rebellion, part 2

I put on Mozart to drown out those rebellious thoughts (go out, go out! Do the yard work! It's a beautiful afternoon! Take a break, take a break!).

Ed is working on ripping off the porch roof. We have a window of good weather next week. It would be wonderful if the installation could begin then.

[A commenter asks if we're sacrificing cool summer days on the porch by introducing so much light. It's a valid question and one that kept us from doing anything for the first several years. But consider the arguments in favor of moving forward: first and foremost, the loss of light in the kitchen is, for me, tremendous! I can never work there without a light on. Five huge windows in the room and still it is always dark. And, secondly, the porch is completely north facing, with huge shade trees to the east and to the west and the backdrop of the house to the south. It most likely will retain plenty of shade. In the alternative, we'll either drape a few shades -- easy to do with tension rods and beautiful fabric -- or we'll put a nice, tilting umbrella over the table. And finally, Wisconsin has a few hot weeks, but even these typically have cool mornings and evenings. On balance! let there be light!]

The Mozart is serene and soothing, but my work stalls. I want that break so badly! The weather is near perfect Too hot! -- Ed says, but I'm not convinced. He's sweating as he comes down from the roof, but he's been up there and I've been down here, in the house and I want that last dose of Fall sunshine!

Maybe we can work on the raspberry bed?  The weekend is before me. I'm catching up! Breakaway!

I see in Ed a fleeting hesitation. He looks tired. 
But he wont pass on a chance to make progress outside. Or maybe it's that he knows how much being trapped indoors has affected me these weeks.
Okay. Let's get the shovels.

And so we go back to the patch and we dig and rip and dig some more and in the end I put such energy into these two hours of physical work, that we clear more today than in all previous days put together.






And then it's back to Mozart and patient reading and slowly the day turns into evening. I close the books and step outside again. It's a heavenly time of day.






Want to go to Menards with me? This from Ed: he needs to pick up lumber and screws and various roofy things and it's my turn to return a favor and go along.

And so we take the truck and load two by fours by twleves and one by twos and fours and I have to say that in the end, this may have been the best part of the day yet. There is something singularly special about picking through boards and loading the old pick up, hoping that they'll not jiggle off on the ride home.

A trip to Menards is not just a functional stop for building supplies. We always pause in various aisles, like the country folk who haven't seen the insides a city store for a long time, and this time, we notice that Christmas lights are on sale already and we spend a good half hour making the hefty decision as to how we should light the farmhouse doorway this holiday season.

It's dark by the time we get back home. The long boards can spend the night on the truck. We stumble in and reheat chili. With garden tomatoes for the salad. I have with me the feeling of a day well spent.






We wake up to yet another glorious morning of sunshine. A walk in the garden, then breakfast in the sun room. Just because.

roof

Finally, after many many questions, consults, measurements, remeasurements, the order is in: sixteen panels of glass for the porch roof. Three of them trapezoids, the rest - long rectangles. 

 So I am surprised when Ed tells me -- so, the glass people just called. A nice older woman. Works there to earn extra money so she can visit her grandchildren. Really sweet person.
I put down my books. I see a story coming.
She tells me they didn't quite catch that the strips were all 122 inches long. The price is actually higher for anything over 120 inches.
They can't add that on now!
She proposed we split the difference. I finally agreed.
So we're set?
Well no. She had to clear it with the manager and he came on and told me -- don't worry, we'll take care of it. Not sure what that means...
There's more?
Well, the guy says that actually, now that he has me on the line, he needs to tell me that they can't do the two end strips. They're too narrow.
So now what?
I'll combine them with the neighbor strips. But then he said as long as I'm changing things, I should up the thickness all around. To a quarter inch (it had been at 3/16).
Ed, where are we with the glass?
Well now, I think we're set!
Okay! We're set!
Just one small issue: combining the panels and upping the thickness means that the panels are going to be heavier...
How much heavier?
Not bad. I think the largest one comes in at around 80 pounds.
You're going to carry an 80 pound strip of glass up the ladder by yourself and precisely install it on the beams??
No. I have a better plan.
I bet you do...
We'll both carry it inside, up the stairs and pass it through the bathroom window.
You'll trust me to help you carry a plank of glass up onto the roof?
I'm going to get glass suction cups with handles. We can do this!
I'll drop it or bang it against the wall!
I'll get an extra grip. We'll be fine.

I write this because the porch roof project has had, all along, a certain bravado behind it. And the more we became convinced that it could move forward, the bigger came the taunt. The spacing turned out to be uneven. The roof nails were impossible to pry. On and on, the obstacles mounted and Ed shot them down. And now, this next one depends on me and wouldn't it be ironic that it should fail now because I crash the glass or move it in the wrong direction.

At the same time, ever since last week, my youthful default position -- the "I can do this!" that has, in the past, pushed me to move across oceans and race down mountains -- is nudging at me again. In recent years I've let Ed do the bold projects. Despite the big talk here, on Ocean, the "mustn't grow soft!" -- maybe I've grown just a tad, okay, more than a tad soft?

