J A N U A R Y
The new year dawned with a sense of unease. My real estate business was still in overdrive, but everyone’s fear of a looming recession and empty cupboards kept me hustling to make deals happen. And happen they did. It was not only my ‘best’ January EVER – it was, honestly, my best month EVER. Record sales that made me feel like we might just have enough of a cushion to weather the higher interest rate climate threatening to bring it all tumbling down.
But in between wrangling buyers and sellers, Keith and I were able to start slowly moving into our new house. Our floors were finally sanded, polished, and sealed to perfection, and I drove Keith slightly mad with my insistence that nothing, I mean nothing, dare touch them. He thinks my obsession with shoes off inside the house is overkill, but every delivery man, mover, or service provider not only complied with my request, but most of them had already brought their own little booties with them. And I’m not the only one who’s fully Japanese in this regard. Be forewarned, you come to visit us, you get to choose which color disposable slippers you will wear. But you will wear them!
The house was (and still is, as of this writing) missing all the ‘fun’ stuff (crown mouldings, wainscotting, door and window trims, baseboards, etc) so it doesn’t make sense to cram the house full of stuff that we’d only have to move around as we completed all that work (and, God forbid!, scratch our floor in the process!)
Lucky for us, we have no ‘stuff.’ But you can’t just move into a new house and live out of cardboard boxes. Well, actually you can (and we do), but we still needed somewhere to sleep. So the first order of business was to buy some beds. This was more complicated than it first appeared. Much like everything else, bed buying has moved to the internet. Yet I was a bit leery of ordering some bed that pops out of a box and then when you don’t like it you have to somehow pop it back into a box and send it back. So, I very much wanted to try them out first before any unboxing. Now 20, or even 10 years ago, that was not a problem. There was a Mattress Warehouse or Mattress Discounters in every little strip mall in every miserable little retail area around the country. Today not so much. They still exist, but you now have to drive three hours in traffic just to find one. The other thing to discover was that what were once fully individual brands are now just ‘product lines’ for two or three consolidated manufacturers. Even so, there’s still a lot to choose from – foam, memory foam, cooling gels, springs, springless, firmness levels, etc. It’s overwhelming. But after a lot of sleeping around (in mattress stores) I narrowed it down to several possibilities. The next hurdle was to get Keith to agree to go with me and test out the beds. “Why do I have to do this?” he whined, “they’re all the same! Just get one!” But I’ve been married for 10 years now and I know how this story ends. I’d buy the one I liked and every day for the next 20 years I’d hear “I don’t know why you bought such a crappy/lumpy/soft/hard, uncomfy mattress!” So I dragged his butt into the shops and made him lie down on all three top choices and pick one. He did, and then I bought the other one I liked better anyway.
After mattresses then it was a matter of sheets and pillows and comforters. Again there are endless on-line options and variety of choices, colors, firmness, etc. But somehow (well, honestly, after a few mistakes) we wound up with the best of all things. The comforters are the ONE thing that I’ve ever bought from a Chinese manufacturer that I would buy again. They’re a hypo-allergenic down alternative that are just a lightweight cloud of comfort and warmth. They are the best! Keith, yes, actually Keith had already determined that Tencel sheets are the softest and most comfortable. And he’s right. So that’s what we got for all bedrooms. Not only sustainable, but each wash renders them even softer and more comfortable than before. So now we sleep in a meringue of bedding comfort that makes it such a pleasure to crawl into bed, and such a hardship to crawl out of. Perhaps that’s the reason this year has been so calm and relaxing – I basically want to stay in bed all day (no lie!).
Joe Whited gets sworn in as Mayor by Joe Gale
F E B R U A R Y
It was in early February that the kitchen appliances for the house finally arrived. We’d only been waiting since September 2021! My joy at the news was short-lived. For, no sooner had everything been unloaded, it became apparent that nothing was quite how it should be. First, the refrigerator and freezer refused to fit in the space designed for them. The space was fine, but the fridge bulged out slightly. What to do? Well, after a lot of head scratching it was decided to smush the fridge a bit and force it in. Now it’s in its proper place, but it can never come out without destroying the cabinetry around it. Then of course, the icemaker wouldn’t work. I was sweating bullets, as (see above) there was no way to remove it to fix it without destroying the cabinetry. But luckily it turned out merely a matter of flipping a switch inside.
