! So now I have rows and rows of books spread over the basement floor...). I inspect yesterday’s painting job, Ed attacks the door to the basement. Really attacks. He’s already ripped out the old frame. Time to start fitting in the new (on sale!) pine door. To be prepped, stained and sealed by me. Someday soon.

I paint window frames. I know – that’s a new one! Don’t you dare think that this house has uniform anything. The downstairs sun room windows are white framed. Where they’re finished. So I paint the parts that, for same reason have been left bare.

It’s as if there was a life interrupted here. Take the front door (which we do not use as the real entrance has long ago collapsed to become mere fragments of a front porch – another project for another time) – it’s prepped for painting, but it’s not painted. Stroked with a ghostly white brush, looking naked and exposed.

Tomorrow I’ll paint it. Today, I quit in the early afternoon as I’m to meet my daughter and her friend for a brief hike along a nearby segment of the Ice Age Trail. They want the walk, I need the pause.


It’s not exactly gorgeous out just yet. Give the trees another week or so and they’ll start sprouting green buds. Now, they’re still sullen and unadorned. And there’s a mist in the air. So that the landscape looks translucent and somewhat distant. Is this Wisconsin? Is it Asia, Poland, Colorado?






The mist burns away. The late afternoon sky is blue now, but a cornflower blue. It’s almost hot outside. Nearly 60. Surely the warmest day of the year?






Back at the condo, I do another visual sweep of the place. What can I give away? Sell? Throw away?

Tomorrow I’ll spend all the daylight hours at the farmhouse. But tonight I'm going back for an evening in my old neighborhood – the place where I once lived in a house, raised a family, had neighborhood friends. It’s a chance to catch up, while it’s still easy to hop over and then back again, while I still live close enough to walk there (41 minutes at a brisk pace). Before I move to the country.

the next day

Well, we’re getting there. The day surely had bright spots today. Good friends lurking in the background sold me on life, you could say.

Ah life. I’m at the farmhouse again, though the construction group has left for the day. There’s varnish on some of the floors and so moving around the place is tricky.

We zero in on the vestibule. Or foyer. Or mudroom. Call it what you like, it’s a mess there. I want to reign in my desire to merely replace. Surely we should aim to make do. Yellowing doors, dank and dusty shelves – they all need a facelift. I settle in to paint.

I’m going to pause for the day with photos from the inside. Progress. Take my word -- we’re making progress.


But for what?

Well, you might say for this – for the sight of whooping cranes descending on the fields just due east of us.





And for the deer. I will not tire of taking out the camera when I see something like this at the side of the road.





And the farmers. Bearing witness to their work, maybe. Today they cleared, plowed and burned spent stems and branches. And the younger ones romped and played and chased one another with sticks.





So that I don’t lose sight of the details. The larger canvas. And, too, the small petals around the throat of a crocus.

quiet

Classes start early and end late for me on Thursdays. But it is (usually) the last teaching day in the week and so when all is over and done, I know that I am, at least for the rest of my waking hours, free of having to produce, deliver, perfect.

I have set aside time to meet my older girl for coffee. It may surprise you to know that we rarely see each other on campus (even though her office is just two floors above mine). Too busy, too caught up in our own whirligig of time.

But I keep her waiting today.





I can’t help it. Students have needs. I must attend.


Finally, the day draws a curtain toward dusk. I want to go to the farmhouse – the construction crew has had ongoing questions in these last rapid stages of building and rebuilding and sometimes they don’t have questions, but I want to raise some of my own. Ed is not there today – he’s off inspecting a boat, or hauling a boat, or consulting on a boat – I can’t remember which – out on Lake Michigan with a friend.

I drive up to the farmhouse and I see right away that I am too late. The place is empty. So quiet! I cannot remember a time when I was here, on this property, without at least one other person there as well (typically Ed, in recent times – construction people).

I get out of the car and take it all in – the gray sky, the dirt path, torn apart by tracks again. I inspect the flower beds. I planted stuff here last fall, but construction workers, not seeing evidence of life, have trampled down much of that now. Does it matter? I can't tell.

