November Hill farm journal, 145

 It’s a new year and projects abound. We’re about 2/3 done with the laundry room updating. So far the final wall painting was done, new sink and pipes installed, new washer/dryer in and working well, and now we’re moving on with the wood paneled ceiling, which will be painted the muted white it is now. We had intended to have beadboard installed but it turned out doing the pine individually was not much more money and it will be more beautiful, so that’s on the docket. Our contractor is also making a stained pine “counter top” for the washer and dryer, and open shelving for the wall above them to match. I bought a lovely piece of hand-made tile for the backsplash of the sink, and some additional matching subway tiles that I think will make an attractive backsplash on the side. Until everything else is done, I’m holding off on putting that up, but in the end I think it will be very appealing. 

We’re ordering a Dutch door with arched window to replace the original and not very attractive one we’ve lived with all these years. I don’t know how long that’s going to take to arrive, but we can wait. 

As often happens, here in the midst of finishing up this project, another project that was next on the list suddenly shoved up to the top. The bottom of the barn on the pony and donkeys’ side has had some issues that have gradually worsened. The barn is built on a slope, so the side closest to the house is built up higher than the other side in order to be level. The feed room, hay stall, and pony/donkey stall thus have a much deeper layer of earth that was kept in place with long oak boards nailed horizontally to the barn structure. 

Over time the earth has pushed the boards out, bowing them in the middle, and we have always wanted to correct this but it was never the highest priority since until this weekend it was more cosmetic than anything. However, on Friday the board along the outside of the pony/donkey stall completely pushed out of the beams it was nailed into. Our contractor and I came up with a plan to dig out the “footing” along the back wall, install a two-tiered row of cinder blocks, fill them with gravel and screenings, and then rebuild the footing inside each stall along the back edge. Then he’ll put oak boards in place, using shorter boards so they will be secured with less distance between, and hopefully more stable and secure that way. 

So now, this has bumped the laundry room work. It’s not a big deal, other than just wanting to get something completed before moving on to the next, and anything related to horses and pony and donkeys and safety/comfort trumps anything else, so this is being taken care of this week.

The good news is that once this barn repair is done, and the laundry room complete, we can easily move to the next piece of the barn plan, which is finishing off the feed room so it has an actual floor, real interior walls, and is closed off up at the top so I can have some chance of a dust-free environment for feed supplies and tack. And we are figuring out how to drain a sink and have hot water out there. 

From there we’ll work on stall door and window repairs. Keil and Cody have really made a mess of one stall door and its latch, after learning they could quite literally throw their weight around. They just lean into it and manage to open it, usually during the night when they’re up at the barn on their side, but sometimes in protest during rainy days. Right now it is tied closed with many pieces of hay twine. 

The final project is getting the holly trees installed. This has proved to be a little trickier than it initially seemed, as the landscaper located 11-foot trees and because the root balls weigh 950 lbs. each, it will take a bobcat to move them from the gravel lane to the planting sites. It can only be done when the ground is dry, and they’re going to have to lay down a path of straw and do a few other things to avoid damaging the pasture. At some point in this process we opted to go ahead and order additional hollies to go along the fence on the same side of the back pasture, but because all of this will be, shall we say, activating for this herd, I determined we need to do the front trees and the back trees on different days a week or so apart. 

In the end we’ve compromised on the height of the back trees - 7-8 foot hollies can be moved with the dingo, with less noise and impact on the earth, so we’ll do those the week later. With Keil and his residual EPM stuff I’m unwilling to try to move horses from back pasture to front the day all the front work gets done, and I’m not willing to close them into stalls when the dingo is going to have to go right through the barn aisle to get to the back. 

We’ve worked it out now, and the trees will be on their journey to us on what will have to be a dry day. Thankfully the landscaper handles everything and I can just do the fretting I would do regardless. 

I think in the end they will be quite lovely. We’ll get the desired screening, the bees will get forage, the birds will get shelter and food, and the horses I hope will enjoy having some privacy from the neighbors and their activities. Once the hollies settle in I’ll start limbing them up for a more elegant look. 

These are the actual hollies (the taller ones):

And although a different species in this photo, you can get the idea of what the limbing up will do to the look of the trees as they mature:

We’ll lose a few feet of pasture but the horses aren’t usually on that narrower side of the property in front, and in back there’s more room. It will be nice to ride in the arena with a natural screening of trees to look rather than the back sides of the neighbors’ sheds. 

By the time these projects get done we’ll be into early spring and it will be to start clearing winter beds to make way for the spring growth to come in. I look forward to seeing how the fall plantings do come springtime!

Writing weekends, 2022

 

Ever since Covid began, two of my long-time writing friends and I have had monthly “writing weekends,” which are virtual and the closest we can come to mirroring the actual routine we have during in-person writing retreats, which we’ve been taking together for 18 years.

Usually we end up doing two in-person weeks a year at a formal writing residency and/or an AirBnB of our choosing, but when Covid first hit, our scheduled retreat was canceled and I had learned enough about Zoom to put this monthly weekend together. When together in person, we usually meet up in the kitchen for coffee and breakfast, chat some about writing, and then retreat to our rooms to work. We usually end up back in the kitchen together for lunch, and then in the evenings, we meet to read from and discuss our work.

It’s pretty easy to recreate those kitchen times and the reading and discussing on Zoom, and that’s what we’ve done. On our monthly writing weekends, I set up a series of Zoom meeting times and we come together on our screens to do what we might have done if on retreat. It’s worked extremely well for us: kept us writing, kept us connected, and kept us sane.