Then there was the huge heavy beast of a stove. We were thrilled to have it finally get here. Not so thrilled to find out they sent us a natural gas stove and not an LP gas one. Still, there is a conversion kit you can order. We ordered it. It took forever to get here, so the stove sat in the middle of the kitchen for over a month before it was finally installed. Also we discovered the cool feature that convinced Keith to order this stove originally doesn’t work when you convert it from natural gas to propane! Dishwasher 1 arrived months ago and had been sitting in a warehouse ever since. It was finally installed with the other appliances. It washes beautifully. It just doesn’t drain or dry. The plumber swears he hooked it up right and it’s not his fault. The builder doesn’t know what to do – they say I need to take it up with Thermador. I say, you (builder) ordered it and installed it – it’s your problem. I need a working dishwasher. We’re still arguing. Dishwasher 2 arrived. It actually drains. So I guess that’s one improvement, but it still doesn’t dry either. Dishes are clean but remain sopping wet. What gives? We have two dishwashers that wash, but don’t dry.
Yet despite appliance woes, it was around this time that I first noticed an elemental shift in the universe. At first I thought it was the very mild weather. Then perhaps the lack of frenetic activity in the real estate market. But no, there was something else.
I can’t really convey the utter sense of peace, calm, and de-stressification I experience every time I walk into the house. It’s still not finished, but trim and paint and wallpaper are things that can be completed over time. The heavy lifting is now over and I’m very happy with the result. But even more than the construction stress melting away, and even more than the cozy domestic pleasures of arranging things ‘just so’ (which unfortunately really do have to be delayed until we can afford furniture – and after we can afford the trim work), there’s a wonderful sense of having arrived at the place I’ve always wanted to live. Keith loves the house too, but he hasn’t obsessed over it and had it in his mind’s eye for the past 27 years, much less imagined how the light would hit various rooms and imagine the views from the farm beyond. It is all just so,…..well, just perfection! I get caught up staring out the windows at the passing scenery and am just in awe of how it all fits in even better than I had imagined. For years I always wanted to be outside – in the garden, in the fields and pastures, communing with nature. Now it seems I prefer my nature mediated by the house. I want to be inside and viewing the farm I’ve created through the frame of my windows. I want to sit in the living room and watch the clouds scud across the sky. Most importantly I love lying in bed in our bedroom and seeing the sun set over the mountains. It makes me incredibly happy to be here and to be in the space that I created. I know that this sense of total fulfilment will probably fade with time. It’s supposed to, right? But I think there’s a very good chance that it won’t. Like the visceral and deep feeling I have for the farm itself, it seems to be one of those ex nihilo things. The act of creating something durable where once there was nothing makes it intensely satisfying. But waiting for it for so long makes me sure I’ll treasure it for the rest of my days. Hard to explain it, but I just feel utter contentment even though there’s still years of work yet to do.
As I’ve told Keith ten times already, “I want to die in this bed, in this room, looking at that view. I can’t think of now better way to go.” His snarky response was, “well, that can certainly be arranged.” But when my time does come, I hope I get to be so lucky.
Lemon trees safe inside on a snowy day
M A R C H
March did the usual lion lamb thing, but while the rest of the country had tornados, massive rains, snow, etc, we just had a pleasant Virginia early spring. Everything looked great and tulips I planted last fall bloomed as advertised. Our newly seeded lawns greened up nicely as well. I had to trim it several times where it got ahead of the rest of the grass. And for a brief moment I toyed with the idea of a robot mower for some of the smaller lawns that are now bounded by stone steps (hard to lift a mower up and down). I decided to be prudent and wait until they improve/become cheaper.
But I’m all about automation, and now that the house is slowly (very, very slowly) being populated with stuff in various drawers and cabinets, I’ve been getting the ‘smart’ aspects of things to function. It’s kinda fun to say “Hey Google! Turn on the lights” and it happens. Keith is a technology dystopian and worries that we’re selling our souls to Google. I argue that if they want sell data that says I turn my lights on at night – have at it! It’s easier than walking over to a lamp and fumbling for the switch.