I enter the farmhouse. Home. Oh my! The countertops are in. Even without applieances, it looks like a kitchen!





The surface of the quartz is so smooth, so untouched by dust and grime! I run my finger over it. Nice!

The floors are all in place now. The sanding and finishing of the downstairs is next week’s game. The upstairs? It’s done, but it’s drying. I can’t go up.

Of course, there are plenty of spaces that still aren't anywhere near where I would like them to be. For example -- you enter the farmhouse and your first impressions and images are of this:






Still, there is so much progress!

I walk through the rooms and I think back to when I first decided to push forward. I have no regrets.

It’s a warm evening (relatively speaking) and I walk around the property, looking for signs of the seasonal change that’s taking place.

I see that the truck farmers next door are getting their fields ready. They add spark and brightness to a still monochromatic landscape.






In the back of the old barn, the dried grasses are especially tall and hard to navigate. I see that deer have cut a path through here. At the side of the property, Ed and I planted fir trees last Earth Day. They’re there, growing at a pace of perhaps one centimeter a year.

I walk back to the sheep shed. Time to give in to the cat’s demands for attention. But just as I get closer to the shed, I hear a rustle. Something streaks past me.

A rooster?

I chase it some, trying to see if it will at all respond to my (Polish) rooster calls. It does not. It runs like crazy first one way then the next. However did we get a rooster over here?? Oh, the secrets of farm life.

I drive back to the condo, past a garden center where I see they have their first batches of pansies on display. Time to fill a pot with pansies. And parsley and mint and chives.

rough roads

I admit it – I’m driving the car more. In three weeks, I went through a whole tank of gas. (Before, it would take me three months. Or longer.) I don’t really mind. Even as Reliable Red, my friend the bicycle, is suffering from the neglect.

And here’s another person whom I think is showing signs of weariness (if not neglect): my occasional traveling companion (who is soon to inherit the title of Landlord, I suppose).

I drive over to the farmette on my way to the office. Ed is there, having spent half the night up among the layers of insulation in the tight attic space, installing the required bathroom vent.

He paces a little, spot checks one thing, points to something else. There is a lot of noisy activity at the farmhouse today. Not only from Andy and his grandsons. The floor finishing guys are at it, making a racket with their sanding machines.


 


Time is of essence. Finishing floors means you can’t stomp on them for several days. Andy had to sync this with the other people coming through – the counter guys, the plumber, the electrical inspector, the appliance person. To say nothing of my movers, ready to haul big furniture over, two weeks from today.






Ed is finding little things that he would have improved, given more time. He is that way – methodical, careful, not in a hurry. This week’s pace at the farmhouse is unnerving him. He looks like he’d like everyone to clear out and take a break. Like maybe for six months. Take stock. Contemplate. Resume at some later time. Don’t know when.



After work, I make a solo run to Home Depot. Grout, adhesive – I need to pick these up.

I get the wrong kind. Or, at least, Ed speculates that I may have done better with something that's easier to keep clean.

Was that my “the hell with this” moment? No, not just yet.


Evening. The construction crew is gone for the day. The sun is fading. I rake the ditches the trucks have made in the dirt path leading to the farmhouse. Ed is getting ready to move a huge freezer from the foyer to the basement. I’ve been egging him to get on this for weeks (months?), but, for understandable reasons, he has put it off. It’s a hell job to do alone and he will not ask for help.

I linger. I have a cell phone. I can call 911 if the thing crashes on the way down the rickety stairs.

But, Ed’s taking his time. First, we need to move some things around in the basement. And pick up some debris (for example, mouse droppings) after moving things around.

The basement is at this point 1.) somewhat wet from a busted pipe, and 2.) dusty beyond belief. All things I’ve moved thus far from the condo are here, in the basement. All covered now in dust.
Ed contemplates moving a stack of shelves over to make room for the freezer. So much junk on those shelves! Jars from a jamming project years ago. Plastic containers, pots of clay. Throw this away! Maybe I’ll Craigs list it...

