November Hill farm journal, 52

November Hill is never more precious to me than when I leave it and come back again. I was gone for five days on writing retreat in Hertford, where the cottage on the Perquimans River feels like a second home. Two dear writing friends and I wrote and read out loud and made good meals and told stories that made us all laugh so hard we cried. It was a wonderful retreat.

I pulled out a new novel to work on this trip. Never Not Broken is done, but for a final read-through, so it needs to sit a few more weeks before I do that. The new novel, Arrow of Time, is one I wrote several years ago and it’s a very different kind of story for me. I realized when I got there with the printed pages that I would need to start from scratch with the opening, as the sequence in the first draft is off, but I managed to write the opening two chapters and outline the third, and on my way home figured out how to dictate notes to Siri on my phone for a tweak that I think will make the opening work even better.

As it turned out I didn’t drive directly to November Hill. Elf (the Beetle) popped on his exhaust system light about an hour from Hertford so I had to stop and determine if it was safe to drive the remainder of the way. It was, but we decided I would go straight to our VW mechanic’s shop and leave it there, and husband met me, switched my luggage to the other car, and we drove home from Durham.

I can’t believe how much everything grew while I was gone. We’ve entered the time of year where we can see nothing but trees out our windows. With the exception of the neighbors to our right, but next spring we’ll be reaping the benefits of the row of American hollies going in along the fence over there. From April to November we have near total privacy thanks to the trees and I love this season so much.

The pollinator garden plants are going wild, doubling their size since I left last week. One of my button bushes has started to leaf out. I’m doing a bit of weeding every day and mostly keeping on top of it. There’s one area where I haven’t planted yet and some grasses and other things are popping up there - I have a Dutch hoe that works really well getting that kind of thing out, so tomorrow after the rain stops I’ll do that while the soil is soft.

Husband picked up the two flowering dogwoods and ten inkberry hollies from the nursery and those will be going in the ground later this week.

The damaged fence is nearly repaired. These posts were put much deeper into the ground, and cemented securely. The no-climb is attached and the boards will go back up later this week.

We have a bluebird nest in the mailbox. Miniature Keil Bay has been temporarily displaced (I found him kicked out of the “run in” out onto the lane!) into the barn side until the eggs hatch out. I guess we didn’t get that bluebird house out soon enough for the bluebirds!

The dogwoods were stunning this year and are already leafing out. Yesterday we had a little rain and then sunshine and wind, and the white petals were blowing all over the farm. It’s a lush and beautiful time of year.

After the sun came out yesterday I worked in the back yard a bit, clearing four vegetable beds and orange-oiling three fire ant mounds that had popped up. The strawberry bed has berries, and the blueberry bushes are coming out well too. The fig tree is putting up new leaves at the base. It needs to be pruned and I hope to get to that next week.

Finally the garage door installer came by to double-check measurements. The new doors will go in soon and the entry door is set to be installed the end of this month. Once that work is done, the soon to be blooming rose bush is going to be trained up onto an arbor that will go above the garage doors and across the entire side of the house. And I’ll order a new light for the entry door and call that project DONE.

We have more rain today and everyone is enjoying their quiet barn time. By tomorrow they’ll be antsy but for now, it’s quiet and peaceful; the only sounds are the rain falling and a few hopeful birds singing. It was wonderful to be on retreat and it’s wonderful to be home again.