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.


 

fixes

If I had a slide show, I would provide this running commentary: Well now, here we are, sawing off the bottom part of the legs of a new “end table.” Here’s Ed, trying to talk me out of keeping the end table. Here, this is me, trying to convince him that, after looking at 1241 entries on the Walmart site, we can do no better than this non-Walmart, but still, a good deal table. The name is “Basque,” it’s made God knows where, but hey, it is infused with credibility with these words: "sustainable, kiln-dried solid mango wood." Crate and Barrel knows how to lure customers.

We’re fixing things that did not come out as planned.

The refrigerator was nicked by the delivery people from Sears. Sears wants to send us a new one. But we just can’t stomach the idea of sending back something so useable, even if it now does harbor a little ding. So we deliberate.

In the living room, the wood trim doesn’t quite come down on the floor. Do we fix it? I say no. Leave it alone. It’s fine, it’s fine. But Andy’s not happy. His grandson fills the gap with putty. “The builder’s best friend,” Ed comments.

The shower – now there’s a stumper! I did not want to spend money on a shower door. But the curtain that I use in its stead is leaking water. We have tossed around ideas, but none seem perfect.

My little 19 inch TV – it uses so many cables you could build a nest for elephants out of it. I wanted to invest in a bigger, simpler model. Ed tells me we can work with what we have. A little TV without cable, and a computer.  He bunches cords and hides computers to create a media center, with only the little TV showing.

The driveway is muddy, he throws woodchips down. My phone line is not working, he patiently talks the problem through with the company reps. We have no dinner foods, I throw together salads and bagels. These are our days now: one small step to repair one small issue, then another, and another.

My list of things to repair is long, but we have time.

But it would be wrong to count our days as repair driven. For instance, I wake up and I look outside – it’s raining. You would think -- damn. Rain, cooler temps – all that. Bleh.

But at the farmhouse, I take out the oatmeal, I cut up the fruit and we sit down for a late morning meal. I look up and see the wet branches, the slow drip on the lilac bushes, the gentle drops coming down in a steady rhythm... So pretty!





Yes, true, it is now evening and I am defrosting bagels and Ed is sawing off those inches from the feet of the end table. The rain has receded.

the home sretch

Because so many paint cans, saw horses, ladders, etc. remain in the front room of the farmhouse, I think we still have a lot to finish there. But today, two things happened:

First, Andy’s grandson attacked the foyer floor (which means that we cannot go in and out of the house in the way that we typically do for the next two days – an interesting issue, but solved easily enough by putting a step ladder to the other door). The foyer is the last of the big projects here for the crew.

Secondly, Andy showed up. He has been laid up, recovering from a medical procedure, but he is a guy who does not slow down and he is back on the job far in advance on when we anticipated. He hasn’t seen the house since I moved in and I have to think that he is taking some pleasure in seeing how together it really is. I had wondered if this is his last big job before retiring, but he tells me that it’s not. He wont retire. Loves his work too much. Yes, I can tell.

But let me explain why Andy’s appearance is relevant to the nearing end of our reconstruction. I want to hand him the list of things that I think need his attention and it strikes me that the list is very very short. So, this is the finale: within a week or so, Andy and his grandsons will no longer be part of the farmhouse team. It’ll be just Ed and me. (Gulp)



The sun is brilliant today. Warm? Well, enough for students to strip down to sandals, or bare feet.






Down the hill, they purchase food at the carts and find places to eat.





Me, I still have a jacket on. But I walk with an energetic bounce. Good weather changes things.


(LATER)

I am back at the farmhouse, climbing up the ladder that we'll use to get to the non-entrance door.


 


Inside, things are looking good. But you can’t rest yet. Ed is waiting for me. We need to drive down to Menards. Grout, plugs, switches – still on the to do list.

It’ll be Subway subs for dinner. No time to cook tonight.

Easter Sunday

Late Saturday. A night on the town with daughters. An evening of lights and birthday drinks. Of deviled eggs and raspberry pound cake.





