still of the night

A beautiful Thursday morning of warm air and a cotton-like mist over the faintly green fields.





I can trace the sunrise between the branches of the fruit trees in the orchard.





It’s going to be a fine day!


A commenter asks – is Isis (the cat) a mouser?

Living in a farmhouse – you get the mice. Field mice, house mice, who knows what mice. Mice mice.

So you would think having a mouser cat around would keep the mice away. Indeed it does – from the sheep shed, where Isis resides.

It’s not that Isis wont come into the farmhouse. He’s quite vocal about wanting to join us there, especially in the evenings. And I’m okay with him coming in for a quick visit. But just that. I don’t want him to move in, suitcase and all.

Even as the guilt in setting limits has been severe.





There are two reasons to let him in forever and whenever – first, he wants to be with us and second – the fact that he is a mouser.

There are three to keep him out – first... he wants to be with us. And on us. Sleep snuggled next to someone, claws, long sharp claws digging into soft flesh (I’m not referring to Ed’s flesh which seems indifferent to claw grips), snoring, purring, clawing – all part of a blissful cat sleep. And more than any cat I’ve come across, Isis loves attention from those in his inner circle. In years past, when I used to visit Ed in the sheep shed he would jump up for a petting session the minute I’d sit anywhere at all and if I dared or Ed dared to log on to a computer, Isis would walk across a laptop or a keyboard until I (or Ed) stopped and focused on him. Ed doesn’t mind. His sheep shed keyboard is filled with cat debris. And I understand demands for attention. I do. But I also love my squeaky clean baby Apple to be, well, squeaky clean. And without Isis pawed additions to my text. Isis is very facile at adding irrelevant letters to whatever you’re writing. Or deleting the entirety. Or playing with function keys. The cat’s a regular geek. Like father like son.

The second (and related) reason for a limit-Isis-in-farmhouse policy is that Isis tracks dirt as if the outdoors and indoors were one. Mud? Debris? What, I’m a cat! I can’t be bothered with wiping paws. Sure I jump on tables and poke my nose into whatever you’re eating. I’m a cat! A typical do as I please cat! (Like father, like son.) Come and go out my own cat door, when I want, hey, a cat!

The third reason is the flipside of the very best reason to have him around – he’s a mouser alright. He loves nothing more than to catch the damned little mouse, play with it some, torture it ‘til the bitter end and then drop it down for you (the “entrails,” Ed’ll say) as a gift. Typically by your favorite chair. And if eating part of a mouse upsets his tummy, he’ll regurgitate that for you as well. Conveniently in the middle of the room (thus far, sheep shed), so that you will notice.

And my daughters are allergic to cats and he sheds and the sheep shed smells of cat ... oh, I guess those are reasons number four, five and six.


And still, it’s not an easy decision. Listening to him meow outside sends a worried Ed scurrying to spend quality time with the cat. If by chance we don’t respond to him, Isis goes for any window screen within reach. The most convenient one for him has a nice claw mark to show us he cares.

So for now, it’s peppermint oil for the mice. And an occasional short visit by Isis. With an addition of one little plastic box today that snaps shut if any small critter sniffs around inside. And a dab of peanut butter in it as an invitation.


UPDATE:
As we all know, Blogger has been down for the past day. (Indeed, as of this writing, posts from the last two days have been taken down by Blogger, with promises of some later date fix.) I go to sleep without publishing the above text.

Halfway into the night, I wake up to a muted clatter, coming from downstairs. It’s quiet in the countryside. You can hear most any noise within the farmhouse.

Ed, I think we caught a mouse.

Go to sleep.

No, really, I’m sure of it.

Ummm.

Ed, can you check?

You check.
I realize I cannot. I am not exactly scared of mice. But it’s dark and I’m not sure how to handle the trap – it seems so flimsy. Easy to spring from and pounce, claw and maim its holder. Can you please go down?
Ed is deeply asleep.

Please?

Please?

Reluctantly, he does. You’re right. I’ll take it down to the road.

And so begins a life of catch and release. Ed is out delivering the mouse to the fields. Isis comes in to sniff the place out. It’s 2 a.m. at the farmhouse.


UPDATE:
It’s 4:30 a.m. The noise is unmistakable.