Oh God.

Shelves are moved, more mouse droppings, more dust, cobwebs, I’m reeling.

You better go back to the condo.

I can’t. I need to watch you move the freezer down these stairs. You’ll trip, you’ll lose the grip, you’ll get pinned down. I can call 911.

Go, you’re making me nervous. I need to keep to my own pace.

Outside, somewhere at the edge of the path, a dozen crocuses are blooming their lovely heads off. Who cares, who even knows!

I get into my battered red car and drive home. A police vehicel chases me all the way down the country roads until I reach the Beltline. I don’t know why. Maybe he doesn’t like my 93 Ford Escort.

the holes

 The same song keeps running through my head: I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in... it stops my mind from wondering... Maybe you know the song, or maybe you don’t know it (Beatles, many decades ago), but surely you can appreciate the relevance.

Ed calls me in my office. They’re sanding and sealing the floors upstairs Thursday. Should we fill in the cracks and holes before that? I can’t come over today. My work day is too full. Tomorrow. After work, I’ll come tomorrow.

Ed calls with a correction. They’re doing the floors tomorrow. I marked the spots with holes that should be filled in. You want to inspect them for others? Really, I cannot. I’m sure it will be fine. I’m not fussy.

Not so much about holes in the floor. I can cover those with rugs.

Rugs. I’m at a store that sells them. Do you have this one in the smallest size? – I ask. I can’t put down a big rug in the bedroom. Too costly. But a small one, just by the bed... It takes her forever to find it, put it in a bag. I think -- man, I really do not like shopping.


Did you remember to vote? It's election day in Madison. Unlike most April elections here, this one is worth watching.





And so I'll watch, late into the night, I'm sure.


This afternoon, between classes, I went down the hill for that shot of strong espresso. I took the longer route, by the lake.

Finally!






The ice is gone. The waters are buoyant and richly blue. It’s cold and the Terrace is still closed "for winter," but a few Wisconsin types have settled in nonetheless. There they are making do. No beers or brats yet, and still they find pleasure in being on the Terrace. As if waiting for the yellow, orange and green chairs to be delivered.





And speaking of frozen -- I dig out a frozen something for dinner. I must eat down the frozen foods. Who wants to move frozen foods to the new place?!

Monday

  I say to Ed very very early this morning: I have to finish work on my lecture, then pay bills, tidy up, then we can stop by Menards so we can replace the incorrect parts we purchased, then we can stop by the farmette where I can super speedily apply a layer of varnish to the door, because I need to be in my office to go over my lectures and I have a number of student matters to attend to before noon. This evening, after classes, I can work on the “to do” list for the move. Did I miss anything?

Ed answers – hmmm. Sounds like my day.

The real chaos of the day is matched by the chaos at the condo. And the one in my head.

I try to stay on top of emails (toward the end of the semester, they are more or less constant), to loosen up a few more hours for students whose schedules are all over the place, on top of the demands of the day, but I feel like I did when my girls were very young – I am bouncing illogically between events as they present themselves, scrambling not to neglect one as I shift to taking care of the next one and the one after.

In the evening, I return to my condo and pass a sad looking bike. Dirty, with deflated tires. Sorry, you sweet, Reliable Red (oh, should that be your name?). I can’t fix you just yet. Maybe on the week-end.

At the farmhouse, Ed tells me that Andy has inspected my work on the doors. And? He says you should sand down the putty on the nails more.





Humph. I gave a five stroke massage to the putty. You can hardly see the spots. I point out that no one else from the team wanted to work on the doors – too time-consuming, boring and delicate. My verdict? They are done. No more diddling there.


The sky is incredible today: at once stormy and partly streaked with bands of blue. I can’t really enjoy it, but I do pause to look out in the early evening – the view from my office is so constant, yet so different each time.





And then I am home. Not dark yet. Let me go up to the condo rooftop. Not many days of good views left. Let me admire this once more. It’s pretty – so much sky! Even as it never quite produces the choke in my throat that a field might, with a farmer tilling, or a deer passing through, with shades of gentle green in spring and golden orange in fall... Still, I’ve quite loved this perch up on the roof. For the sunrise over the capitol and the tumultuous skies on early spring days.

