I Believe in The Way Things Work

Everyone has their lessons in life--the ones they seem to have to learn over and over again. Goodness, there is patience somewhere in the Universe. Huge stores of it that guardian angels have to go take hits of on a regular basis. I am sure of it. I had to learn one of my lessons again this past weekend.

Here's what happened: John and I got all busy. And when we get busy, sometimes we bite off more than we could possibly chew in a hundred years, much less a weekend. Around here, there is so much possibility, so many things to fix up, so much that we want to do. And John and I are doers. That's how we got here. We don't usually sit around talking about what we want to do and then just go have a cup of coffee and a smoke...

And like everything in the world, that quality, that thing, has a light side and a dark side, or good and bad if you like. The light side is, you know, we get things done. The dark side of it is more complicated of course, and harder to put my finger on exactly. It has to do with worrying about the end product all of the time instead of enjoying the process, or realizing that the process is all there is. Because end products are all ephemeral anyway, even if some take more time to disappear than others.

We started to stake out the location of the horse barn on Sunday. The speculative nature of the task brought back a rush of feelings similar to what I felt all last year as we navigated the building of the house. "I don't know," was my response to everything. Should we put it here, or would it be better there? Should we put the hay storage here, or here? Is eight feet wide enough for a grooming aisle or not? At one point, I threw up my hands and cried, "Oh my god, let's forget this!" As much as I want horses back in my life, I felt so overwhelmed by yet another project where I'm asked to envision three-dimensional space, which I suck at. Real bad. (And then the rototiller kept stalling while we tried to till up the garden, and then I mis-measured a curtain for the bathroom and had to tear the stitching out--two times. Process? I got your process right here!)

This might not sound like a big deal. But it's my lesson and the tide was gathering, dragging all sorts of notions that I have about myself to the shore with it. Notion one: I am not actually capable of anything outside of normal, safe, suburban life. Notion two: I need to make this place perfect so that everyone will like coming here. Notion three: I'm too old to be doing all this. Who do I think I am anyway? And a few more variations on those themes.

After some gin and popcorn, we settled down. That night, I had this dream: I was fixing a large, unwieldy display of some kind. It was like a holiday display at a department store or something--I couldn't see the whole thing. I was applying a wet, sticky cement-like spackling to it, trying to seal it up, make it tight. It wasn't working too well and I realized that I had to get help. I ended up talking on the phone to an old gradeschool acquaintance who owned the Oscar Meyer company. He remembered me right away and as I talked to him, the spackling started to work.

So...I'll leave you to analyze that as you may : ), but I will say that it made me feel good, upon awakening, that I apparently have psychic access to an astute businessman who remembers who I am and can make the spackling work.

Breathing deeply the next day, I called the county extension office to ask if an agent could come out to advise us on the location of the barn. He's coming April 23. And then, the most beautiful, wonderful, blessed thing of all occurred. I received an email from my Aunt Lainey in Texas. She wanted to know, did I want two horses instead of one, and would I perhaps like for Uncle Jack to come up and help build the barn?

Wait a minute. Are you kidding me?! (you gotta know that Uncle Jack is really, really good at building barns, houses, you name it. And you might as well know that we wanted a horse for John, too, and that horses need company anyway.) Um, yeah. Yes. Two horses and Uncle Jack, we'll take it.

So, I got to learn my lesson and eat it too? I'm not sure why or how things work out the way they do around me. All I know is that I am grateful. I've learned my lesson again. For now. Even though the end product is coming into clearer focus, I'm not worried about it anymore. This is just a place to live. These are just things to do. I'm just living a regular old messy life and taking my lessons in the form that they come in around here.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

What Prodigious Mowing (of the real, not metaphorical kind)

It is 67 degrees out today (that's sixty-seven). The sun is shining too, even though it looked dicey early this morning. The breeze is blowing like a spring breeze--gusty and moist--and I am just so happy. I try to maintain optimism throughout winter and I think I do pretty well. But I will not lie: My soul comes alive again as winter ends. I wake up, like the hibernating animals, and shake off the long-seeming dream of the past months.

I mowed some of the pastures this morning with the old, blue Massey-Ferguson tractor.

John got me set up with all the weird controls. It is a little hard to drive--I have to stand up to get the clutch and the brake all the way down. (Do you like that tin-foil around the gears?)

But it's cool. It is fun to sit up so high and cut such a wide swath while the breeze tosses your hair. And it does my little Aries heart good to see all the progress!

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but I mowed all that!

Here's where I started--it is the future site of the horse barn:

We try to maintain the meadows for wildlife, which means that the best time to mow is early spring, before the birds and insects and animals start building nests and having babies. Sometimes we mow in the fall, but leaving the dead vegetation up all winter offers cover and food (all those seedheads) to lots of living things. Mowing is one of those chores that you have to jump on when the time is right. You might have one good weekend in the spring to get it done, before everything turns into a soggy, tractor-sticking mess. It is great to be living here this year--our first spring!--and be able to take advantage of the weather.