And then, it’s morning. Easter morning. The stove is finally connected to the gas pipe. I turn it on for the first time. A pot of water, a boiled egg for Ed. Truly, that egg does not understand how close it came to never being cooked.

Now I have to pick up speed. My girls are coming over for an early Easter dinner. The farmhouse, in its revamped form, will have its first guests. Ed’s tools must disappear from the kitchen counter. The lemon room needs to be made ready – not because anyone will stay there tonight,  but because I want this house, this yet again new home for me, to feel like a place where they can throw down their bag and exhale. Because if it is my home, it is theirs as well.

I tidy the kitchen. I pick up the pail that I use for compost refuse and take it out to the back of the barn. This is the moment when I make the transition to my new rural home – during that walk with the bucket. I listening to birds and look out on the land, cluttered with twigs from felled branches. I make mental notes of things that I must do here this spring. Country thoughts. The city is receding from my immediate considerations.

And still, I go back to Madison too on this day. Grocery shopping for dinner. A simple spring meal. Baked chicken with dandelion greens and tarragon spinach sauce. Risotto with peas and mint. Blackberry cobbler.


Dinner. They arrive and the house fills with the noise of family.






They look good here, at the farmhouse.
















And then daughters leave. And I carry another bucket to the compost heap. I think of the days when I was much, much younger. When I would leave my grandmother’s house in the Polish countryside Sunday afternoon. She stayed at the front door, watching us leave. Most often, she cried. She was alone for too long until our next visit. I'm not alone. I go back and forth between the city and the countryside as if it were a trip to the backyard. But I see the pattern. Of family meals, of comings and goings.

Life repeats itself. And that’s a good thing. Flowers rebloom, children come back home to eat dinner with you.

pipes, rocks and blooms

At the downtown Farmers Market, I pick up, in a burst of optimism, flowers for the outside gardens. I don’t have a plan for them. In fact, I will probably never have a plan for perennial beds or vegetable plots. I am following Ed’s lead here: we’ll cultivate as the whimsy strikes. We’ll maintain as best we can otherwise.

And this year especially, I am so focused on the farmhouse that I cannot think deeply about the work outside. We planted a large bed of lilies last fall in the hope that they will establish themselves there and take over the large space just to the back (or front – depending on your definition) of the house. Otherwise, I’ll do spot improvements. Flowers planted along the various paths and edges.

And so I buy just a handful of some favorites. Golden California poppies and blue forget-me-nots. And cosmos for their tireless blooming habit.






I didn’t take my basket to the market and so a farmer is packing my plants in a plastic bag. You don’t mind that it says “Menards”? He asks. Mind? I spent my commercial waking hours at Menards!

Just this morning, Ed and I were there, looking at tubes and nipples again. More fittings for the gas pipe job. He is hoping that he can manipulate an elbow into the right spot underneath the floors. But he keeps shaking his head – a sure sign of concern.

I leave Ed to ponder, pound and manipulate. My younger daughter is in Madison for the week-end (first time this year!). Mom’s birthday, Easter and the market – all good reason’s to come up now. My two girls and I do the market walk and even though it’s cool still, the colors are brilliant. Yes, sure, I know – it’s all greenhouse stuff, but it’s festive and so beautiful after the bland winter tones!





But right after the market, I’m back at the farmhouse as Ed and I try to work the pipe into position.

More rock, you need to chisel away more rock. Or something.

Let’s take it out and start again.

And so it continues in the farmhouse, hidden behind trees, but easy to spot because of the tall silo. All under the big big sky of the Midwest.

next day

From pleasant hours spent thinking about the passage of time to a day of chaos again. The air turns even colder (never moving past the upper thirties), the rain comes down and Ed tackles the issue of the gas pipes. I am useless in this, except very early on, when  I help him select the proper tubes at Menards, along with the T’s, the elbows and the nipples. (I get the "T" and the "elbow," but why "nipple"?)

I disappear to do my own work, tedious today, really, the kind of stuff that you put off, and all the while I am thinking – this would be so much pleasanter on a warm day.