Ed, we caught another mouse.

Wednesday

An oddly mixed up threatening but beautiful and ultimately so very rewarding day.

How could that be? Let me recall...

Morning: breakfast on the porch. Positively inspiring.





And so immediately after, I work on changing the ten hateful pages of my book.

Noon hour: I pluck out handful upon handful of weeds from the flower patch leading up to the entrance of the farmhouse. Got ‘em all. At least superficially.

Afternoon/evening: coffee break, shopping break, then return home to cook dinner. A zucchini leek goat cheese roasted garlic puffed pastry thing. Kind of a special meal. Ed typically bikes on Wednesdays, but the freak storms keep him home. And, too, my girl is over with a her friend -- enough of an excuse to eat leisurely, with attention to the food and to each other.

During this last stretch of evening hours, it rains, thunders, hails. I know. Others have had a rougher time of it. Still, it is a mess out there.






One more observation. We have mice in the house. I haven’t seen them yet, but I know they’re with us. Earlier, at the store, I’m looking around for peppermint oil because I’d read that mice hate the smell of it. Next week, I'm likely to give up on the eco-friendly gestures and go for big time trapping. Today, I'm still dabbing the oil in key spots and making sure no food is left uncovered. I was born with this kind of optimism. Nice to see it hasn't completely abandoned me here, in the farmhouse.

hot air

A hot day. Where did it come from, this wave of summer air?

I am up early: this morning I must go into the city. This is the way I think of days now: ones where I must go into the city and days when I needn’t make the trip downtown. It’s such a short drive, really it is and yet those few miles keep me apart from all that is Madison.

And so when I do go in, I make a list of all that I must do there, because who knows when the next big trip into town will take place (actually tomorrow, but never mind...). Appointments, office stops, bank stops, Trader Joe’s, this way, that way – and because it is such a warm day, I feel like a season has passed since I was last in Madison. I lived there once! Oh my, it looks so different now!







By noon I am at the farm again. I have exams and papers to read and more will come my way this week, but I am not ready for this yet.

Instead, today, I open, for the first time in two years, the file with my book draft.

I hate it.

I put it down. Outside – time to go outside. There is so much work now around the raspberry jungle.





Ed drives several truckloads of wood chips into the barren center of the patch and I spread these with a pitchfork. Grueling work. And, as if heaving loads of wood chips isn’t punishing enough, Ed tells me – I’ve lost my crank for the truck tarp.

Neatly spread bark has to be lifted until the tool is found again. Please do not misplace it again! I say, as if anyone needs the reminder.

By 2:30 I need a coffee break. Any break actually, but let’s make it a nice peanut butter sandwich at the café type of break because I am getting awfully close to feeling spent.






I regain my energies. I return to the farmhouse while Ed continues to heave and spread wood chips. I take another look at the book project. This time I’m more forgiving. Of the forty pages I wrote some two years back, I’d like to rip out ten. But thirty are alright. In line with what I would want to put down now, two years later, older, wiser.

I go back outside to check on Ed.
I’ve lost my crank for the truck tarp, he tells me.
I help dig into the chips until we find it, buried deeply, in the same place where it had been buried before.

a Monday in May

Thankfully, the day was cloudy and cool, with a sprinkle every time I dared step outside. Farmhouse notwithstanding, my work life orbits around paper and computer screens. I needed the time to put in some solid hours of crunching work product.

You could say that the day is consumed by work and by untangling snafus associated with the move. Most anything these days can be accomplished on line. Indeed,  this is the first time I have moved without sending a single notification of a change of address by mail! Impressive. More computer clicking.

Ed, can we speed up the Internet connection here?

What can’t you do with the basic service?

It takes me forever to upload stuff!

Like what?

Photos, for example!

What’s the hurry?

Yes, Ed knows no hurry.

By late afternoon, Ed is ready to quit replanting tomatoes and I am ready to pause with clicking away on my baby Apple. We zip over for a coffee break (Ed does not drink coffee, but he does not mind the concept of a coffee break) and follow it by a trip to the second closest grocery store for a quick restock of essentials (milk and fruit and Klarbrunn... everything else can wait). Why second closest? Because truthfully, Walmart is closer (4.5 miles, where as Copps is 5.1), but the idea of shopping for groceries at a mega-Walmart store makes me slightly unhappy.

