Cold

I can not get warm today. And I'm not even in my own drafty house (which still has screens on the windows). I suspect I'm catching my son's cold, which he's caught from little Kyra at daycare, who seems to ALWAYS have a cold. But I'm also just cold inside.

I feel like I have four parts to my life. Me. Me and Calvin. Me and Chris and farm. Me and my other job.

While my office job hasn't brought a lot of joy to my life for some time, it didn't always diminish what joy there was either. And now it seems to. Coworkers were laid off last week, and the new and clear goals of the company do not include promoting the sort of craft books I've spent the last 8 or so years devoting my time to, better or worse. There's not much incentive left to care about them—something I was already struggling with. So I am going through motions. Wishing I would be laid off. Forcing myself to be here even more than I already was.

As for the farm, I don't feel like I'm a part of it anymore. And there really isn't a me and Chris at the moment. And I don't know if that's fixable or not. But I do know I had a lovely evening home alone last night. That's not right. Especially when I acknowledge that even Calvin's happier when we're alone, which he can only be getting from me. I guess I do know that I'd rather fix this than not. That's someplace to start from, isn't it?

Me and Calvin. Now that's happy.

Me . . . Well, maybe there are really just three parts to my life at the moment. Although I've been knitting and sewing and crafting away at home again. That is me. And I've made an outline for my CSA book that I'll probably never put together.

Maybe I will. I need to change some things. I'm trying.

We've been really busy, and I've been really grumpy, so I think it's time to step away from my life and do that exercise people always say is so good for you. There really are lots of good things I need to appreciate more:

Two big hot dogs (who frequently run over to the neighbor's where they become part of the 28-Paws Gang. Can you imagine having that many dogs in your house? It's surprisingly fun)
My neighbor, who has never once complained about two very big hot dogs turning up unexpectedly at any old time, including the middle of the night
Two happy hunting cats (who leave mice by the door, and occasionally inside the door too, just to tell me they love me)
One very, very, very, very old cat (who's not doing so well, and makes rather a mess in the house, so we keep putting him outside. Poor guy. He has, through no choice of his own, stuck by me all these years, and this is how we repay him.)
Three new pairs of pants for Calvin (I'm getting better at sewing!)
A romper made from an old grass-seed sack (this just makes me smile every time I look at it, even if it doesn't fit . . .)
Cherry tomatoes
The first gorgeous purple eggplant
Gladiolas! (we didn't get any of these in last year's drought)
Tea with honey
Fresh baked bread from my oven
The jam our farm worker share keeps bringing (strawberry first, then raspberry. Yum)
Our farm worker share!
Calvin's new hat
And the fabulous fun fabric it's made of—I love finding great fabrics. I'll do something with them all, someday.
Calvin's giggle (it's almost worth getting him overtired and slaphappy to hear that giggle nonstop)
Farmer Kari running my farm (Chris just hasn't realized it yet)
My dad coming to help just because I ask
My potted plants on the front porch (they turned out really well this year)
Apples on the apple trees, starting to show their colors
Little, perfect baby toes
A creaky old house that, at least from a distance, is still picturesque
Rocking chairs
Handmade stuffed toys
Really good food when I get a chance to cook
More ideas than I have time to act on
Hollyhocks (until the inevitable storm knocks 'em down, they're just gorgeous in the meadow)
That I have a chunk of land I can call a meadow
Tractors
My horseshoe collection, and everything else old and rusty and intriguing that I find in the ground (still love the half of a waffle iron).
My mother-in-law's paintings
Books
Motivated, inspiring people all around me
Fresh eggs (blue at that!)
Swinging
Napping with Calvin on the sofa
Sleeping with Calvin all night
Calvin

Escape

My husband keeps bees. There are two hives in the orchard, just a short distance from the house. More hives out in the field. Lots of honey equipment in the shed out front, which the bees from the orchard have found and are raiding for any leftover honey.

I have a tree in the front yard that blooms late each spring and literally hums it attracts so many bees. Every size, shape, color and variety imaginable. You can hear it from the porch.

