Fall 2011 - Ready for Winter

Zach has fallen asleep in the armchair next to me holding a tall glass of water in his lap. Morning sun pouring through the windows of our cabin blends with the glow of a 500-pound woodstove. The water glass Zach is holding tips slowly as he becomes progressively more relaxed. If I slip the glass from his hands, he will probably wake up. I decide a wet lap is better than no nap. But then the phone rings, with a robot telling us to call our congresswoman. Zach blinks awake, the glass unspilled, tries to shrug off the winter somnolence and slowly, dutifully, climbs back upstairs to work.

Our home feels cozy and peaceful now as we settle into winter’s pattern. We are blissfully happy, enough to make us superstitious that calamity lies around the corner. Outside, in every direction, I see only trees, pastures, stone walls, old wood fences. When we lived in the Bay, some part of my mind was always compensating for the urban grit – but when we ride on these roads, I am soothed by what I see; it leaves me filled instead of depleted. Just as a good massage will uncover places you didn’t even know were sore, places you stored your tension until they became numb, living here has made us realize just how tense and numb we had become in our former lives. We ache a little with that realization, like a foot getting back its circulation.

We had our first home-grown meat last week, a Cornish cross chicken we raised ourselves and roasted in the oven. It was really really good, unlike anything I’ve found in a store or bought frozen from another farm. We have 5 gallons of “Le Fin du Monde” barleywine-style ale brewing in the basement, and two bags of fleece waiting to be washed, dried, carded and spun. We are still eating salad out of the garden, which has endured frost and snow into November. Two cords of wood are neatly stacked on pallets in “shaker rounds.” Our ewes graze on their last day of innocence, unaware that today is the day an enthusiastic ram lamb arrives from Tamworth NH. The guinea hens honk like toys, reminding us that yes, there are still - as they tell us every day - garter snakes hiding in the rock wall. Our turtles swim confused in the sunroom, which now houses all of our wintering-over herbs and our “tiki bar” décor from the boat. Why (I imagine them wondering) are we surrounded by blooming plumeria in November?

We just returned from a self-made long weekend, up to Ithaca to visit my parents. Jonah received a real microscope for his birthday and was beside himself with the excitement of boogers at 400x. We had a lovely visit and some great food. On the way back we stopped at a farm in the Hudson valley with English Shepherd puppies. After waiting weeks, we were finally able to choose a puppy from the litter. We settled on a sable-colored female, neither the most alpha nor the most shy of the pack but one of the most alert. Now that we’ve seen her and fallen in love, we can’t wait for her to arrive. The breeder will bring her North just after Thanksgiving, the day before Zora’s puppy-themed birthday party.

An early snow this year weighed heavily on the trees that had not yet dropped their leaves, bringing down branches on power lines and one on our car. Zach spent the weekend cutting down that willow, which has been an annoyance from the start, and the sheep loved eating the leaves. The kids loved eating fresh snow with cream and maple syrup. Now only one patch holds out on the north side of the hill facing our windows, hinting at the weather to come. We are ready.

August 2011 - Setting Up in South Berwick

Happiness is writing a blog while a baby guinea hen sleeps with its legs outstretched in your lap.

After we closed on our new home, we spent a month straddling Lincoln and South Berwick, half moved into one place and half moved out of the other. In late July I finished drafting a report, filled the van and brought the kids down. We had one day to unpack before it was time to head to Annapolis for cousin Aaron’s wedding. Aaron’s bride, Ravia, is the daughter of Musharraf’s former health minister, so among all of the quakers, jewish Nobels, and pakistanis at the wedding was Musharraf himself. (It sounds like the start of a bad joke but it really did happen.) At the Mehndi party the night before the wedding Musharraf danced with the crowd, and the next evening he participated in the ceremony. This four-day wedding event was in fact the occasion that brought him to the US, and led to his being on the Daily Show that week. But Aaron and Ravia were the real celebrities at their event, and they certainly threw a memorable party. In the days after we toured DC with the kids and Zach’s parents, drove back up to NY (with a funeral on the way North), out to western Pennsylvania to meet up with some west coast friends on summer vacation, back to New Jersey for Zach’s work, and finally home, a week-and-a-half later. It was a fascinating but exhausting trip.