It feels chilly outside. All that talk of warm weather? Forget it. Not today. Back at the farmhouse, I pull out a few random box elder twigs from the raspberry patch. Ed and I discuss the problem of the front steps of the farmhouse (they’re crumbling, useless and unsightly) and then put the project to the same side where we’ve wedged back porch renovation ideas. Call it the "sit on it" side.

I look over at the constantly multiplying daffodil patch...





And then back at the sheep shed, now made pretty by the fruit tree buds and willow branches.





Even on a cloudy day, this place is a charmer. In my eyes at least. And especially in May.

sweet day

These are the kind of days when not much can seem wrong in my world, when wisps of ideas, forgotten pleasures and images come to form a very serene, very dreamy kind of mood.

I am quite aware that it is Mother’s Day. I’ve always loved this day, maybe because it focuses on small pleasures on a day off from work in the middle of May – what’s not to like! And today, I wake up to a sunny, warm enough Sunday, with the smell of freshness still around me and I think – it smells like a day in your country house, the one you have in the north woods or the south of France, or wherever your idle thoughts have carried you over the years.

Yes, it’s Sunday, so I do have to do the house cleaning routines. I turn on the opera, open the windows and finish with lemon oil on the kitchen table. Yes, it takes a little longer to clean this place, but I don’t yet mind.


 



Keeping it fresh has value for me. And, I’m not the only mother along this road working today...







Ed and I finish up the curtain rod project and we hang some paintings on the walls as well... the final strands of this stage of the reconstruction.

And we take our breakfast to the porch. We’ve had ideas on what to do with this outdoor space, but right now we’re a little reluctant to undertake anything big again. Construction burnout has set in.





As we linger beneath the wooden eaves and watch an occasional paper wasp return to her nest there, I am convinced that I am back in the old world across the ocean, some more distant place where there will be an outdoor meal and after that we’ll sip Muscadet and talk about how the vineyard is doing.

Isis, happy to be included on the morning meal, sniffs my muesli and kefir and retreats.





No vineyard here, true, but there are many weeds in the yard to dig out and I want to plant some freesia bulbs and finish filling the giant clay pots.

In the later afternoon I get on the motorbike with Ed and we go to our favorite café, just up the road from us, just as we so often do for a late day pause. He eats soup, I drink my frothy espresso and we go through the papers lying around the place. It’s a good thing that the café (EVP) closes these days early or we’d stay into the hours of dusk, then wonder where the day has gone.

I talk to one daughter who is away on the east coast today, and the other who’ll be coming over for supper this evening and I think the day could not be a whole lot better than this.

A happy day to all mothers out there. Such a sweet idea for a holiday, isn’t it?

yellow and red

I didn’t take many photos today. Every once in a while, I put camera thoughts to the side. I mean, the clunky thing dangles from my neck constantly, but sometimes I really don’t want to be looking out for good shots.

Now, running through the dozen photos from the day, I notice that they all are a variation on two colors: red and yellow. Coincidence?

Maybe. But a weird one. For instance, why take this picture? What caught me this morning, as I was leaving for the market?





As we biked toward downtown Madison and the Capitol Square for the Farmers Market, there were the pigs. You photographed them already... Ed reminds me. Yes, but this particular face, the one staring right at me – how can I ride by without pausing?





At the market, flowers are coming in from the fields.





And Ed picks up the last bag of cheese curds from Hooks cheese makers. Tomato and garlic flavored. My daughter has joined us and we stop by Matt’s stand for a brief visit. Matt typically has mushrooms, and soon there’ll be his ever wonderful asparagus. For now, we merely chomp on cheese curds.





What else is there to admire at the market? So much! Tomatoes! Red and... gold.





Across the street, we watch a golden haired girl greet a very very large dog. Against the backdrop of Graze’s red umbrellas.





And then we bike home. Past fields of yellow dandelions. If you look really carefully, you’ll spot the deer. It’s like a “Where is Waldo” game, except the deer you’re looking for is not wearing a red shirt.





...even as Ed is.

moving into May

You’d expect this, of May... flowers, narcissus...

And we’re getting it – the full palate!

Thank you, White Flower Farm, for sending these bulbs last fall. The variety is stunning!