Sunday

Every morning, I pack three cartons of books and we haul them to the farmhouse. Three a day now means fewer boxes to pack and leave to the movers. But this morning we’re slow. Ed finds some horrifically bad movie on Hulu and I get sucked into it.

A lazy beginning.

But we pick up speed. A stop at Home Depot. (Will I be able to adjust to a life eventually without Home Depot? There is a community of people with projects here. You can see it: people with lists, needing one thing or another to move their goal forward. You buy, you return what you don’t need. A communal place, even as you don’t know the other shoppers.)

At the farmhouse, I quickly start on the doors. Those raised panels are a pain. Drops of stain accumulate in the crevices. So much wiping, correcting! But as we get closer to evening, I see the end: one more door and I'm done...

Ed asks – aren’t you sealing them?

Say what? I conditioned, I stained... frames, now doors – and it’s all taking forever (see previous posts)! I had sealed window frames, but there, I worried about moisture.

I'm told that in fact, many people just seal. That’s most important. It keeps stains and fingerprints off. And it lets you wipe off messes.

Sigh. Okay. Lets get the varnish. I’ll seal.

And here’s a remarkable thing: wipe-on varnish is easy! I sail through this stage! Ah, these small surprises overshadow the grave setbacks. There’s light. Really there is. Today I hear one bird sing on a wintry gray branch set against a brooding sky. Tomorrow – a cacophony of birdsong and brilliant spring weather. One can hope.





It’s very late by the time we stop our work.  We pick up a pizza at the Roman Candle, just before the place closes for the night. Lightening flashes, we rumble back to the condo, where the mess of packing is already in full swing.

frames

Gas mask on. Hand goes back and forth, up and down. For five hours I condition then seal the wood in the upstairs door frames of the farmhouse. (Tomorrow I’ll do the doors.)






Late, as the afternoon light begins to fade, my daughter shows up and suggests a walk. Yes, gladly. Even a gas mask doesn’t fully protect against the odor. 






Outside? Gorgeous day! Just about a mile south of the farmhouse, we cross lands that belong to the Nature Conservancy. Thoughts of door frames and moving fade. The day is too lovely. The sun -- ridiculously warm.

an April fool

I am in love with this month. A semester ends, flowers appear at a fast and furious pace, the farmers market moves outdoors. The world, my world, is cornflower blue and buttercup yellow. Sweat pea pink and purple. Ferns unfurl, buds swell – what’s there not to like?

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.

dinner on the town

I can do this now! I can get on the bus after work and come down to Chicago for a late dinner with my younger daughter! Even though, really, I haven’t ever come down just for a meal, until today. Busy: she is, I am, and the weeks fly by. But still, I know I can, and isn't that just splendid!

Today I had additional incentives to appear in Chicago. There are things, family bits of china, small tables, things that i want to transport down to my girl's place before my own move. Now comes the time to declutter life and stick with the essentials.

It’s a beautiful day outside – and this is immensely pleasant, as the two previous times I’ve come down to see her have been in the thick of winter. Not tonight. It's a great evening for a long walk to dinner.





We eat at Antico – and I am relieved that I am eating Italian food that is fresh and wonderful. Ed’s been running episodes of Kitchen Nightmares on Hulu and the past two demonstrated failures have been Italian eateries. I can finally let go of images of soggy eggplant and stale chicken cutlets. Antico offers a small symphony of Italian flavors. This place (just opened last week!) will be around for years to come.





Yes, it’s good to be in Chicago. Tomorrow at dawn, I’m back on the bus, heading up north again, but today, I’m having a city night. A quick taste of the urban, before taking out the mouse traps and settling in to farm living. Soon.

booked!

Ed thinks I’m unabashedly optimistic, but I truly believe we are now seeing the final stages of the farmhouse project rolling toward completion. In fact, I’m betting that I can pretty much move in on April 20th.