Once home, we hosted Zachs’ relatives from Israel, then joined cousin Barry and his wife Helen for a sail on the Nobels’ Alisande in the wooden boat regatta. Jonah lost his first tooth on the dock right before the race. As he was attempting to bite my hand for the third time after being warned to stop, I tried to flick his chin. His mouth was open, ready to take another bite, so the flick landed on a loose tooth and knocked it into the water. After much disappointment over missing out on the tooth fairy, we finally convinced Jonah that having a good story to tell about his tooth was worth a lot more than a quarter.

August was a messy month, a chaotic combination of hosting, taking care of the kids, working, and trying to set up our new homestead. I’m not sure I did any of them very well. The month seemed to last FOR EVER. We managed to find a daycare for Zora – not the fanciest place, but one with really good vibes. Every time I made a visit the kids were all getting along, and even the teachers seemed to be having fun. So despite all the plastic toys, we chose it over the place with the sand table, ant farm, and deluxe play structure. In Jonah’s first two weeks of school, he seemed to get punched nearly every day. But he seems to have found his place there and has even been playing with some of the kids who tried to beat him up initially.

Starting a new life takes a lot of energy. You have to find new doctors, dentists, hair cutters, handymen…you have to figure out where you can go swimming, where to take your kids to the park, and who in the area shears sheep. In addition to setting up a home we are also trying to set up a small farm, so our to-do list is probably at least double the norm for a new homeowner. We’ve spent many weekends so far cutting down brush and mending fences – so much has gone wild and fallen down since the previous owners used the property for farming. In the beginning, we wandered around star-struck, feeling as if we were living in the middle of some kind of eco wellness retreat (at one point in the past this place actually was a B&B). Now that the honeymoon is over we walk around seeing all the things that need to be done. But winter will bring working the land to a halt. Then we will turn to indoor tasks like carpentry (bed frame, shelves), spinning the fleece our icelandic sheep gave this fall, brewing chocolate porter, and cleaning up puppy poop.

The current animal load:

6 grown hens, 6 teenage guinea hens, 1 guinea keet hatched from our incubator, 10 australorp chicks, 15 broiler chicks, 2 icelandic ewes (with a ram arriving in a couple of weeks), 2 eastern painted turtles. An English Shepherd puppy will arrive around Thanksgiving.

We are also feeding (some intentionally, some not) several moochers: hummingbirds, wild turkeys, deer, lots of birds, 2 feral cats, and an ugly muskrat living under the barn.

As Jonah prepares to turn 6 next week, Zach and I have been reflecting on what an amazing year this has been for him. Just since his last birthday, he has learned to ski, swim, bike with no training wheels, defend himself from bullies at school, and read! This morning, with Zach gone on a business trip, he appeared like a little angel at my bedside and said, “Mom, would you like me to make you coffee?” Without my having to get up from bed, Jonah ground the beans, measured the grounds and the water, and came back to announce that the coffee was ready. One of the best perks, literally, of parenthood yet!!

Zora is racing to keep up. Not satisfied to be grouped with the pre-3 “hummingbirds” at her preschool, she asked her teachers for a re-class as a “chipmunk.” When Jonah bikes down the driveway she wants to bike too, and when he swims, she launches herself headfirst into the water. She is making up long stories and songs, which she will tell or sing for as long as she has an audience. She has a large cadre of animals and babies which she tends devotedly, often leaving them with me to “babysit” with a long list of detailed instructions on the specific care each one requires (“Mommy has to go to work now,” she’ll say, then go into the other room to play games on her toy laptop). When I am busy, she will often head upstairs to the reading nook in the loft to read (recite) books from memory for an hour at a time. And she loves to draw and paint. Months ago I showed her how to draw a balloon by making a circle and then a string; since then, nearly every picture she brings home from school is a medley of colorful balloons.