Towards the end of the month, master faux painter Ron Layman started work on our doors. We’d been waiting for an opening in his schedule for a while. In the best of all possible worlds, you’d wait until your wall paneling, door trim, wainscotting, etc was all completed and painted, before you’d paint or stain your interior doors. But we don’t live in that world, and when you have a master with a world-wide clientele willing to take on your job, you adjust to his schedule. We have very heavy 8 ft paneled doors in almost every room. This seemed like a really cool feature when we were designing the house. But the reality is, that’s a lot of doors to turn into mahogany masterpieces. It was only through a random You Tube video rabbit hole that Keith fell down one evening that we came across one of the best faux painters in the world and realized he lived less than 100 miles from us. So after a visit to his studio to confirm he was the real deal, we asked to be put on his waiting list. Six months later we got a call that he had a few weeks that he could spend at the farm doing our doors. Well, two weeks turned into two months, but you don’t rush an artist and we’re very well pleased with his work. Come see our doors!
A very sad note in the month was the loss of our dear friend, neighbor, fellow shepherd, and my old college buddy, Bruce Vaughn. His passing left a deep void not only for his wife Patty and two young sons, but also among his world-wide network of friends and colleagues. His funeral in Arlington was overflowing with people from everywhere. He was a well beloved coach and boy scout leader, and the sea of teenage boys all in their suits (or nearest equivalents) and looking solemn and awkward was heartbreaking to see. Their support of their friends Freddie and Lachy and their fallen coach made me feel better about the state of our youth and country. Granted the Boy Scouts of Arlington, VA are not representative of the whole country. But they are representative of the best of it. And we’re in good hands if they are our future leaders.
I babysat my old flock for 1 week during lambing season
A P R I L
Spring sprung nicely. Lots of new baby chicks in the chicken pens, and lawns and pastures and gardens were all clamoring for my attention. But the newly seeded lawns looked fantastic. And I enjoyed them for about five minutes before deciding to muck it all up with a new project. Since putting in the new barn the year before, Touchstone Lane and the fence rows on either side of it were now somewhat off kilter. Just enough to drive me crazy. So we took down the fencing, removed a fair number of trees, and re-graded everything to make the lane line up with the barn and the landscape. The results were terrific. An added benefit is that I now get to replant the forest edge some nice native hardwoods (think dogwoods and redbuds).
As expected, real estate was somewhat slower than in years past. This was not necessarily a bad thing. It gave me more time to catch up on the two years of neglect in gardens and fields. Because I’m such a responsible and forward-thinking guy, I have two large zero turn mowers to mow lawns and pastures. The theory is, if one breaks and is in the shop for a month or so, you have the spare to do the work. So when the one mower wouldn’t start this spring, I simply sent it off to the repair shop, and, as expected, was told it would be ready for pick up in about a month. The second one was pressed into service and promptly gave up the ghost after one mowing. It too went in the shop. Also for a month. April and May is not the time of year that you want to be left mowerless. But I refuse to buy a third!
The thing is, I’m sorely tempted to replace them with their new electric counterparts. Eventually I don’t see why these things can’t all be robotically controlled self-driving mowers that silently patrol my fields by day and re-charge themselves by night. I hate the infernal combustion engine and all of its delicate parts that constantly need new filters, oils, etc, etc. Plus they’re hot, smelly, and noisy. The future cannot come soon enough when it comes to lawn care.
Because of my pasture woes, the house really didn’t get much attention this month. Other than the on-going faux painting, we didn’t really do much on the house except snag a few auction finds. Given the state of the real estate market, I’m nervous about more spending money until I can figure out what our income is likely to be. This frustrates Keith no end, as he’d like to live in at least one finished space. So the big push is to figure out how to trim out and finish the upstairs by the end of the year. However, I’m so tired of having strangers mucking up the house with their sawing and hammering and general mess, and I’d just like a month or two of NO ONE bothering us with their presence, so I can pretend that we live in a clean and finished space. I know it’s a fantasy, but it’s one I nurse. Truth is, on days when no one else is around, I enjoy the hell out of this place. Sitting on the back porch with a cocktail watching the sun go down, sitting at the Kitchen island on a stormy spring day and watching the clouds scud across the sky, it’s just fantastic. This farm has always been my refuge away from the world and its craziness. Now, it’s even more so. I have the luxury of sitting in a spacious room of my design, watching the farm (of my design) green up and fill in, and I get this warm glow (dare I say smugness?) that feels like someone is giving a great pat on the back and telling me “This is what you created. Aren’t you pleased?” Yes, yes I am.