It’s important to get this date right, because I don’t want to move into chaos. Nor do I need to move before the last floorboard is sanded and finished. My condo buyer isn’t closing until late May. But, I want to be there sooner rather than later. Wisconsinites may fight me on this one, but I think spring is a beautiful season here and spring starts, in my estimation, pretty much when the leaves burst in a riot of green from long dormant tree branches. And as I recall, that nearly always happens around my birthday (April 21st).

There is yet another reason to move sooner: the farmhouse is starting to look so darn pretty right now! Freshly scrubbed, ready to show off her buffed and polish new face.



(new walls, new ceiling, still waiting for new floors)


From a more utilitarian standpoint, I should be there, too, because there is work that I need to do on the doors and frames and it’s easier to get rolling on it when I am actually at the farmhouse.

So today I booked movers for April 20th.

It’s the third move for me in the last half dozen years and I am using the same company I had for the previous two moves, except, as I explained to the agent today – I’m moving less “stuff” each time.


This morning, before classes, I ride out with Ed on his motorbike (cold!) to inspect the most recent progress. Nice!

Outside, I see that the first crocus is showing a solitary yellow brilliance.


 


Yes, it’s time to step outdoors more. Poke around in the dirt. Watch the sky change colors. And, too, it’s time to write a few words, not only for Ocean, but for the stalled book project. All that, starting three weeks from today.



In the meanwhile, I drive past one of the big lakes and see that the ice is clinging forcefully, as it were January and not almost April.





In the evening, I go to a public hearing downtown. It is in the matter of street art (I'm for it!).

I finish the day with a celebratory drink at a place that used to be a home of sorts for me (I worked there) some years back -- L'Etoile.






One of the waiters who worked there then is still on the staff and he and I spend some minutes thinking out loud about the passage of time.

Time. Short spurts, long hauls, dates and deadlines. I have one now: in three weeks, I should be packed and on my way.

details

Easily bothered? Then this day’s not for you. I mean, you really have to be made of tough stuff to come out unscathed and unperturbed after a day packed full of annoyances and irritants.

Work issues? Well sure there are always those. But worse: how about the wasted hours fixing internet commerce snafus? And time frittered on phone exchanges that are only mildly relevant to the task at hand?

Well so what – there are days like this. You ignore the brilliant skies and the lovely promises of spring and you blunder along, fitting as best as you can nearly everything into an already full day

Hey, at least the ice is nearly melted on Lake Mendota. Can you believe it? It’s the latest spring I remember in south central Wisconsin.





I can hardly stay awake long enough to write this. Sleep: I deeply miss good nights of sleep.

mink fur

My mother used to say this in the years my sister and I attended the UN School in New York: I gave up the possibility of owning a mink coat so that you could go to a good school. (The message was: you better make it count.)

I felt badly for her. She was frugal -- sewed her own clothes, wore costume jewelry, but she really appeared to covet the mink. Coat, stole -- however it presented itself, she wanted it. I suppose in the 1960s, mink was the ultimate symbol of success. Sort of like a huge LCD screen is these days.

So I grew up believing that mink was a huge deal – a rare animal that ladies seemed to want (in the dead version) to sling across their shoulder, sometimes with paws and other extremities still in tact.


Alright, let me say a few words about this day: the skies are blue, the air is gentle, the temps shoot up to the low forties. I step out this morning thinking – why am I not riding the bike to work? (The short answer is that the bike is dirty from a winter rest in the condo garage and the tires are low on air.)

I decide to walk to campus. An hour along the lake front path. What could be better!

And I am rewarded – with my first sighting of crocuses...





...and with a secretive peek at the wildlife that inhabits the shores of a (still partially frozen) Lake Mendota.

There is the muskrat....





...and an animal that someone on the shore tells me is a weasel.





A weasel? Like, an animal baring a coat of mink fur??





Much of the ice that covered the lake all winter long has melted. But some remains firmly in place.





Though it doesn’t fool me any. There is nothing in the air that feels like winter. We’re onto a different kettle of fish here.