This week Zach and I are celebrating our 9^th year of marriage (and 13^th anniversary of living together). I realized that in many ways it only feels like we’ve been married 6 years, the time that we’ve had children together. Those three years between the day of our wedding and the time we had Jonah were just like the previous four; we were still in courtship mode, focused mainly on each other, with little responsibility or structure in our lives. Then kids arrived and the real work began, all the profound negotiations and sacrifices that raising children requires. Now that the kids are really coming into bloom we see the results of those efforts – in the things they now apprehend, the times they offer to help out, or the ways they comfort each other. Certainly our kids are not perfect, they are often wild or grouchy, but in general they seem to be securely attached; when they start a new school or spend the evening with a new sitter, the kids say goodbye cheerfully and we usually return to a glowing report. So it will be easy, tonight, for Zach and I to slip away and celebrate. The one thing I can say about our life together, so far, is that we have not been putting our dreams on hold.

May 2011 - Paradise Found

It’s hard to keep a blog about Maine life without starting each entry by covering the weather. I always wondered why my father-in-law started his emails with the subject line “Long Pond Weather” – now I know. The weather swings so dramatically here, and affects our daily routines much more than it ever did in the Bay. In March we had an ice storm that turned all of the birches into arches of sparkling roadside lace. The sun shone through a million tiny fingers of ice, with the white ground reflecting the light back into their grasp. Sometime in April, the snow started melting and running in rivers alongside the street. I was starting to think there was nothing beautiful about early spring until I noticed trickling streams carving paths all around us. Also, the puddles froze, melted, and refroze so many times that they formed multiple layers of ice, like a series of glass floors the kids loved to step through and shatter. Suddenly one day, the ice on the lake broke up and washed away, so fast that we were walking on it one week and looking out over rippling dark water two weeks later.

The snow vanished first in the driveway; in April we were still sledding on the side of the hill. Finally in May the last patch of pile-up between our trailer and the barn melted. Red-wing blackbirds emerged, we celebrated “Maple Sunday” by touring sugarhouses with the kids, then the grass and leaves sprouted and the ferns uncurled. Everything was latent, everything was waiting for just a few days of warmth to spring. In a Ray Bradbury story (“Frost and Fire”), a planet has such harsh conditions that its inhabitants have adapted to lives short and accelerated. This feels the same. With the scent of lilacs drifting in on summer-storm air, the buzz of insects, and our kids kicking off their sheets, it’s hard to imagine that less than two months ago we were packing snowballs, brewing Nut Brown Ale, and treating windburn – now it’s soccer, Apricot Ale, and sunburn.

The only thing worse than the long cold spell of a Maine winter is the quantity of insects that emerge when it’s over. The black flies seem to realize they only have a few weeks’ head-start on the dragonfly nymphs, so they swarm in desperation. This leads to some rather frisky spring behaviors, such as capering around in the driveway to get away from the flies while you wait for your kid to arrive on the bus, or surprising people with a smack upside the head when they have a mosquito, or snorting vigorously because you’re sure that bug that just went up your nose is still in there. For the three or so weeks of “black fly season,” when they’re at their worst, the only sport that really makes sense is biking. Knowing you have to go fast enough to keep the flies behind you turns out to be great motivation for pushing uphill.