You’d expect this, too. A big sky hovering over the farmhouse. I pause to admire it as I bike to work.





And these – young gosling... I mean, quintessential May. (I do sometimes wonder if perhaps we’re too welcoming to these birds. I mean, shouldn’t Canadian geese move up north when the weather gets warm? They’re just a tiny bit... messy.)






May. Such a month. I try not to have favorites, but May is so easy to love!


I've been at the farmhouse for two and a half weeks now. So why am I not getting my mail? I called my post office that belongs to my previous address. We're on it! We're forwarding! Be patient!  I call them again today. We're on it! We've been forwarding!  But I'm not getting it! Talk to your new post office.

My new post office is laid back. Hmmm. Maybe I'll try to catch your delivery person. Our computers aren't fully functional. I'll call you back.

He doesn't. He's a good guy -- Ed tells me. I call again. Yep, I know, I have a note to look into this. Haven't figured it out yet...


Late. I bike from work to Whole Foods, then home. Ed's there. He's fixed a leaking pipe and is about to adjust curtain rods, in line with a new idea he has in the matter of curtains.

Biking home with groceries strapped to the frame. Overloaded again. You’d expect this, of me.

uncomplicated

I like sunsets, I do. And sometimes, though not often, I even photograph them. You have your camera, the colors are pretty, why not.

But what I cannot resist, what pushes me out of deep sleep and makes me run outside is a great sunrise. And really, any sunrise is a great sunrise.

Ed tells me this morning – the sky is pink out there! For a second I hesitate. I just did the leap and dash outside thing yesterday morning. Perhaps I should pass it by... No, I cannot.

Outside, I pause for a long, satisfying moment just to admire the world around me.





It’s always such a happy time, to see that sun, especially now, in early spring, coming up from behind the fields tended by the truck farmers. I watch the ascent for a while and I think – my, this is going to be one fine day!

I’m not alone out there. This is the time that most birds go to market. I mean, the chirping that takes place at sunrise!

One last look, toward that sun, making the golden willow look dazzling in the blazing light...





Outside. I get distracted by the raspberry canes again. I have indoor work to do today, but in these pre-breakfast moments, I am again clipping canes and pulling out roots of young box elders (aka ash maple – so invasive here that truly, I have pulled out well over a hundred of these guys). It is grueling work, and oddly satisfying. As if you’re really getting a grip on your environment. Life dragging you down? Pull out some box elders! Take control!

Eventually the rain does come and I retreat to my indoor work. But I take short breaks, just to step out and admire how quickly the fresh greens have come to dominate the yard around the farmhouse.





The rhubarb is exploding, the lilies are healthy and happy (and the new ones, less standard than the tigers, are also coming up well), and the new perennials have so far held up against the wildlife here.

Yes, May is a good month to be on the farmette. One could say the very best month.

We take a break from work and head for the closest local coffee shop. I think about the month ahead – I’ll have well over a hundred exams and papers to grade. Yet, it all feels so calm and timeless now. The sun rises, we work, we eat, read, listen, and go to sleep again. Weeds grow, we pull them out. Straightforward. Uncomplicated.

after the cold night

Working the land is perhaps like engaging in acts of combat. You think you know who the enemy is. You want to eliminate the enemy. And so you invade. But, like in military interventions – you gotta have a plan! An exit strategy! You can’t just destroy and leave!

Perhaps I’m getting ahead of the day.


I wake up to a clear sky. And, having a bedroom with an east, south and west exposure, I can sure tell you the state of the sky just before sunrise.

It was a cold night. Maybe the last of the deep frost nights. I think about that. Must be so pretty out now, with a touch of frost on the fields.

I go out and take stock.





There is a smell of burning wood. The air is crisp. Magnificent, really. I look up at the farmhouse. Solid. Pretty now, in the morning light.





I have a day of student emails and exam question reviews. I go outside, then inside, then out again. Water. Let me water some new transplants. And I paint some wood curtain rod supports that Ed carved out for the windows.

There are new flowering shrubs that I need to find room for. I look around. There is so much land here! It’s easy for plants to get lost. I moved a peony bush just the other day because I was afraid that, tucked where it was, no one would see its fantastic blooms.