Early tulips in the winter garden
M A Y
May was delightful. I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced a May that was this Ur-May-ish. The weather was perfection – high 60s to low 70s every day with either a gentle breeze or still Spring air that was fresh and bright. A gentle spring shower about once a week kept everything green. Just perfect.
No new projects on the horizon meant that I could catch up on overdue garden clean ups and delayed barn organization. Work still continued on our interior doors, but that was winding down too. We still have plenty more projects to start, much less complete, but it’s nice to take a moment and just let everything ‘heal’ a bit before you contemplate your next assault on nature.
One such ‘healing’ moment was on Monday, May 15th. My diary entry for the day reads as follows:
Sitting on the porch early evening – the soft spring air just perfect – gentle breeze, sun slowly setting. It’s exactly 70 degrees F. A crisp Gin & Tonic (Beefeaters has the best botanicals) is at my side as I write this. It is my treat after an afternoon of weeding and trying to set the kitchen garden to rights. The birds are chirping somewhere off in the distance and there’s soft chamber music playing on the porch speakers and I’m just feeling …….. I dunnno….. content would be the most obvious choice of words, but smug and vindicated are lurking just beneath there. It’s very pleasant whatever it is. It’s exactly how I imagined my life would be at this stage, and while I may have dreamt it, that didn’t mean that I seriously thought I would achieve it. But it appears I have. I look out at my farm and the landscape I’ve nurtured/tortured into its current form and I sit on my very solid and substantial porch and I watch the sun go down, and the gin and tonic helps further mellow the mood, and I am just a happy fellow. I’m sure there will be trials and tribulations ahead. I’m too much of a realist to think that my life is some Fukuyama-ist ‘end of history’ fairy tale. But even if I can’t keep this, and actually KNOWING that I can’t keep this the way it is forever, just adds to the poignancy of the moment and makes me so very grateful that I will have this memory of this moment for the rest of my life.
Those kind of sappy thoughts have occurred more and more throughout this year, but the beautiful May days were indeed something to treasure.
Another moment in May was our neighbors’ daughter’s wedding. When we sold the front part of the farm to Eric & Tiffanny Gates we were a bit apprehensive about having neighbors so close. But the Gateses were good friends and we could see having lots of fun times with them in the future. What we didn’t realize we were also getting was a friendship with their adult children. Thomas and Maggie are every bit as fun and bright and engaging as their parents. While they don’t live here, they visit often enough that we’ve gotten to know them better and really enjoy their company. Maggie decided she’d like have her wedding on the farm, and who could blame her? Of course, this meant that our construction and the Gates’s construction had a pretty hard and fast deadline at the end of May 2023. I’ve never seen such a furious pace of earth-moving, stone work, landscaping, planting, sodding, seeding and watering to get it all done in time. But they did. And the place looked perfect. Sitting with the rest of the wedding guests on the lawn overlooking the pond and the mountains beyond, Keith and I shared a wistful moment. Murmurs of “what a beautiful view” and “what a lovely setting for a wedding” made us very happy for Eric & Tiffanny and their lovely view… But I also felt very Isak Dinesen at that moment looking at the landscape that once was ours… “I had a farm in Virginia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.” Aside from that wistfulness, the wedding was a blast and Maggie and Sunand are a great couple. I look forward to seeing more of them in the coming years.
Beautiful Spring afternoon
J U N E
It was a bit of a month. First of all, it started mild and rainy, then almost drought conditions, and when I was resigned to actually watering my lawn, it started raining again heavily, right on top of my sodden grass. On top of that Canadian wildfires made the atmosphere downright post-apocalyptic, so it was a bit of a bust in terms of getting the farm back in shape.