Thanks to Zach’s parents, who were kind enough to let us stay here for so long while we searched for our “dream house,” we finally found it. Actually Zach did, one night while I was playing at the bi-monthly music jam in Lincoln. Despite the hours and hours I spend looking, he always finds the right thing just when we really need it. I came home a little discouraged that night because I hadn’t played my two songs as well (in front of the 150-member audience and 20 other musicians) as I could have if I wasn’t so damn nervous. Zach was excited, but he just said, “come see this” and showed me the listing for a log cabin on 24 acres that had popped up the day before. Less than 48 hours later – on a workday, and with the kids yanked out of school – we were down in South Berwick touring the place with offer papers in hand. So after having lived on a boat for five years, paying property tax on the mud below us (which actually belonged to the marina), we will be surrounded by fields, forest, and pasture. The house itself is not unlike the boat; rather small overall with wooden walls, propane energy (for now), skylights, and lots of built-ins. I think we’ll feel right at home.

February 2011 - Snow, Ice, and Romance

If this is as bad as it gets, we’re going to be fine. February is supposed to be the coldest month, and everyone in Lincoln tells me this is the harshest winter they’ve had in years. We’re up to about four feet in snow, which is turning into block ice. But our chickens are still alive, their eggs thaw out just fine, and we’ve quickly adapted to the new temperature. I’ve found the cold only bothers me when it drops below 10 degrees, and it only really upsets me below zero (those mornings I have to drive the kids to school at -8 are no fun). Jonah, who has the same internal thermostat as his father, runs from the trailer to the main house in a t-shirt and bare feet. It was all we could do to get him to come in at dark from the snow tunnel he’d been playing in all afternoon. In January he enthusiastically skied through a blizzard – he seems to be meant for the cold. Zora, for her part, thinks snow is a snack that grows on the ground and going “sledding” (pulled in a sled behind us while we ski) is the ideal time to nap, swaddled in snow clothes.

Having grown up in San Diego and the tropics, I have learned a lot about cold this winter. Here are my new rules for winter in Maine:

1. (Borrowed from Zora’s preschool) If your boogers are freezing inside your nose, it’s not a good day to play outside.

2. Warm the car up for at least 10 minutes before putting the baby in it.

3. Drive with gloves that have come from inside the house (if you leave your gloves in the car, they’ll start off so cold your hands won’t ever get warm).

4. Lift the windshield wipers off the windshield when you leave the car so they won’t get frozen on.

5. Give up on having diaper wipes in the car – they freeze into a block and stay that way for months. Carry a few in your purse instead.

6. Give up on having a clean car during the winter. The mud and salt return within 5 minutes of a car wash.

7. Forced air heating is a good way to inspire the kids to dress quickly (in the brief “window of opportunity” that the heat is pouring out).

8. Kids “cool off” in time-out out much more quickly when they have to stand outside.

So, where do you find romance in Lincoln, Maine in the middle of February? Zach and I have had some very nice “lunch dates” skiing on the lake midday while the kids are in school/daycare. One Saturday night we went out to the local Chinese institution and discovered they serve tiki drinks! I had figured my chances of finding tropical cocktails north of Bangor were pretty much nill, but right here in our town, next to the Marden’s fire and salvage, is a little oasis. A-yup. But the real action this month was at the kindergarten. Jonah was torn between two girls, the one who had already asked him to be her boyfriend (Olivia) and the one he really likes (Chloe). He came home one afternoon and announced he was “switching over” to Chloe. Among his school papers was a heart-shaped cutout upon which he had written the following declarations: “I am redee for valentine’s day beccuz I already have a girlfrend!” and “I love Chloe becuz she lafs at my joks.” Over the next few days, statements of love from Chloe (with drawings of flowers and pagodas, since they’re studying Chinese new year) appeared in Jonah’s backpack. Then one day he came home married, wearing a ring made out of a pipe cleaner and a gold bead. Apparently things had started out “all tangled up,” with Olivia proposing to Jonah and Jonah’s best friend Noah propositioning Chloe. Jonah swiftly redirected Noah to Olivia and proposed to Chloe himself, offering her one of a pair of matching rings he forged in art class. “I got it all straightened out,” he announced after school, over cookies and milk. May it always be so easy, love.