I walk down the path to the sheep shed. We’d cleared the beds to the left of the path just a few days back. I want to see how the transplants are doing and if the coreopsis – a favorite of bunnies, chipmunks and who knows what else, survived another day. It did.

My, the sky is blue! Curly willow, plain old willow -- you both look so good this day!






And now I face the raspberry patch to my right. This is what I noted about the farmette when I first came to visit it back in 2005 – that it had out of control raspberries. Ed was incapable of pruning out live canes and so there was a field, a jungle really, of wild, scratching, leafy raspberry growth. Some of the canes worked overtime and delivered magnificent fruit. Many did not. And the patch grew and expanded, and as my traveling companion and I continued to occasionally travel together, I would be inspired to come out to the farmette and work hard, scratches and all, to reign the canes in.

The canes always won. Even as they delivered less fruit, they won.

Ed is fussing now with his old John Deere in the barn.

Ed, I have an idea!

Okay...

A plan...

Okay....

I think you should mow down the center of this patch. It’s half dead anyway and invaded by box elder. Cutting things back will only help deplete the mosquito population come summer...

Okay...

An engine starts. Hey, Ed’s on his tractor, heading for the patch. In he goes.





Dry canes, young box elders (so many of them!) fly to the left and right. I follow, pruning what the Deere has left behind. Burs from burdock stick to my shirt and, too, they get in my socks, shoes and scalp.

Ed! My hair is tangled with burs!

He stops the Deere, takes the familiar and reassuring patient moment to untangle tightly matted hair.
I do this to Isis (the cat) all the time.

Isis has short hair!

Stop thrashing.

The burs are out. And many of the invasives and dead canes are gone from the patch.
What now? – Ed asks. Now? I don’t know... I survey the bare, scalped earth. Truthfully, I did not think Ed would get to this project so soon (or even, let’s face it, ever). I don’t have a next step. The box elder shoots are gone, but what’s left?

The upside: the fruit trees have breathing room. The aggressive box elder population is depleted. But, one should have a “now what” strategy. Because if you simply aim to retire after taking out the enemy, you’re leaving room for anything, good or worse, to fill its space.

I'll be sure to think of something tomorrow.


Evening.  Ed is biking with the Wednesday night riders. I'm working on exam issues. One curtain is up, several to go. No frost expected tonight.

a spring surprise

Just go to sleep and forget about this day. It’s not spring – it’s not even pre-spring. Brrr.

Oh, but wait. The UPS truck has left a package. I’ve been told to expect something like this. Indeed, it is THE package. With the work of one of Ocean’s most loyal and supportive commenters.

Snip, cut, open.

There they are: daughters. Two different portraits, two methods of achieving something memorable and beautiful. He’d done the first after seeing a photo of a daughter on Ocean. The second followed soon after. (My apologies for the less than adequate presentation. I was in a hurry!)





I’ve been dazzled by his generous impulse before. Here, remember his woodcut of a Florence picture I put up on Ocean?

And he’s done another – of the Paris bridge in a furious burst of wet snow, again, from an Ocean photo. He has this habit of making me feel happy about the occasionally good photo here.





My artist friend (and he is that, even though I’ve never actually met him) works with many art forms, woodcuts, paintings, yes those, and, as well – he’s a professional photographer. You can see much of his art here, on his website.

You can learn a lot about doing art (however small or large your skills) by viewing the art of others. And, you can learn a lot about friendship by watching those who know so intuitively how to be a good, rock solid friend to others. Using all their best talents to bring specks of joy and a smile to the people they encounter.

Thanks, Dan. Treasures, all of them. Now happy in their new farmhouse home.

country ride

There are days when I think I am far too fragile. Limping along to old age. On other days, I wake up believing I am omnipotent – able to carry the load of two, half my age.

I never seem to stay within the range of a golden middle ground.

Today I set the goals high. Shun the car, get out the bike and pump some air into the tires already. How is it that it’s May and I haven’t even wiped the dust off of the seat since, oh, maybe November?

There’s a reason for it. The farmhouse is a little ways away from campus. Twelve minutes by car, but a good 55 minutes by bike.

No matter, the day is bright and I don’t have to get to the Law School before noon. This is the moment to let go of the car dependency.

I step outside.