In the evening, Ed is still hammering away at the rocks that are at the foundation of the house. The pipe must past through a slice of these and he is hoping that at some point it will all crumble and create space. It doesn’t.

He’s tired, I’m tired from watching him. The heat is off of course, but what a piddley inconvenience! There is still so much to do at the farmhouse, but I need Ed’s help for most of it and so I hold off, concentrating instead on washing windows. I’m always good at cleaning.

I have to wonder if Ed is tired of being the Hercules here, whether it was much pleasanter for him to think retirement type thoughts – to plant? To throw wood chips? To take a nap on the floor with his cat, Isis?

We’ll eat frozen stuff today, because there is a microwave now that can thaw and warm – a monster microwave, chosen by me for its price and good ratings, certainly not for its size. You could do a turkey in that thing. Maybe we’ll have to. If the stone refuses to crumble and the stove never meets the gas pipe.


How about some upbeat notes? Oh, there are so many! The table is cleared of debris, the living room is passable, and there are flowers, lovely spring flowers – the aftermath of a birthday.






And, too, there are the blooms outside. Still terribly lonely out there. Single children, trying to make the best of a cold, cold spring.





LATER:

Nina? 

I’m here. 

Could you come down and help sniff? 

What??

If you put your nose close to the joints, you’ll be able to tell if there is a leek. 

You’re relying on my nose???

It’s quite accurate, really.

It’s merely a doublecheck. The joints and links are solid as can be.

But, when Ed turns the gas back on, the furnace isn’t working. And the refrigerator door is banging the counter, and elsewhere the quartz is scratched.

We eat the frozen lasagna, reheated in the microwave. I never thought I’d say too many kind words about the microwave, but it surely gave us a very pleasant dinner. A needed break, after which, every good outcome seemed possible again.

what if...

What if you wake up to a smell of new wood construction, even as you are in a house that’s nearly 100 years old? Your first morning in the farmhouse. You are fifty-eight today. Intentional symbolism?

It’s a cold morning. Unusually so. Frost on the fields and on the cars parked outside. But sunny, nonetheless, which is a surprise, although not really. I associate my birthday with sunny skies. Yes, I know that weather is what it is, but we all stray from reason every now and then.

Morning. First shower in a stall that is so darn fresh! First use of hot water, first this, first the other.

What if, after a hurried breakfast, you coaxed your landlord, who also happens to be your occasional traveling companion (wait, what is he really?) to take you to work? Just this once (or maybe twice. On special occasions like today). And in the office, the cupcake bakery had already made their delivery? There, waiting for you -- preordered, one hundred cupcakes for my classes today.

So Polish. (There, the birthday person brings treats. Joy comes with obligation.)

What if, after classes, after meetings, after all those cupcake runs, you made your way back to the farm and you said to your landlord (or some such) – we need to confront the couch situation? And he hemmed and hawed and finally said – later. Like really later. Later next year, later never.

I say now. Because later, meaning the next step, will have to be the installation of the stove. Right now, I have nothing to cook on and daughters are coming down for Easter. Of raw foods, at this point.

And besides, the living room is a mess. I have to put order into it because it makes my head spin to walk through it now.

But the couch is heavy and it will only fit if we jointly try to both lift and manipulate it through arches and curves. What if you can’t lift it? That’s not a thought process I care to confront.

I grit my teeth and stumble along half lifting half dragging and frequently dropping the damn thing. Ed asks – must we use a couch at all in the farmhouse?

Ed likes comfortable floors over furniture. I think – the farmhouse is a funky mix of spaces and places that make no effort to please those who will never step through its back doorways. It’s for us and it follows no set rules, except that in my mind, it must, somehow, retain the character of a farmhouse – which, in this size, surely had to have been a hodgepdge of affordable and livable spaces.

We succeed getting the couch in! But I say to Ed -- we'll skip the coffee table. It'll give you more space on the floor.