Mid month I flew to Orlando, for niece Riley’s wedding. I really didn’t want to miss it, but they couldn’t have scheduled it at a worst time. Who knew that Orlando is overwhelmed with tourists in mid-June? (apparently it’s a thing to go do Disneyworld after school lets out). Oh, the humanity! The cost of airfare in and out of Orlando was so overwhelming I was tempted to just send them a check for the cost and give them the best wedding present ever…but instead I was able to figure out a work-around. If I flew into Jacksonville instead, I could rent a car, drive an hour or so to St. Augustine and see the oldest settlement in the US and then drive another hour or so and see my beloved Aunt Helen and Uncle Jim, and then drive another hour or so to the wedding venue. So that’s what I did. In retrospect, I would say definitely skip St. Augustine. It’s a crowded tourist trap built around a few 15th century stones. Total disappointment. But do go see Aunt Helen. I was warmly embraced, and as an added bonus got to see my cousin Greg, who I hadn’t seen in at least 40 years! So it was a great time catching up with them. Unfortunately I could only stay a short while but Aunt Helen got me set up with a batch of her world-famous shortbread and I hit the road to Clermont, FL.
It’s no secret that I’m not really a Florida fan. It’s nice enough, but really it’s just swamp land that’s been drained. As the swamp starts to reclaim it all, I’m happy for it to revert to a hurricane ridden, mosquito infested backwater. It’s just overbuilt and ‘ugh’ much the same way Southern California is. So I was a bit surprised to find that there are actual hills in FLA. Who knew? Apparently the place I was headed to had the highest elevation in the state – a whopping 345 feet above sea level. But it was just as crowded and overbuilt as the rest of the state.
Riley and Katie put on a great weekend gathering of family and friends. Katie is a treasure and it was such a fun time reconnecting with nieces and nephews I hadn’t seen in a while. My sister-in-law Beth (Riley’s mother) even had to apologize to Katie’s family that the Zuschlag side was so busy catching up with each other that we didn’t really meet the other side. While the wedding was fun, hell on earth is the TSA line at Orlando Airport.
Once back home I found myself laid out flat with a nasty cold. It wasn’t covid but it sure made me want to just lie around all day and blow my snotty nose. So that’s pretty much what I did. Truth of the matter is, I could have rallied and gotten my ass out of bed and really applied myself to cleaning up the farm and getting it back in pre-construction order, and then getting ahead of the chaos that is my kitchen garden. But I didn’t. Instead I spent the most time indoors of any June since I can remember. Did I feel guilty about this? Not much. For one, our interior doors were now all fully mahogany-ized and varnished. The front door was removed, prepped and then sprayed with a bazillion coats of lacquer and then reinstalled by the end of the month. The house was finally cleared of other people and disruptions.
So I started doing the small fun stuff – setting up the bar, cramming all my china patterns in the butler’s pantry, and getting all the household stuff we’d need to live in an actual house. It was tons of fun being ‘domestic’ and I had a hard time tearing myself away to deal with farm chores. But I wasn’t a complete slacker. I actually had to scrub (on my knees) our entire upstairs and downstairs hardwood floors, as apparently master faux painters aren’t the neatest when it comes to tracking paint and varnish around the house. Part of the glazing process is spattering the glaze. The trouble is, it spatters in all directions. It was everywhere! It was a real pain to scrub, but if you go all OCD on it you can get it done in sections. Then you can step back and admire your work. I kinda LOVE our floors. They’re aging beautifully and are turning the exact shade of honeyed amber I’d hoped for. The depth of the grain is fantastic and they’re a mesmerizing 3-D image if you stare at them long enough (don’t ask me how I know).
Unfinished front Door
J U L Y
July was kinda crap, all things considered. My cold lingered on longer than I would have thought possible. I really hadn’t been sick in years, but this one (not covid) really knocked the wind out of my sails – right at the time when I needed to get the most work done outside. So all my progress in setting the farm to rights (gardens, lawns, pastures), all got sidetracked and sent back to square one by my inability to get out of bed while the weeds went riot. The lack of activity in the kitchen garden also gave a great blue heron a chance to raid my goldfish ponds. He cleaned out both of them in two days. I don’t blame the heron for being a heron. And the garden was looking somewhat abandoned. But still! I’ve spent years collecting these fish at 29 cents each and then watching them grow. As they grew, these fish provided a welcome flash of color and life in the garden. And now I had to start the process all over. You’ve probably been in your local PetSmart or other big box equivalent and seen the tanks of cheap ‘feeder’ goldfish that get churned out by the thousands as food for larger aquarium fish. The bored teenage kid in the fish department just asks “how many you want?” and scoops them out.