Wait a minute... What’s this? Someone has pulled my pansies out of the flower pots? And chomped their heads off? There’s so much going on outside right now: buds, grasses, new plants – why would anyone want to feast on potted pansy blossoms?

Ah, farm life.

Ed pumps up my tires and oils my chain. I wipe off a year of grime. I am set to go.

Gosh it’s chilly out there. Windy too. But so... pretty! One of my ongoing complaints about condo living was that I biked from one parking lot to the next before I hit the trail. Not here. So close to campus and so... rural.










But it has been a cold spring and the foliage is still on the spartan side. The wind is kicking up some now and I think that another layer of warm wraps may have been a good idea. As I come closer to the city, I see how delayed this spring has been.






And now it's afternoon. I’m done with meetings and such at the Law School. Next stage: pedal over to Whole Foods and pick up fruits, veggies and dinner foods. The goal is to go there only once a week.
But -- I’m on my bike. How can I purchase foods for the whole week? I can take whatever fits into my saddle bags on the rear. No more than that.

So I shop. And I overdo it. Three full bags of groceries do not fit into even hefty saddlebags. I wedge and strap the remaining items onto the back, between the bags. The whole thing looks like a red lama with two pot bellies and a hump in the middle. Twelve miles with this stuff? Perhaps you know the saying: you do it if you don’t have the options of not doing it. Off I go.  I pedal the hour and ten minutes that it takes to go now from Whole Foods to the farmette. And I have all the essentials – the fruits for the week, the breakfast foods, the snack stuff, the pack of seafood, the pack of chicken meat.

As I pedal home, I’m thinking – I have to quit being so ambitious. I struggle with hills (thankfully, there are few, though they all come upon you in the very last stretch, when you are most tired). The bike wobbles each time I slow down. And finally, two more turns after this farm and I'm home.






Ed has been working outdoors, mainly on his Geo’s malfunctioning headlights. Isis, the cat, is out as well. Yep, home.

The sun is gone now, the air is cool. I’m hoping that the nighttime prowler will give up on my flowers. Go search for the dandelions. You can have as many of those as you wish.

light

I’m sitting in the living room of the farmhouse, watching the light. It’s quite a show.

People in houses (rather than apartments or condos) do, of course, typically have light coming from any number of places. But what’s fascinating about this little house is that if you sit in the living room, you can look to your right and face an east window, look ahead and see the world to the north, to the left – the western skies, and in back of you, there are the southern hills.

It’s not that the living room itself is especially full of windows. It has only one (west facing). But it has all these little rooms feeding off of it. I feel like I am in the head of an octopus and my arms are reaching out to the world.

So in the morning, if you look out the west window, you can tell it’s a sunny day, but it is a diffuse light.



(I'm in the kitchen here)


Anyway, I know this is such a ho hum thing, but right now, it’s evening and I am watching the light.


Earlier, I faced one of the big objections I had to moving here: there are a lot of floorboards. Wall to wall carpeting may be so retro, but it hides a lot of dust. You can’t get by with missed cleanings too long with wood floors. It shows. I’ve been in the farmhouse for ten days now, and it is time to clean.

On the upside, if movement rather than couch potato status is good for your health, I'll gain years of life here (if I don’t die first driving down country lanes without headlights – see previous post).

Ed is away today, sailing with his friend. Out on Lake Michigan. May they survive the winds and cold waters -- is all I can say (I politely declined the only half-serious invitation to join them.) I am alone here, for the first time. It gives me a chance to take stock. To contemplate things a bit.

I would have enjoyed a chance to sit outside and watch birds swoop from one tree to the next, but there was a brutal cool wind blowing. I opted for more weeding and maintenance work outdoors. At the local nursery, I noted that their usual varieties of annuals were not yet outside for our shopping pleasure. I see the signs, too.





Crazy spring, the sales person tells me. I ask her -- so, you think I should hold off with plantings? The earth’s too cold still! Crazy spring.

Crazy...maybe. But I’ve been through 31 springs in Madison. This one is on the cool side, yes, there’s that. But the days are so long now and the trees are nearly green and the flowers are clinging tenaciously to the promise of warmer days. Who can complain?!

In the meantime, the sun moves down, blinding me for a brief second from my left. Beautiful.