This weekend is our first of this new year. D is working on some writing room organization and the next chapter in her very intriguing novel-in-progress. L is working on clearing some papers on her desk while also looking for pieces of writing she’d like to continue with from that pile. I’m assembling my nonfiction chapbook and reviewing my short work submission lists. 

We had great discussion last night, met for coffee and toast this morning, and set some goals for ourselves for today’s work time. We’ll meet this afternoon to check in, and again tonight for readings and discussion. 

I can’t express how much this time each month means to me. Seeing them and engaging, but also reinvigorating my writing process. One can’t get too far off the writing track with monthly weekends to pull one back to the work. 

November Hill farm journal, 144

 Well, another Christmas day has come and gone. We had a wonderful time with my daughter, son, our daughter-in-law, and our grandson. I can’t even express what a wonder it is to have him here crawling all over the living room investigating things.

We’re having unseasonably warm weather this week and while it’s not unusual in the larger span of years, it always rubs a little bit the wrong way when it coincides with the winter holidays. Although this year, with Keil being older and bearing some residual weakness after the EPM, I am grateful that he’s not having to (so far) contend with very cold weather. I will not mind if we have no snow or ice this winter. 

Today I’ll begin putting away the most Christmasy of decorations, one bin a day, until we have only the trees left. We enjoy the white lights and I’ll keep them up as long as the trees themselves are not getting too dried out.

Last year right at Christmas I developed a sudden and very intense abdominal issue - it was relieved by cleaning up my diet, getting structural massage, chiro, and a good medical check up to rule out any serious problems. I was very annoyed this week when, as if on cue, it happened again. I know the drill, and it’s true that once again as the holiday season approached, I gravitated toward a less healthy diet, had a few too many cocktails, decreased exercise, and rescheduled two chiro appointments. Add the general stress of Covid and holidays and wham. The perfect storm. 

I had already been prepped to reboot at the new year, but my body, this year and last, has stepped up sooner to say NOW PLEASE, or else. 

Is this part of the aging process in action? In any case, I found gentle yoga with Adriene videos online and those have helped immensely as I shift things back to better self care.

It will take a few weeks to get myself back to feeling good, and next year I believe I need to get out in front of this in November to break this two-year pattern.

I’ve been working on my annual review, a project that spans several weeks in December, in which I go through all the things I wanted to do in 2021, the things I actually did, the things I did not do, and I spend time pondering and writing about how I think the year went. It’s a useful exercise, not meant to be punitive or harsh in any way, but just a time to consider what worked and what didn’t. Each year I give a name to the theme of the year ahead. I’m not sure what it is yet for 2022, but I’m thinking about it!

It’s been a big year, 2021, and I’m taking my time with processing things.

A glimpse of today on November Hill: the skies are cloudy, the temperature is mild though in the 50s today instead of 70s, and at this moment three dogs are sleeping in the living room with me, one cat is here sleeping as well, the herd were just grazing in front in full view through the window I am sitting by, and my body is at peace with itself. I am grateful for the quiet moments and for the ability to choose, for the most part, what to do next in my day. 

This is what I always call the “between time” - when we’re past Christmas but not yet to the new year, and somehow it always involves a gray day or two, and a slowing of activity to some degree, which makes space to think and just be. I hope everyone reading this can have the gift of this space to breathe and reflect. 

November Hill winter sunrise, December 24, 2021

 

November Hill farm journal, 143

 It’s been warm here until last night, when more normal December weather rolled back in. Horses went into blankets and I turned the heat on again. 

We’ve gotten some rain, too, after a dry autumn, and it’s good for all the plantings I’ve done this fall. Today I hired a landscaper to put in 14 American hollies along the side of our property that borders the very close neighbors. Between cars, yellow and white striped awnings, and bright lights coming on outside all night, it’s time to finally get the hollies bought and planted. 

The landscaper sent me photos after our meeting today and has located 9-foot trees but is continuing to look for 10-12-foot ones as I’d like to get some immediate relief in place. These hollies will be good screening, visually beautiful, food and shelter for birds, and the blooms will be nice forage for the bees. 

Right now the farm is in its most dormant state, plant-wise. The most prominent features are the bare branches against the backdrop of a winter sky, and ground covered in fallen leaves. We had sunshine today after the rain, and of course, when the blankets came off, the horses rolled, so Keil got a good grooming while he had his afternoon wet tub. 

We’re about 1/4 of the way through the laundry room updating. Between the bigger washer/dryer and the spruced up walls and new sink, I decided the feed bins for horses need to go back out to the barn. Which means it works best to put the feed bags out there (currently stored in the garage), which means I had to figure out a way to keep the bags safe from moisture and mice. One of our neighbors tipped me off to a storage bin he found for his animal feed and I’ve ordered the same for the feed room. Of course, now I need to work on finally getting warm water at the barn, and that’s a whole other project. It’s a fact of updating that one thing pushes the next and on and on and on. 

It’s been fun doing the holiday decorating this week, though we were quite late this year, and the white lights on the trees are cheerful as the nights fall. It’s hard to believe that in three months or so we’ll be back at the start of the jungle season here.

With the new Covid variant gaining momentum I’m grateful for this farm and all its beauty and work and space in which to be and to stay busy while also staying safe. May we all move through this and come out safely on the other side.