There are wasp nests in every peak of our house. And one underneath the bench on the side porch, which I keep reminding Chris to get rid of but which keeps getting forgotten and keeps growing and growing. (Wasps are not bees, I know this, but I still lump all such things together.)

Bees don't much like freshly turned dirt. I don't know if it's the smell or the sight or what, but it bothers them and they tend to sting more readily when bothered. Bees do like flowers, obviously.

I live on a farm where we're constantly turning over the soil. And I grow flowers, which I cut by hand and turn into bouquets.

And I'm wildly allergic to bees.

Sitting in my front lawn yesterday, a bee bumped into me on its way to or from the orchard. I ducked. It dove. I laid flat, Calvin on my tummy, and it swooped right after me. It got stuck momentarily in my hair.

I try to be adult about these things. Chris has told me dozens of times that I should just be still. But I'm terrified. With Calvin I am petrified. And Calvin, naturally, can tell. So there I am, frantically trying to get a bee out of my hair without getting stung, clutching a wriggling and now crying Calvin, wondering where my current epi pin is (the one in my bag is expired), and shrieking for my husband who is oblivious, singing in the shower upstairs. I picture the bees working kind of like our barn swallows. This one is undoubtedly sending out a bee signal that will alert the hive, and whole colonies are about to descend upon me in a cloud the way the swallows gang up on our cat.

With the bee out of my hair and merely buzzing angrily around us, I make a break for the house and dash inside. This makes Calvin abruptly laugh, and I tell him it's really not very funny. I can still see the bee, now investigating Calvin's bottle, which I left behind.

I head upstairs to tell Chris I don't want those hives in the orchard that close to the house anymore. This is the second time this week that a bee has been after me. It's not like honey bees to do this, and maybe this isn't a honey bee, but I don't care much just now. He nods, agrees, and then suggests that perhaps the bee is confused by my dress. Bees, at least in part, identify their hives by color, usually white. I am wearing a blue and white striped dress. I consider this. And I consider that I'm considering how much I may resemble a stack of bee supers to a bee. And I feel ridiculous.

It's much too nice to be cooped up inside, and Calvin wants to go back out. I move to a completely different part of the yard. After all, I live on this farm. I don't have many options when it comes to avoiding bees. And I can't look that much like a bee hive. But within minutes, this bee is back. And yes, I'm positive it is the same bee. This time I'm separated from Calvin, and I feel like the worst kind of mother as I run away, darting and scampering. Calvin laughs uproariously. Mommy looks pretty silly. But the bee is now circling him and I am momentarily frozen, helpless, between my child and my fear. Of course, Calvin, being a baby, follows his father's advice to the letter and doesn't move at all except to keep giggling. The bee, after a few reconnaissance circuits, moves on.

We move inside.

3 AM, an hour at which I'm inevitably awake these days, I wonder what in the world I am doing here. It's not an hour when one should really delve into such serious topics, but I can't stop myself. And I keep coming to the conclusion that I am not cut out for this. I am going to be stung by another bee sooner or later. Even I can see that the bee has morphed, at this dark hour, into a big obvious emblem of all the things that aren't right. It grows to epic, monster proportions in my mind. If I need to get away from it, where can I move to now?

Windows

I love the old wavy, bubbly glass that is still in some of our windows. I love knowing that Chris and I and my father hand scraped each window of all its paint, repaired each window, reglazed each window, repainted each window. I love how big the windows are, and the simplicity of their four panes. They bear scars from the raccoons and other nibbling creatures. Some hang inexplicably crooked despite my best efforts to straighten them. Most need to be propped up to stay open, but that I do with old wrought iron shelf brackets and I like it. But I think I want new windows.

Spring and Fall Chris hauls the storms up and down ladders, heavy big glass and wood storm windows. They latch into place, and they don’t move. So early warm days or late Indian summer means sweltering rooms upstairs. Some years we just never get to all the storm windows, and I worry I’m stifling the house. I certainly feel stifled. And I swear the house smells when it’s that hot. After all those years of neglect, it’s not about to put up with such lazy maintenance.