And, toward the east, beams of light from that western exposure throw dappled reflections against glass paned doors.






May light. Brutally strong and blissfully long lasting. And still, I’m glad Ed is driving my 93 Ford tonight. His 92 Geo needs tinkering to get the lights going without fail.

effort

I met Ed in the month of October. Several months passed before he worked up the nerve to invite me to visit his home – the rebuilt sheep shed at his farmette. A few months after that, I again spent some time at the farmette. I told him then – I could never live here. The time needed to improve the property – it would swallow me whole. And I couldn't not take care of things. If I’m plunked into a mess, I want to straighten it..

So, do I recall those early thoughts now that I'm in the thick of moving in? Yes, sure, and it's obvious to me that I was right and I was wrong about life at the farmette. Five years later, I am in fact facing the outdoor clutter. (though these days, I regard it as less of a clutter; more like mild disorganization -- some of it quite deliberate). And I cannot not take care of it. But here’s the surprise – it’s okay.  I do what I feel compelled to do. No more, no less.

So, this is a good thing, no?  I can't tell right now: I'm too sore to think straight. Surely  I pushed my limits today! We attacked the parking space. I planted the new perennials. And then, we began the task of pulling out the creeping Charlie, transplanting good plants that fared well, removing those that were a touch out of control.

Form eight in the morning, until four in the afternoon, we worked without interruption.






The end of the day. We drive to town to buy groceries. On the way, we pull up at Menards.  One grouting mix to return three electrical wall plates to throw in. Ed says -- that's it? Kind of sad not to have a long list.

The Geo is full of Woodman groceries as we finally pull out of the parking lot. Eight o'clock. It's just getting to be dark. Ed's car is acting up again: the headlights flicker, then die. We take back roads to avoid cars that may wonder why we're crawling along with hazard lights flashing.

All is quiet at the farmhouse. Just as you'd expect it. Just as you'd want it to be.

growing things

I feel I have neglected my commenters. So many good messages come this way on Ocean! Yes, I’ll get back to a conversational mode! Yes, as soon as the semester’s work lightens up and the work at the farmhouse is near an end.

I know. Decades hence. Or, maybe not so far from now?


This morning, you could say I reinvented my outside working habits. Some thirty years ago, before the trend hit hard here, I discovered perennial gardens. I was spending quite a number of weeks in England and Scotland and if you’re there, outside the urban areas, you can’t help but notice that the British know their flower beds.

Yes, it’s all about British habits today, what with the wedding and all... you didn’t watch the wedding? I did, here and there, remembering that thirty years ago I kept tabs on the other British wedding, wondering which would come first, the “I do” or my about to be born baby. (“I do” won, by a mile.)

Some time around the birth of child number two, I began work on my own perennial flower beds. We’d just bought a house, there was a yard, there was the will to make it less about yews and lawn and more about combinations of flowers. But here’s the rub: I never quite had the time for dedicated gardening. And truthfully, had I the time, I’m not sure I would have given it all over to yard work. There was so much yard maintenance that I thought of as necessary drudgery. (Lawn care, tree pruning, weed control, to name but a few.) The good stuff – planting flowers – that was a mere thumbnail in the tally of outdoor chores.

Things are different now, here at the farmette. For one thing,  I’m not in charge. These are not my three acres of land, not my trees that are in need of pruning, not my quack grass, nor creeping Charlie. And so I can choose and work long hours outside, but I don't have to do it all. And, Ed is equally lackadaisical, even though it is his farmette, and he does care about quack grass and creeping Charlie. Just not enough to make it rule the waking hours of every day.


The light is so gorgeous this morning, so utterly perfect, that all indoor tasks are put aside. Yes, I still have school work to attend to, but it can wait a day or so. Today is the long awaited day of outdoor work – however we want to define it.

And it evolves. Initially, I start by clearing the porch of construction debris. I branch out to then remove spent flowers from last year. Ed suggests moving the crocuses out of the driveway and before you know it, we’re creating a new flower bed, just by the big lily field by the porch.





Yes, we do other more mundane chores as well, but unquestionably, the gardening elements dominate the brilliant hours of daylight.