I’ve spent long moments looking through swarms of these little buggers to find the one or two treasures that somehow missed the sorter’s station in Thailand and got dumped in with the rest of the rejects. Only a very, very tiny percentage have the combination of rich color and extra long finnage I want. I’d time my visits to the shop on days when I knew they’d get in new shipments. Most times there’d be nothing of interest, but every so often one ‘good one’ would have slipped past the sorter, and find itself with the rest of the discards in the ‘feeder’ tank. I’d point one out and say “I want that one!” and the kid would look at me in disbelief. “How am I supposed to single out that one?” he’d whine, and I’d say “aw, c’mon, you can do it….. and often as not, he did, and I’d go home with a prize. It actually was kinda fun to go back out on the hunt for a ‘good one’ and terrorize teenage shop clerks. I got several really nice ones before the season was out. But it will take years for them to grow them out to the size of the ones I lost.
Other than that, the month was fairly uneventful and I was pretty lazy (hence the lack of photos). The farm kinda languished, work languished, and I was nervous about spending any more on new projects so everything was in a holding pattern.
The one nice thing I suppose was the weather. While the rest of the country baked or fried or burnt, we had it pretty mild all month. I think the whole country was experiencing triple digit heat and wildfires were still burning in Canada, Greece, and California, but here it reached 98 degrees for a few days and that was it.
The center allee after a storm
A U G U S T
It wasn’t until well into August that Virginia got the memo that we’re supposed to be having apocalyptic weather. The rest of the world seemed to constantly be having horrific floods, storms, fires, heat waves, or whatever. So we decided to join in the fun by having a little drought. It wasn’t really that bad, but just enough to inhibit grass growth and kill off some newly planted trees and shrubs that I couldn’t water fast enough. But it did allow us to have something to complain about like the rest of you. I probably triggered it all myself by daring to transplant 26 crape myrtles into a ‘tunnel’ formation on the west side of the kitchen garden. They’re very thirsty plants when they’re young, so I had to water them constantly. I still lost two.
Otherwise things were very, very quiet this month. This was a good thing. No real estate issues to distract me and plenty of time to slowly (very slowly) to mitigate the neglect in the kitchen garden and tackle my least favorite job of the year – trimming the hornbeam tunnel. It’s a real pain, and I’m too old to be dangling on a 12 ft ladder with a heavy telescoping hedge trimmer. But you know what? This year the old gas powered thing gave up the ghost. Since I’d been so impressed with my electric hedge trimmer that I went out and got had Amazon deliver a battery powered electric telescoping thingie. It’s great! I can’t believe the difference. I no longer have to worry about priming and starting the damned thing only to climb the ladder with it whirring away and then when I suddenly get to the position where I need to be – have it conk out on me! This would happen 90% of the time. Instead, I now carry the (much lighter) electric version up the ladder and then just flick a switch – and it works! No more worrying about the 2 stroke fuel mixture, no more fussing with fuel stabilizers for the rest of the year when I’m not using it, no more worries about fuel filters, the fumes, etc. Really, I can’t wait for the internal combustion engine to be a museum piece. It’s still not my favorite job, but it’s 100% easier than it was before. The rest of the month was typical hot and humid August. But not overly unbearable. Maybe it seems more bearable because I spend a lot more time now in house looking out at the farm than actually being out in it. But even so, there’s still something very elemental about wearing a big floppy hat and pulling weeds in the garden on a hot muggy August that makes you truly appreciate the good old summertime.
Other than a concert or two, or a dinner party or three with good friends nearby, we were quite content to stay at home and experiment with cocktail recipes (a few standouts here and here) while watching the sun set. It sounds awfully dull, and it’s probably an indicator of my age more than anything else, but my idea of summer perfection is a morning at my desk, an afternoon gardening, and twilight dinner in the orchard with Keith listening to the crickets. I mean, why would you want to be in some crowded overpriced beach restaurant when you could be at home watching your husband cooking steaks on the grill and carefully choosing the perfect wine pairing? Am I wrong?
Ready for the new fencing
S E P T E M B E R
Like most people I suppose, I have an internal hold-over from school days that tells me September is the month to shake off the languor of Summer and start a more disciplined schedule of work and productivity. But this year……well, nothing really happened. I kinda just puttered through the month. The gardens and new plantings needed constant watering as everything remained pretty ‘droughty.’ But that didn’t stop me from driving to Richmond to pick up a ton of hellebores at the Botanical Gardens. I was super pleased to get them from one of the top hellebore breeders in the country, but then the responsibility of keeping all these shade plants hydrated in a scorched earth drought setting was probably not the best planning on my part.