And yet those same storms don’t cut it in winter. We certainly needn’t worry about ‘bad air’ in our house. Mostly we have to worry about affording the heat, not freezing our fingers and toes, and how to hog all the blankets. The curtains wave in the breeze. Your hair might wave in the breeze as you sit in the living room. There is snow on our windowsill in the bedroom. Inside.

It is hot right now. There are storms on the windows. There is a ladder laying on the lawn at the ready but there are too many other things to do or it is too windy or it is raining. I am frustrated. The house is suffocating right along with me.

Control

No matter how many times life tries to teach me the same lesson, I can not let go of my need to feel in control.

Have I picked the wrong career in farming? Do you think?

Last night, safely cradling my son in my arms as he slept peacefully, I had nightmare after nightmare involving him injured, hurt, crying, somewhere I couldn’t reach him, some way that had to be my fault. He’s learning to walk right now, hauling himself up on the coffee table and chairs and sofa and anything else that he determines looks reasonable. He falls, and so far has not hurt himself at all. Scared himself, yes, but not hurt, although the thunking noise his dense little body makes when it hits the floor sounds otherwise and makes my heart lurch. I thought I was fine with this. It’s how he will learn. The tip of his head is only two feet from the floor when he’s on his toes. That’s not very far. But clearly, my inner buried self is not at all okay with this. I can’t control his body for him . . .

So what does one do with nightmares? Usually I try to shake myself awake enough to redirect my thoughts. But last night, I didn’t really want to. I’m regularly up at night, spiraling thoughts of seeds and plants and beetles and schedules and boxes and weather and weeds and mowing and accounting and supplies and cats and dogs and ticks and dishes and baby food . . . My brain will dig deep enough for dirt that I’m feeling guilty at 3 am for not hanging the last load of laundry out on the line which I should have done because I’m trying to not use the dryer at least in part to save on propane for which I have a bill due that’s bigger than I expected because I failed to plan and act as I should have. Nightmares of Calvin were almost a diversion.

This particular summer is exceptionally hard for me. In past years, when I’ve seen the fields in need, the weeds getting too big, the mowing too far behind, I’ve simply strapped on the overalls and gone at it. I actually enjoy a lot of it after all. Or I enjoy the aftermath. Nothing feels better than looking at a clean vegetable bed, it’s such a demonstration of (guess what?) control.

For years, the farm was small enough, and I was motivated enough, to do this. I am unable to procrastinate, I do the worst things first, and I don’t usually stop till I’m done. Although I do remember feeling silly one night using the headlights on the little riding lawnmower to see. I kept wishing it had brights . . . But even were the farm still small enough for me to micromanage, I can’t this year. (Can’t is negative language I shouldn’t use according to a recent training class I’ve taken at the off-farm job—uh oh).

But I can’t! Calvin is my priority now, happily, and there is no way to strap him on and do the sorts of things I’m talking about. Believe me, I’ve tried, but he’s getting too big. Not to mention that he’d rather do something else, like walk. So I’ve tried very hard to not look, or to pretend I don’t see. But this does not work if you are like me. So I make suggestions, and they turn into nagging, and then into frantic demands, and then semi-hysterical predictions of doom.

Unfortunately, what I think is urgent and what my husband thinks is urgent are not often the same thing. Funny how it always seems to work out anyway. I know this, but can I let it go? No.

Can I let Calvin go and grow up? I start wondering if I’ll survive this.

Slippery Slope

Why one slippery slope? My husband and I disagree on why it didn't turn into our actual farm name (Middlebury Hills), but Slippery Slope was my first choice as a name for our land, right after we moved in. The reasons should be obvious. I do have a problem after all.

But sticking with the literal interpretation, our drive in those first years was strictly a farm road that climbed the hill and petered out at our back fence line, bypassing the abandoned house entirely. Farm roads are not graded or leveled or usually graveled for that matter. They are often simply ruts. Tractors use farm roads to get into the fields. Tractors do not often get stuck. We did not own a tractor.

We quickly learned that snow in the winter (with no method of plowing) and mud in the spring sometimes meant trekking up the hill on foot, but we were still enamored of such stuff (how rustic!). And I had four-wheel drive. I had not yet been in a car accident, so I would come home from my off-farm job actually excited to shift into four-wheel and gun it up the hill as fast as I could. If I could clear the moderately steep curve from base to barn, I had it made. On occasion, I would try this multiple times.

Of course, if I missed, I faced rather steep peril on my left and rather hard rock on my right. Still, the thrill! An equally perilous descent in the morning involved sideways slipping if you didn't achieve minimum speed. It was always slow going on the county road after that as the tires plonked mud all over the place, smacking into the bottom of the car with remarkable force. We left trails of splatter when we left home.

At first we were dedicated to maintaining this thrilling and picturesque drive. We loved it, even as the thistles encroached upon it over summer. One afternoon I hiked up the hill and discovered all these tracks—huge tire treads, chain marks, giant divots, and a gouging scrape off to one side. Lots of displaced mud. And I was upset! I still thought all the weeds growing there were pretty after all.

At the house, I discovered a Fed Ex package, but it wasn't for a good day or two that I correlated the apparent arrival of a delivery vehicle with the tracks in the driveway. As it turned out, the Fed Ex guy, trying my method of approach, went down the perilous left-hand drop, where he nearly flipped over and was utterly mired until something powerful enough to tow a truck arrived to haul him all the way back up. Something like a tractor.

He told us later it was a lovely place to eat lunch. We have a beautiful view, even from down there . . .

What was my second choice for a farm name? Thistle Hill. Again, isn't it obvious?

The Trouble with Spring

We are farmers. We are many other things as well, but we are farmers. And that basic fact has inescapably changed my view of the world.

For instance, I hate spring. It has its bright moments of course—all the flats of brilliant green tender seedlings popping through soil in the greenhouse, that first whiff of thawing earth in the air, or the rainbow that arcs over the barn as if this one spot is truly magical. The hummingbirds return. But those moments are far outdone by the evil that drives spring weather in Wisconsin and by the steady reveal of winter’s various ravages.

Spring is about loss for me. As the blanketing snow disappears, I see the trees lost to winter’s hungry mice and voles and rabbits, who have been busy girdling trunks, or to antler-rubbing deer, often snapping trunks. I see fewer bulbs in the flower gardens, lost to well-fed moles. I watch our first crops get washed away in downpours. I see a ferocious and vicious stream suddenly grow, sometimes even prettily burbling under our drive for a day or two, before stripping everything in its path the next day in our normally dry valley. I feel wind attacking the cracks and crevices in our old house and barn, hear it squealing as it snatches at anything that isn’t locked down. And I avert my eyes from swirling clouds lest the inevitable funnel decide to show its power just to me. I admire the fox who knows how to keep her new family from hunger even as I mourn the loss of chickens who are too slow, and too reliant on us, to recognize danger. I feel I have failed, am a failure, when I can not protect them, or my plants, or the latest barn cat who is too wild to trust me and too weak to make it without me. When the dogs kill another baby bunny, or my husband dispatches another woodchuck, I mourn their loss even while I recognize the necessity. Spring is hard. And perhaps I do not have the backbone I need to bear such harshness.

But I am nothing if not determined and resolute (or stubborn). So despite what I know spring is doing, I work hard during those months. Thousands of seeds are started, transplanted, tended, coddled. The greenhouse fills. We spend money we don’t have on tanks and tanks of propane. Week-by-week, even day-by-day, plans are concocted for starting more seeds, getting the plants hardened off, getting things out into the fields. My husband is building trellises, plowing, tilling. We restart and replant what washes away, sometimes once, sometimes three times. We spread row cover everywhere, fighting the wind. Hoses snake all over the place because if it’s not raining too hard, it will be dry. Seeds can not be dry. We pray for sun each morning to thaw the ice out.

And eventually, spring gives way to summer. And as a farmer, I start to come into my own. All that work starts to show. The broccoli actually produces enormous blue-green heads. The carrots are startlingly orange after winter’s white and spring’s green. The garlic raises its flower heads in dramatic, tall curls. The daisies fade away and the hot, brilliant zinnias begin their show. The view from my bedroom window shows geometric rows of every shade of green against brown. The lawnmower trims spring’s overblown grass into something neat, something that makes it look as if we have things under control. This is what I like.

I think I may have a problem.