The day quickly passes to its final hours.  Dinner out. Daughter, traveling landlord (eh?) and I.  But no memorable photo to post. Wait, there's the one from early in the morning, when I stepped just outside the farmhouse door and inhaled a breath of fresh air.

the day of the big move

The success of the day should be measured not by the movement of furniture per se, but by where I am right now: at the farmhouse, with everything unpacked. True, not everything is inside the farmhouse. Take the couch – that’s in the garage. We fired the movers before they began their attempt to get it in.

But I’m getting too far into the day. Let’s start at dawn. I throw bedding into the washer. I need to do this before the movers come at 8. Yes, sure, the farmhouse has an old washer/dryer combo in the basement, but right now they are buried under construction. Best to move in with no dirty laundry.

(Clean but wet. Ah well...)

8:15: movers are here. I had asked for two and a small truck and I got a “free upgrade” of three (and a big truck). If I were to keep a tally, I’d say that right at the outset, there were two mishaps on their part. But, moves are like that: you cannot expect perfection. Shifting a residence disturbs, breaks, chips, splashes, spills things. It’s inevitable.

One of the movers tells me – I know your neck of the woods... I use to misbehave there as a teen. Great. I am moving to a neck of the woods where teens go to misbehave.



At the farmhouse, we see the remains of the most atrocious April weather ever.





At least it’s not raining. I tell the movers that our floors are fresh and immaculate. They reassure me they have runners. (So I want to know – why don’t they just step on the runners? I follow their every stride with a rag in hand, mopping up bits of snow and mud. Stay with me, immaculate floors! Stay with me! These guys will be done soon!)

The movers tell me they can’t get the bed frame up the stairs. I say – leave it alone, leave it alone, we’ll do it ourselves! I can’t wait to have these guys out of here. Andy’s grand-son-in-law (or some such familial connection) is in one of the side rooms painting and staining. I like having Andy’s team here. They respect the floors. They work calmly, systematically. They like each other, too. I feel calm being in their presence. But the moving trio is making me perspire. And it is a cold cold day.

The tough moment comes when I see that they have put a major rip through the floors of the upstairs lemon room. The lead man tells me – it was there when we got here.

Well now, you would not say that if you knew how we all babied these floors. We counted down days before allowing slippers to gently navigate across the boards. Nothing touched those well restored planks. Certainly not a sharp object that would gash a deep ten foot line across the center of the lemon room. 

This was my glummest moment. I admit it, I ran down to the sheep shed where Ed was hiding for the duration of the move  (who can blame him). And, like the hero that he can be, he went off to talk calmly to the men. They admitted fault, wrote up a damage report and I’m sure the company will cover the resanding refinishing remessing with the floor upstairs, should we choose to go that route.
But at this point, we were done with the moving crew. I assured them that if they would just unload the truck, we would finish up the job.

Why did you tip them? Ed asks.

Because. They did their work according to the parameters of what they have to do. They made mistakes. So be it.

In a funny twist, when I handed each his tip, the head guy said – oh, you could have used this to cover the damage we did!

No, I couldn’t.

With the movers gone, Ed and I get down to work. Quiet work. (If you’re wondering – I took a day off from law work for this, even as one never really takes a day off... ) Building, unpacking, putting together disassembled pieces of furniture.

I am thinking how cool it is that I never really had to buy any furniture for the farmhouse. That even though it’s twice the size of my condo, I could fit things nicely and not have to supplement. Indeed, I sold pieces: dressers, chairs – they all went.

I am also thinking that we are geared to a steady pace of work here that knows no frustrations and perhaps no end. With the help of Andy and his grandsons, the interior will soon be done. After, Ed and I will tackle the entrances, the porches, the peeling paint outside and the rotting wood. At a slow pace, if need be. Because we both have other agendas too: his – well, it’s his and so I’ll step back and comment on mine: what is it? I’m still fashioning it. From scraps of time.

What a year “57” has been! Lots of learning. And that’s a good thing.

Images of the farmhouse? Well, there are rooms that are far along to being done, and there are those where we're not quite there yet. From today: