In with All Four Feet

After nigh onto two years of planning, (designing, assessing, interviewing, adjusting, re-planning, re-designing, heart-searching, pocket-digging, despairing, selecting, and once again adjusting), we have made the jump. The contract is signed, a first check has been written (gaspingly large), and we are committed to the construction of the house. It’s terrifying. It is, naturally, what we had in mind from the beginning, but I’ve become so accustomed to the routine of decision-making and revision, it seemed almost like an end itself. The number and scale of decisions to be made in a house construction project are beyond imagining. It seemed eternal and stable. There is a sense of safety in endless repetition. Above, you can see Richard and his Pop looking over the concept, a year ago.

Here is the first draft of the house, a little model that is now quite dusty and tattered from its travels from the dining room table to design offices, show-and-tells, family events, and back home again.

It seemed so simple. You can see the little studio-workshop on the left behind the house, the matchstick Linden tree in the front yard, the way the house nestles into the slope, all in Richard’s Styrofoam, plasticine and Saran wrap rendering. And here’s what it has become in someone else’s hands:

Look, there are little plants in the attached greenhouse! That greenhouse is the primary solar collection engine of the house. You can’t see the solar roof panels in this rendering. This was a recent doing-over of the plan, but I can see red pen on the drawing, which shows where something was wrong. I think, in this one, the floor was not continuous to the soffit supporting the greenhouse roof. Or some other minor thing.

Here we are, still in the throes of decision-making over yet another iteration of the plans, last week.

Please excuse my couture apparel. I’ve been painting. I’m lucky my hair isn’t green in this shot. It was, later.

In any case, we’ve chosen floors, doorknobs, kitchen faucets, bathtub faucets, shower faucets, sinks, lights, a bathtub, ceiling fans, toilets, water heaters, stairs, ramps, windows, toilet paper holders, shower doors, people doors, woodstoves, counter tops, cupboards, shelving, locations of switches, locations of closet doors, and … well, in fact, I’m not sure what else. We’ve made endless “selections” as they call them in the trade, and then taken them, almost every one, out again once we saw the cost. I have a file of photos of wonderful selections we spotted at model houses and home shows: copper kitchen sinks, mosaic tile showers, arched windows, a cypress bathtub, beautiful frosted glass blocks, kitchen drawers with hardwood inserts for implements and spices, hand-built exhaust hoods for the kitchen, and drying cupboards for damp clothing. Gone. All gone.

But, you know, simplicity is a testimony to the good life, and is comfortable to our condition.

All I can say at this point is, we’re in it, both of us, with both feet.

21st Century, here we are.

There’s a reason they call this Green Construction.

Petal Drop

With a violence that has us all reeling, the temperature just leaped from Thursday’s 64F (that was the day before yesterday) to 104F yesterday, and has now settled back to a mere 95F today. In 24 hours we hurtled from spring delight to high summer.

The animals have lain down in their yards, taking it with the kind of stoic silence a barnyard assumes in the heat.

The garden plants flopped over in complete collapse.

The orchard shuddered and shed its finery into the grass.

The only ones here who seem to be happy are the bees, and they’re just buzzing all over the place making a sound like July.

In my view, it’s completely unacceptable.

As I walked through the orchard on my way to feed animals this morning, I passed the apple tree so recently a bouquet. I grumped to myself, and looked bitterly at the browned away petals. But, you know, there is something going on here besides heat stroke and disaster. If you look at the bulge below where the flower was, you can see the swelling that will become an apple if all goes well. Some of these will drop off without maturing (how the tree would groan if they did not!). But some will grow into rounded, succulent Gravenstein apples.

In any case, for comparison, last spring we had a wind and hail storm just in the middle of the apple bloom, and wondered whether, as a result, we would see any harvest. This year, we stagger under an appalling blue sky and midsummer temperatures in the middle of May, and are wondering whether, as a result, we will see any harvest.

We probably will. But I resent the whole attitude of the season anyway.

Here they are, the remains of the bloom, scattered like pearls from a string.

Outmantled

Sorry, folks. I can’t help it. All this bloom is going on and begging to be shared. I remember my brother’s opinion when he was small and we used to settle onto the sofa Sunday evenings to watch Walt Disney’s floral wonders in time lapse photography. One Sunday, with a sigh, he picked up his bowl of popcorn and made his way to his bedroom. “I’m just not that into flowers opening,” he said. So I make apology to those of you who are not all that into this flower thing.

I came across a good word the other day: Outmantle: [out- + mantle, to cover] obs. rare : to excel in dress or ornament.

To be an orchard in May is to outmantle every branch.

Look here. (Click for a closer look.)