My imagination works steadily most of the time, but while mowing today I could've sworn that the dead grasses and stickers and weeds were grabbing at my legs with their bony hands screaming, "Noooo!" as I cut a path through their skeletal kingdom. I didn't have any mercy for them, though. "Get thee to the Underworld! It's time for new growth!"

My Shoulders are Sore

And here is the reason why:

What did we do on the weekend? Well, on Valentine's Day we got rid of the pile of construction debris that had been sitting in the driveway since last summer.

yay!

The next day we shoveled gravel from the back of the truck onto some of the pathways around the house.I will be honest and admit that John did most of the heavy work (someone had to take pictures!), but I did enough that my shoulders are very sore today. It is the delayed soreness that comes from true muscle trauma. The next day you feel it, but the second day, you really feel it.

At my old gym in Columbus, the owner offered something he called a "dino-workout," as in dinosaur. It involved lifting and carrying extremely heavy things for as long as you could. Different objects, like giant tires, rocks of varying sizes, bags of sand, etc., worked different muscles as you struggled to push and pull and carry them across a line. (I never took part in this workout, mind you.) Ironically enough, this sort of exercise routine is also called a "farmer workout."

I would like to put an open invitation out there to all the "dino-day" guys and gals: Let's schedule three or four weekends through the spring and summer and get our workout on! C'mon, whaddya say?! It'll be fun, dude!

Bringing it Inside

So, the season has turned for real. September was endless summer and the beginning of October was warm enough to allow for the illusion that we had plenty of time yet before the first frost bit. Bite is has, though. The mornings are beautiful, but I can’t sit on the porch to watch them unfold, even with the sleeping bag I was wrapping myself in for awhile, steaming coffee mug warming my hands. The frost silvers the grasses in the meadow (which John still hasn’t quite found the time to mow) and the sky is showing its winter colors—baby blue and soft pink. I take a refreshing breath of cold air through my sleep-stuffy nose when I open the door to get some fresh kindling and firewood off the porch at six a.m. That is now my encounter with the morning. And I always, always, think about my future animals at that time…Hmmm, I’d have to trudge to the barn right now if I had horses, goats, chickens. Well, maybe I could warm up for a minute or two before bundling up and heading out into the frosty air to feed, water, and check. A mere human could be allowed a little coffee first, no?

This week, the days have been lovely and warm enough to work outside by the time the sun hits the zenith. John and I did so this past weekend. I put a first coat of paint on the front door of the new house and he cleaned up behind the workshop in preparation for stacking wood. Still, I am aware that the stakes have shifted in favor of winter and I feel almost a panic somewhere down deep. I feel like a squirrel wondering, have I stored enough nuts in the right places? I walk around and see things that I thought I’d have plenty of time to do, like till up next year’s garden, and plant the rock garden with ferns (or shell those walnuts!) and realize that it is too late. Those things will have to wait until next year. The other part of it is a feeling of, hurry, hurry, save this! I’ve got to get the paint out of John’s workshop or it will freeze. I’ve got to put the amaryllis bulb and the voodoo plant in the root cellar. What else…what else? I scan the yard for S.O.S. signs.

Inside the cabin, it is a different mood. I’m feeling that familiar surge of creativity that has always come to me in the fall. I still have several weeks to wait until I can have the new house to store non-decorative things like file boxes in, but I got busy one night last week despite that fact. I’ve had these plain white pillows in the cabin for a long time and have always wanted to warm them up, so I took some old yellow and red toile fabric and some buttons and had at it. It is amazing what color will do to help tie a room together. I’m certainly not done yet, but it has already helped the burgeoning color scheme of the cabin’s main room.

Next spring, I’ll probably have a pile of half-finished projects like those pillows, that I thought I’d have plenty of time to get done over the long, dark winter months. And they’ll have to wait until next year, because the outdoors will be calling with all of its chores and charms. I hope I’m that lucky.

Busy as Bees (or Squirrels)

As the summer winds down, John and I are joining all the other creatures busily going about their fall chores. I'm not going to be outdone by the squirrel who is storing walnuts between the bricks of the chimney and the wall of the cabin. Whenever I hear his scritching and scratching from inside the bedroom, I run outside to shoo him away. He sticks his head out from around the chimney and looks at me curiously. In my head, he has a New York accent and he is saying, Whaddya want? These here are my nuts, lady. Go get your own.