2014. The year of change for me.


For now, I'm reading hard and working harder. No pauses to water flowers. A quick walk through the garden...






...A look up to smile at these two (both of whom have grown softer, and that's a good thing)...






...then off to my office, where I stay until the long shadows fall.

(Looking out my window -- my, aren't they starting college at a young age these days!)







Evening. Back at the farmhouse, I see that Ed has plunged into making grape jam.





Another reason to smile.

I cut up the last of this season's tomatoes and make chili again.



And in the morning, we wake up to a misty sky...






...followed by a warming sun. Breakfast on the porch. For sure.

rebellion

A commenter asks -- is this spell of nonstop work typical?
No, not at all. I have an unusual semester of teaching a subject matter that overlaps only a little with work I've done before and so the amount of reading that I have to do (to say nothing of lecture writing) is voluminous.

But, I'm fast approaching a turning point (in ten weeks!) and I do realize that it cannot be fun to read about endless work and so I'm poking my nose out a little more and feeling a whole lot better for it.

For example, on Tuesday, I slammed the book shut and went out to water the newly planted irises. And that lead to feeling sorry for the neighboring plants which seemed pretty dry and before the morning was over I had spent a hefty forty-five minutes with hose in hand, oblivious to the work world, oblivious to pretty much anything beyond my garden.
















Such a resilient place it is! Though if you look closely, the greens aren't so green anymore. A muted golden tone is starting to set in.






After classes, I again steered rosie past the lesser lake. This is the transition: the calming moment at the end of a long day.






And by the time Ed brought some take out Indian food for supper, I was ready to let go of it all for the day.

Except that you can't really fully let go. Clarifications, notes on top of my notes -- I came back to it all again at midnight and then, too, in the middle of the night, so that by morning, I was again thinking how restless this season has been for me.

But, on the upside (and there is always an upside!), the morning was beautiful, we ate breakfast on the porch, and I had a chance to take a photo of it all. Note the roof: slowly, it's coming down. Slowly but surely -- words to live by.

sitting

Play tennis? -- he asks at the usual hour.
I know he is tired, but he sees that I've been glued to the kitchen chair too long. But I'm not at a point where I can stop work.  
Maybe not today...Or should we?
You haven't moved your butt all day... He says this wanting to get me going.  But it's hopeless.
I'll make it up another time -- I say it without conviction.

So that's the low point -- when I cannot find time even for tennis.

Dinner: how do I treat dinner on these days when I can't seem to find the time to treat anything well?

Well now, I walk to the new orchard and vegetable patch, passing the increasingly solitary blooms...






The days are so much shorter! Long shadows on the fields to the north of us appear early. Too early.






I see that the animals have attacked our young fruit trees again. We haven't built the protective cages. We're paying the price for neglect.

Corn. There is still corn. (The only growing thing at the farmette, aside from trees, that's taller than Ed!)






And I do what I always do when I don't have time to think about food: I roast the vegetable du jour (today -- cauliflower), make a huge salad (one with plenty of tomatoes and cucumbers because we still have a daily supply from the garden)






...throw in those last few ears of corn, boil some eggs - not too long, just so,  and finally -- share a fresh panfried trout and some scraps of smoked salmon with Isis. It's come to that: I cook fish for the cat and then we steel some of it for our own supper.







And so the days hobble on and bleary eyed and somewhat drunk with work I tally forth. Round the clock.






Dinner then, breakfast now. On the porch. Cool (in the fifties), but with such good views toward a better world.


 



And the sun continues to taunt me -- you could be gardening! you need to help the new orchard! to fix the raspberry patch! Nagging thoughts, not much more than that.

Fall

If you say the word "fall" for me, all I can think of is "fall behind." If you ask me -- what did you do today? I can truthfully answer -- fall behind. No matter how hard I try, inevitably, I fall behind.

I've stopped going to yoga.

We haven't gone to Paul's cafe for weeks.

Long bike rides? Kayak outings? Hikes? So yesterday.

And even as I do none of those things, I fall behind.

But at the least, at the very least, I can look out at the world just outside my kitchen windows (when not on the porch, I work at the kitchen table) and be just tickled at what's taking place before me.

For example, as Ed rips the roof off the porch...






...there are strips of sunlight finally coming through -- to the porch and indirectly, to the kitchen.






Still, by mid-afternoon, I can't stand it any longer. I'm out. First, to pick some fruit from the old orchard.











Then, not satisfied with the tininess of the break, I go further, for a walk up the country road.






To the Nature Conservancy path...











...and back again.











An hour outside and I am restored.

Evening comes, the sun continues to paint the farmette in warm and glowing tones.






But Ed is exhausted. And I'm tired too, in a very different sort of way.  We do try to put in a good half hour on the tennis court and if you saw our game today, you'd think this was our first year at it. Terrible. (In a fun sort of way.)

And there you have it -- a fall, no, sorry, a fall behind Sunday.



And in the morning, after a quick breakfast in the sun room...





... it continues. I'll always remember the Fall of 2013 as one that mightily passed me by. No matter. No Fall will over look like this again. That's a promise.

if we knew then what we know now...

I fell asleep thinking of those words. And then trying to recall where they were from. Yes -- I remember: they're from a movie that my younger girl and I watched umpteen times when she was still in her years of exquisite dancing. The Turning Point. About the moment when you decide whether to continue or to stop dancing. Because to be great, you can't do it on the side. You have to put your soul and energy into the enterprise.

By the time she reached high school, my girl had her own turning point -- dance, or academics. She chose the latter.

It wasn't traumatic or difficult (I don't think). She was a beautiful dancer, but the world of dance is like the world of football -- it places great physical demands on you without necessarily a promise of success. Opting for schoolwork at the very least kept many more doors open.

I think when you pass a certain age (say sixty), you have to stop keeping all those doors open for yourself. You need to slam them shut, even if it limits your options. In other words, you need to decide how best to spend your most treasured resource  -- time.

And as I work through my law materials, my lectures, as I look outside at my lingering garden (spotty, but still occasionally colorful)...






...I think about how this year, I'm doing just that.


In the meantime, Ed is on the roof. (To a commenter: it doesn't look that way, but yes, the roof does slant. And, for the curious, he's not just putting in a panel of glass. He is cutting some twenty panels (so that they meet code) and installing them between the beams. Incredibly tough, because once down, he can't walk on them. Right now, he's pulling up the old roof -- a challenge in its own right given that he can't even get to the nails holding it down. So pry from the inside, pull from the upside. Over and over again.)






And because I am somewhat terrified that with his prying moves he'll come crashing down, I prefer to focus not on him, but on the flowers that are just refusing to call it quits.






If you ask me why I am such a huge fan of daylilies, surely I'll point to these guys, blooming away on a cool, late September day.






Isis is not happy with the noises, the movements, the bits of roof flying to the ground. He meows, he paces and finally he gets Ed to come down and pay attention to him.





Don't feel too bad for the cat though. He has been well cared for. Indeed, he has been nibbling on leftover trout meat daily. Bits of fish and skin as a special treat, morning and afternoon. (And then we speculate as to why he's been refusing his canned kitty food back at the sheep shed.)


In the evening Ed and I play tennis again. A heavenly game of gleeful jousting and volleying in the pine scented courts.

To get to the park, we always pass Farmer Lee's old fields. May I forever remember these years where, leaving the farmette, I could glance over Ed's shoulder (from the motorbike) and see her flowers.






Sunday morning: I glance at the thermometer: fifty out there, on the porch. Forget it. We'll eat inside.

But it is a beautiful day. And I think that if anyone has that sense of being suddenly older, wiser, gentler, more confident, more happy -- it would be my older girl today. She was married a year ago, on an equally splendid (if somewhat blustery) day. Did they know then how blissfully content they would be in the year ahead?

A flashback and a look to the future: one couple just married (to the right), the other -- now engaged (to the left).



September 22, 2012


Breakfast. In case you are wondering why we want to replace the roof on the porch -- look how much roof we have out the kitchen windows. Light -- soon there will be light. Yeah!

flowers and buckets and tennis balls

Could I interest you in a photo of one of the flower pots by the walkway?





Because it's getting to be awfully colorless out in the garden otherwise. Especially when, this morning, Ed threw down a bit of roof and chopped off all the remaining blooms of the ever faithful phlox.

Sorry! -- he tells me, though really, he owes no apology. He's doing the impossible. There will be flower casualties.  It can't be avoided.

I pass him the next tool and he continues to tear down the roof.






Friday was my usual combination work (at home) and shop (in three separate grocery stores, because that's how complicated it is to bring good foods at optimal prices to the table). And work some more.


Could I also interest you in a photo of the prairies along one of the roads into town?






Back at the farmette, it's getting very fall-like. The grape vine, growing up and around the sheep shed, has its bunches ready for harvest. We'll be having grape jam along with the apple and peach varieties already put aside for the winter.






Late in the evening I am finally able to shake off the tensions of the week: we ride out to our secluded tennis courts -- the ones with pines on three sides, sending billows of scented air every time you take a deep breath. In the dozens and dozens of times we've played on these cracked courts with the somewhat sagging nets, only twice did we have company on the companion court. For us, playing in seclusion is almost the best part. We get lost in that small world of pines and flying balls and the world seems like such a good and noble place.

Your game is so good now! -- he tells me. That's an exaggeration, but still, I'm glad. I hated that he had to play down to my level for all these years.


And the next morning it really is cool again, but I just cannot give up that morning breakfast on the porch and so I take it all out  -- the flowers, the fruits, the favorite cereals...





...and we linger, despite the fact that it's in the fifties, like the people who refuse to see that the days have moved on. What flowers remain are carefully picked out of a bed that has precious few left.

Can I interest you in a photo of the morning vase -- with mint and lavender and nasturtium?