I went out to feed sheep in the glory of the morning and passed by this tissue of bloom. Press your face into it and breathe. It’s the scent of pollen and sweet cloves. I wish I could send you the scent. And then a drop of morning rain fell onto my lip from the petals, the sweetest rain ever, and in surprise I lapped it off and tried again until my nose was sated with the aroma and refused to share it any more, and my tongue was happy with the cool bright water off the blooms.

I mean, yes, I am that into it.

Phoney Phleece

For shepherds everywhere:

We had, eventually, to do something with all those old desk set telephones and curly cords. Here it is: Fotos – Arte – Ovejas Telefónicas

Thanks to George Entenman for the pointer to this wonderful flock!

Coming-out Day

Are you all tired of pictures of fruit trees in bloom? Too bad. It’s spring. That’s what you get. This one is the Gravenstein apple. I do think apple blossoms are my favorites in the orchard. The combination of pink and white just out-dresses any of the others, and the moment before the bloom opens, that swollen pale pink potential embraced by itself, that’s the best part of the display.

Yesterday we had rain and gloom. Today the sun came out, the orchard is in bloom, the bees are flying, and the pullets are ready for their move into outdoor quarters. Remember those fluff-ball chicks from a while back (March 2 post)? They’re adolescents now, and ready to move up in society. Today they graduated from their screened bathtub in the barn to the little chicken tractor in the garden.

The chicken tractor is a pen with no bottom meant to be moved when the girls have used up the good ground beneath them. This should be a huge relief, or a revelation, to the little hens. Truth is, they were completely suspicious of the arrangement when we put them into the pen, and wanted nothing but to tread down the grass and get away from it. They’ll figure it out. Green feed and live bugs will very quickly become their preferred diet.

And besides, they have some work to do. All that grass needs to be worked into garden soil, and I am ever so eager to have someone working on it besides me. We suffer from a heavy soil here (Jory Clay Loam, it’s called), and it holds the winter moisture well into spring. I tried sticking a shovel into it this weekend, and found it still sticking like gumbo. When we lived in town, by this time I had half the garden planted in the hardier coles and lettuces. Out here, we wait. We wait for the one moment between gumbo and adobe when the ground can be tilled. So I say, let those young hens have a go at it. They’ll benefit from the spring grass and I will benefit from having some eager young things to scratch it up and turn it under.

So the day was still shining, and though I smelled like chicken litter (what a good thing to have moved out into the garden that is!), I set to work in the orchard. I had ordered little trees a while back, and they had spent the winter in pots. Three young fruiting quinces and a pie cherry.

The quinces are not so usual in orchards these days. Time was, not a fruit lot went without a quince tree. The hard golden fruits, when still uncooked, can be anywhere from acrid on the tongue to complexly sweet. They’re mostly used in cooking, as jellies and jams, poached with spices, as sauces, in compotes, as pastes, as ingredients in baked goods. I remember quinces first from the time when I was a young teenager. Mother and I would go to an old farm property, an empty relic with a broken gate and a long driveway overgrown with grass and brambles. The house was falling under the weight of a rampant wisteria. In spring we would find mushrooms under the orchard trees. In fall we would go back and find quinces on the same trees. The apples in the orchard were ancient and bitter. The quince trees, however, continued to bear large yellow fruit, and we brought them home in baskets. Quinces make the loveliest jellies you ever saw.

The pie cherry comes with a legacy, too. For years we benefited from the prodigious yield given by my Aunt’s pie cherry tree. Oh, those sour-sweet jewels, they came off in clusters, like a tree dripping rubies. When my old Aunt passed, the tree passed, too, to new ownership, and our privileges went with it. I have longed for a tree like it since then. So today I put one, just a slight little thing, into the orchard. I’ll be patient. Cherries will come.

Well, but the day still shone, so, with an eye to catching a little bit of early vegetable planting, I set out the red cabbages, not into the garden, but into great big pots. It’s an experiment. In another year I might get an earlier start on the tilling, but for a year like this one, maybe setting the early sets into pots is a solution. We’ll see how they do there.

And still that sun was high and bright, so I went to work clearing some brambles from the orchard. It’s needed to be done, and the rain has kept me sulking in the house, so out I went with my loppers and clippers and my assistant cat.

In fact, that bramble was one of her best vole-hunting thickets, and the look she is giving me is not necessarily one of approval. The bramble is much improved now. From my point of view.

At last the sun was sinking wearily behind the hills. We came inside and decided one last gesture in acknowledgment of the weather was in order: Richard opened the grill, cleaned the racks from their winter’s slumber, and we did hamburgers on the barby. A long day, well-used.

I hope the pullets are pleased with their new digs.

Happy Birthday, Pete

Peter Seeger, born May 3, 1919. Many more returns of the day, Pete.

(This photo of Pete Seeger by Christopher Felver.)