In Love

I recently drove the tractor for the first time. And not just in a slow, forward advance. Oh no. Mike was chaining railroad ties to the bucket--which I was raising and lowering as needed before driving backwards around a corner in such a way as to swing each railroad tie as close as possible to the stack where Mike was relocating them. We did this over and over for ... I don't know how many railroad ties. (And did I mention it was nearly dark?) It all made me feel very capable. (And confirmed what Lady Catherine De Bourgh and I have always thought: "If [we] had ever learnt [farming], we should have been great proficient[s]." (Even if Mike did have to correct my mistakes several times, and even if I would have no idea how to start the tractor or get it moving again without a complete refresher course.) What was I if not a true farmer? Er ... at least ... a true farmer's wife?

Mike recently plowed up an old manure-turned-weed pile next to the barn--close to our near-fifty buckets of willow and linden saplings. Daisy planted (and then I re-planted after an unexpected freeze) pumpkins. And last week I added a large section of giant sunflowers. I have zero confidence in my skills as a gardener and am equal parts hopeful ... and certain of failure. (It's a relief to not be counting on these first farm plantings for survival through the winter. I can tell you that.)

And last week, amidst a shout of awed hurrahs, Mike got the gas-powered sprinkler his Uncle Jodie lent us running. (It was fascinating and miraculous seeing the pump fired up and then the hose fill along its length from the canal all the way to the tall sprinkler head where, finally, a giant bow of water shot out.)

Before that I was going over most evenings and watering everything by hand with a somewhat-low-pressure hose. It was quite tedious and not really sustainable, but it did give me a good chance to check on the hens and to see the house progress (and sometimes to check on Pig ... which I'm very uncomfortable doing, truth be told). I was often there alone--with nothing but the sound of Pig grunting discontentedly to be let out, and the sound of frogs, and crickets, and killdeer, and red-winged blackbirds, along with the occasional sandhill crane. It was easy during those visits, with the farm settling itself into evening all around me, to recognize clearly how in love I've become with the place. 

I have loved (and developed strong attachments to) many places in my life: my grandma's house at the very top of 27th street, the Jerusalem Center, the Ein Gev kibbutz in Galilee, the Waterfall's basement apartment that we brought our first baby home to (with no place to put his crib but in a closet with removed doors), our old Fruitland Drive place where we first owned goats and a horse, St. Simon's Island, our home and neighborhood in charming Ridgefield (WA), the Pleasant View house where we did the bulk of our baby and toddler raising, and this current Young-Ward rental (despite its mosquito hoards). 

All those places are dear to me. They are loved and woven tightly into the story of my mortal life. Still, I think there are only a few places that I would say I have been fully and completely in love with:

My childhood home (Polk's End)--which I sort of hope will somehow exist in the eternal realms, Bear Lake (particularly my grandma's trailer and spot on the beach up there), and now ... the farm. I am actually in love with the farm.

It's a strange thing because I feel a bit like an intruder there. What right do I have to the farm? It's Mike's mom, and grandpa, and great grandpa who were the land's stewards for so many years. His line who owned and preserved and passed it on. (And in that way, it's in my children's blood as well.) But it feels a bit presumptuous to just waltz in, marry Mike, and pretend some claim on it. 

And yet ... I've spent so many years now ... with the farm weaving itself into Mike's and my dreams and plans. We've spent countless hours of frustration and work planning locations to build (measuring and staking and reconsidering due to water), failing septic tests, paying surveyors, and driving back and forth from Pleasant View with a van full of loud kids, improving the canal and road at the county's insistence, taking down fences, graining goats, struggling with frozen hay bales, and chasing run-away steers, carrying panels, and breaking ice on the pond to get water for chickens. We've set up pens, and buried dead animals, and set traps for other animals, listened to boys sometimes complain about and other times accept nearly every Saturday being a "work on the farm" day, and watched a large area of cow pasture begin to hold a rough drive and the wooden beginnings of a home.

So I don't know, maybe in a way I've managed to (in some sort of a squatter's-rights fashion?) adopt myself into the farm through all this interweaving of my life with its seasons and existence. Whatever it is, I'm grateful to be connected to the story of this piece of land, and I am indeed in love with the place.

Daisy learned to drive the tractor before I did.

Pig in the house. Classy.

We had a family farm day recently. The weather was quite hot, so we decided to eat inside. Our first hosted dinner in the new house. :)

Frog catching.

The house is currently in what I can only describe as a slightly terrifying state. Just wires and more wires and insulation and pipes and mess everywhere.

I don't know if you can tell but there are about a billion bird nests in our garage. Eeeh. Not sure how to best handle that.