I'm not gathering nuts, but I'm getting some other things done while the getting is good. I spent the larger part of today canning grape juice under the guidance of my neighbor, Sharon. She was over the other day and drew my attention to the falling down grapevine in front of the cabin. I said I didn't think the grapes were ripening, but boy was I wrong. I casually said that I should make grape jelly, and Sharon gently suggested I start with something simpler like grape juice. She described an easy sounding recipe and said she would help me make some if I wanted to try. Later that day, her youngest daughter, Sarah, ran a jar of their homemade grape juice over so that I could taste it. I poured a glass a few hours later after getting hot and sweaty helping John plant trees, and I'm telling you that the heavens opened up and angel music sounded. It was the best grape juice I've ever had in my life. In fact, after tasting this stuff, I hestitate to say that I've ever had grape juice before.

So, the next day I picked a large tupperware bowl full of grapes.

And today, Sharon taught me how to turn them into grape juice.

The juice will turn a dark purple and the grapes will sink to the bottom over time. I had some grapes left over and I'm going to try to make raisins with them. If I'm successful, you'll see the results posted here.

As for the trees that John and I planted, ta da:

Aren't they cute? One day they will grow up to become a large, green, and "firry" screen to hide the new buildings from the cabin, and shield the cabin from the road.

We also planted a spruce tree which looks pretty pathetic from this angle...

But look at it this way...

Very impressive!

And that is the report from a tuckered out farm girl, soaking up the last of summer.

What to do first?

There are times, during this country life, when I become frozen with terror for just a moment. I gasp a strangled breath and think, oh my god, what are we doing? Sometimes I think the house is too big. (Stop! Stop building!) Sometimes I think we are crazy to even think about getting animals. (We’ll never be able to leave. The expense. We don’t know what we’re doing.) Sometimes I look at the fence falling down around the cabin yard, or the old barn listing to the side, or dead trees that have fallen near the driveway, or the eroding mud around the new construction that needs to be planted with something, soon, and I just go blank. I’m sure that my face has the deer-in-the-headlights look and old timers would laugh and shake their heads if they could see me. What was she thinking it would be like? Country Living magazine?

I can usually calm myself by taking slow, deep breaths and remembering the Alcoholics Anonymous saying—“One Day at a Time.” In fact, sometimes I break it down even further and think “One section of the day at a time.” I have big dreams is the problem. Or not even big dreams necessarily, but several dreams. Yesterday’s trip to the library proves it.

I returned a relatively benign batch of books—a novel, short story collection, and poems, and took out the following: The Backyard Orchardist: a complete guide to growing fruit trees in the home garden; Backyard Fruits & Berries: how to grow them better than ever; Storey’s Guide to Raising Dairy Goats: breeds, care, dairying; and Horse Housekeeping: everything you need to know to keep a horse at home. I’m not planning on doing all of this at once, mind you, but I wanted to get a head start on the subjects so that I can be planning ahead, keeping my eye out for things we might need, foreseeing potential problems.

Foreseeing potential problems? Are you kidding me?

For one thing, there is the problem of brute strength. I began digging out the small herb garden that Mary Lou Neff, the previous owner, had put in many years ago next to the cabin. It was ringed with sandstone rocks that have sunk into the ground over the years. I haven’t done a thing to it for the past six years, so sod was beginning to take over the rocks as well as the brick landing she laid between the garden and the porch. I found the shovel and started unearthing the stones. These big old sandstone rectangles that were used as foundation stones in barns are h.e.a.v.y. I struggled with the dolly and a shovel for close to an hour and had some success. I got to the place where the sod was thick and every place I stuck my shovel into the ground, it hit rock. Where are my eleven farm children to help me with this chore?
I walked down to the new house where John was scrubbing beams…yes, that’s right, scrubbing beams. Old barns have bird poop and other sundry things on them which you (I) want to clean off before living in them. “I can’t dig out those rocks. I can’t physically do it,” I complained. “I can move them around once they are set free, and I can work the soil with the small tiller and I can plant it, but I can’t get the rocks out.” John promised that he would dig the rocks out, not to worry. He said not to feel bad, it was hard to do. I felt a little less defeated and decided that the least I could do was go make dinner. It occurred to me then, that this is how cooking duties always fell to women. What do you want to do—extremely difficult physical labor, or go shell peas?

I am positive that any farm wife from half a century ago could beat me with a stick in a contest of physical strength. I press lots of buttons in my kitchen. No butter churns for me. But, the point was made. I wasn’t indignant about it, and neither was I then advocating that it should be the same way today. I was just willing to go make dinner if he would dig out those stones for me. And I was happy to have a strong, healthy husband to do it, in lieu of eleven children!

My Uncle Jack, who lives on the horse farm in Texas with my Aunt Lainey, says, “It’s just work. You have to do something everyday anyway. Just pick what you’re going to do today.” I used to remember that when I worked full time in my office job and things got overwhelming. It appears that things are the same everywhere. There are always a million things to be done if you are living a full life, whether in the city or the country.

And, as some old-timer John once met said, “It’ll get done. And if it doesn’t…oh well.”