About time.

change

If yesterday was miserably cold, today was still somewhat cold, but beautiful nonetheless. Blue skies and a warm sun meant that I could leave the scarf behind. At last.

And this is a good thing, because today, I launched my (protracted) move to the farmette. Ed brought his truck (you surely have dead mice in the engine! It smells to high heaven! Open the window...) and we loaded up all that I store in the storage room in the basement of my condo building: Christmas decorations. Important papers and less used kitchen utensils. Skates, picture frames, a picnic basket. A guitar.

We roll slowly toward the farmette, thinking that a bump at a faster pace would surely send things flying. At the farmette, we unload the truck, carry it all to the basement and I check off on my list one room (admittedly the smallest) as “moved in.”

And the willows sway and the birds chirp and life is good.





But it is cold. At the farmette, the ground is still solidly frozen, so that my attempts at leveling the dirt driveway are completely unproductive.

I leave in the early afternoon, having work to do at home.

But I move slowly on the return trip home. I spot the truck farmers out in the field next to the farmette and I pause for a while. I feel neighborly almost. As if I’d already moved in.





And a few paces further, I come across a man with a camera. What are you looking for – I ask.
Birds that stay at the water’s edge.





That water is really not a pond, but one big puddle in the fields below. Sometimes it dries up during the summer. Other times it does not.

In the evening, I chat with my mother (who lives in Berkeley). She’s skeptical about my move. I’m not. I’m sure as anything that I am doing the right thing.

bits and pieces of a day

I wake up, look outside and tell myself – only a few more days of this. And that's a few days too many.

Not wanting winter anymore, I feel cheated and cold when I step outside and feel the bite of an arctic wind. At least I think it's arctic. Anything now below freezing I count as arctic.

I had wanted to mend the dirt driveway at Ed’s farmette today, but the ground is a solid brick of ice still. And so instead, we head out to Menards, to study tiles.

Why tiles? Well, there is this regulation that does not permit the oven to be within a certain proximity of wood. Including the frame of a window. Because the stove is going to be quite close to a window (weird, I know) we have to cover the frame up with a barrier. Andy suggested tile.

At first I think – plain white. Let’s not be fussy here. But we then find something unusual at Menards -- tiles that aren't exactly tiles. Thick little bits of something.





We read the box label. They appear to be stone slabs from Turkey. Cheap marble. Kind of cracked at some edges, but with character. $5 for a stack of nine. (One has to wonder – why nine?) And I’m thinking -- these will work so well with my four tiles that I bought on random four trips through France years ago. Souvenirs, you might say, from tightly budgeted trips. So maybe I could insert them amidst the thick slabs of Turkish whatever? Wouldn’t that be cool?

We buy the Turkish slabs and the grating and the sealant and my oh my, this tile thing is certainly a PROJECT. Still, it's only a modest project and if Andy approves, we’ll have a stove backsplash that looks like this:





We stop, too, at Sears, to pick up a land-line phone. And while there, I make my way to the TV section, to admire how cheap big TVs are these days. When I bought my 19 inch flat-screen five years ago, I winced. Now, you can get a screen in multiples of mine for half the price. I nudge Ed toward a zesty looking 32 incher. Shouldn’t we upgrade the tiny set? But Ed's skeptical – is there something you especially want to watch that warrants the added cost? I admit that there is nothing. We move on.


At the farmhouse, Ed works on running a phone line to the living area. I volunteer to plant the tomatoes for the season.




Ed’s tomatoes vary from year to year. Sometimes they grow in abundance, someday they’re inconsequential. This year, I’m there to help.

And finally, we unpack the Menards mouse traps and though I am so very tempted to set them up immediately, I force myself to put them aside.  Maybe they should wait until the dust settles. Who cares if there are mice here now. The house is still uninhabited. Besides, we haven’t agreed as to who will carry a caught mouse out to the fields. I’m okay with seeing a mouse, but I’m less okay with toting one around, dead or alive.

Ed continues to work with wires, but I head back to the condo in plenty of daylight. I want to do my tax returns. It's my gateway to real spring.