I continue to have no plan, no agenda for the land that surrounds the farmhouse, But I come to this place with a love of soil and plant life that I probably inherited from my grandfather. And so of course, I do want to make a garden grow (note yesterday's post). Some garden. Not any well-crafted garden, but a garden nonetheless. With perennials and a few annuals, for the lazy spells when nothing else seems to be thriving.


In the late afternoon we drive to the Flower Factory just a few miles south of here. I pick up a handful of perennials for the brand new raised bed created by Ed earlier in the day. Another  spring, another growing season. A fresh start, a measured, older wiser start.

done

Ordinarily, I am sure to be up and about by the time Andy’s boys (well, okay, men) come to mud, patch, nail, paint. Lately, they’ve been coming early.

This morning I greet the one (Adam) who has been working on the foyer (really, let’s call it what it is – mud room).
What’s the plan for today? I ask.
I’ll finish trimming and putting in the base boards. Andy and Sean will be here to clear the place and finish the shelves upstairs. And to caulk the window frame. We’ll be done today.

Done? Done??? Oh...

...unless you have something else?

I don’t. Ed is on the phone, chatting to a friend. I want to shake him off – Ed, they are about to finish up! What else? What else??? But Ed talks on and I have to confront by myself the fact that my construction crew is about to desert me.





I tell Andy that, as always, he has been my bedrock solid friend in this project. I tell him that surely we’ll call for help with the next thing and the next. But will we? Ed is such a “do it yourself” person. I tell Andy – sorry for the trouble we caused by so often interfering, bringing our own, changing the terms. Andy laughs. It’s been fun. I think he means it.

One grandson finishes the foyer, the other finishes the stapling, building, puttying. They carry out all their equipment. I have to go to work, but I know that when I come back, they will not be here. Gone.

I miss them already.



I come home and the house is empty. Done. I mean, not really done – my list of things to finish is long. Ed’s list is modest, but still with stuff on it. But, the major reconstruction is done. I had asked Andy – is this the most transformative reconstruction you’ve done? The man has been in construction for surely more than half a century. Yeah... pretty much, he tells me.

I wipe down the floor in the mud room (formerly: foyer). We’ve cleared the construction stuff out of the front room earlier in the day. These two rooms (the front room, the mud room) were the last to be “done” but now they’re surely done. Here, take a look:










There are those who’ll tell you that remodeling, rebuilding – it’s all a pain in the ass. But for us,  it hasn’t been that at all. Yes, sure, neither Ed or I had to live with the dust. But each stage was in fact more exciting than the last. And each stage, as a result of all our (well, okay, their) cumulative efforts resulted in something better, nicer, more beautiful than I had hoped for.

It’s been a fantastic reconstruction. Thanks Andy. And Ed.


In the evening, in the quiet of an evening, I go back to making a soup for several days ahead. Ed is messing with the "media center" (an ancient computer, a tiny TV and his ingenuity). He clicks on an iTunes song I had downloaded many years back on the ancient computer.

We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
And make our garden grow.

I cry... How can I not? Nearly forty years ago, when I was an au pair (a nanny who also helped tend to things around the house), the parents of my charge gave me tickets to Candide. Go see a Broadway show! Take a friend! -- they said (they themselves could not use the tickets that evening). I was a fresh immigrant. I knew no one whom I could take to a Broadway show.  I was at the university during the day and with my charge in the evenings. I went by myself and wasted the second ticket.

I loved the show. I bought the record the next day and played it. Again and again.


So here I am, waiting to plant the garden. Forty years ago, I still imagined that being wise and good was doable. Now, there's a garden and the house is pretty much built and ...there you have it.

the last day of classes

It tugs at your heart. The last class with this particular group of students, the last time to work with their dynamic. I grow to like them. Really a lot. I have three classes, three different groups, all good groups, never to convene as groups again after today.

Still, I so appreciate that I am done with class preparations. For a while. If I ever worried whether taking a salary cut was worth it for a summer off, I tell you, right now, in my most tired state -- oh YES!

I drive home. I haven’t biked once this year – an indication of how full my days have been. (Also, I admit it, it was easier to bike knowing that it would be a 22 minute ride, rather than what is, realistically now, one hour each way.)

Done. I leave the campus, the city, all of it. 





Hello you. Did you know I’m done teaching? Yep, absolutely done.