I thought the drought was bad here, but then we took a trip over the mountains to the Shenandoah Music Festival. The Shenandoah Valley looked as brown as California! What happened to my green Virginia? We went to see our nephew Jeff Zona perform in one of his many musical guises. When he’s not touring with Lee Greenwood, or recording his own music in Nashville, he’s apparently the lead signer of the Pure Prairie League. I did not know of this interesting side gig. So we drove out to Orkney Springs with Keith’s sister Barbara and her husband Brian and heard him play with the band. Jeff is, without question, an extremely talented musician. But it is his talent and relative youth that made the rest of the band appear as what they truly are – a bunch of tired old men cashing in on their 1970s heyday. That didn’t seem to bother the audience a bit – as they were on their own 1970s nostalgia trip and didn’t care. I don’t know if it’s a unique characteristic of the baby boomer generation or it’s just going to intensify with each succeeding generation, but this recherche du temps perdu is getting a bit out of hand. Can we somehow strike a balance? Granted, my grandparents’ generation probably aged a bit prematurely. A depression, global war, and hard physical labor coupled with financial restraints probably didn’t help much in that regard, but I think they aged with a bit more stoicism and dignity than the 70 year olds today. Our increased leisure time and wealth, combined with better medical interventions, means a lot of our old ‘uns don’t see themselves as old and fight it with unseemly acting out. I mean, I get it, internally I’m a 30 year old trapped in a 63 year old body and constantly asking myself “when did this happen?” But I shudder to think of what the generation behind me will be like when they’re in their 70s and 80s. It’s embarrassing enough watching current 70 year olds trying to be all ‘sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll! WooHoo!’ What happens in 20 years when that new crop is all dancing around and shouting the lyrics to gangster rap? I shudder to think.
But back home, it was fun to watch the half of Touchstone Farm that is now Brown Stone Farm continue its transition. There is a process of ‘letting go’ and letting others make their mark that should be a natural progression in everyone’s life. It’s not necessarily easy, and one of my major criticisms of the older baby boomers (see above!) is that, in addition to dancing around at concerts like a bunch of old loons, they don’t make way for the next generation at work either. A lot of them are hanging on way past their sell-by date. And not just in politics and media. They just need to let it go! Still, it’s sometimes bittersweet when you have to practice what you preach. Our neighbors are definitely making their new farm their own – and while I sometimes feel a pang of loss when I look across the old pond and see dreams let go – it’s far more fulfilling to see someone else’s dreams come to fruition. A case in point is our old hayfield. It is now Tiffanny and Eric’s wildflower meadow. They did a spectacular job of it, and it’s thrilling to see it take shape. Despite the drought, the cover crop of zinnias, coreopsis, and cosmos bloomed in such a riot of color in September it stunned the eyes. These will self-seed over time, but their main purpose is to anchor the meadow as the wildflower seeds they planted take their time to grow and establish themselves. It will eventually be a magnet for birds and pollinators from miles around. I really admire their vision and their ability to carry it out. The fact that they let me cut as many flowers as I want is only icing on the cake. I can’t wait to see how it evolves over the years. We truly are lucky to have them as friends and neighbors.
Pure Prairie League merch
O C T O B E R
My favorite month of the year did not disappoint. The general thinking around here was that our drought conditions would really mute the fall display. The trees had other ideas however, and really put on a fantastic display. Even the sugar maple allée decided to step up its game as well and finally began let go with some really nice orange-y reds amidst the yellow. Of course I never seemed to have the time to photograph it (next year!). Real Estate was pretty busy, as is normally the case in October, and I got some large-ish farms under contract. My worries about a tight and tough market in 2024 meant that this income really should go into savings, but it’s so hard to bank funds when there are so many unfinished projects in the house and on the farm. I love my job, but one of the most frustrating things about it is that it’s either feast or famine. I’m envious of those with a steady paycheck who can actually budget a plan for the future.
Otherwise the thing I like most about October is the ‘mellowness’ of the whole month. The heat of summer is gone, the days shorten, and the farm slowly gets put to bed for the season and everything is all apple cider and pumpkin pie. This year that mellow vibe seemed heightened. (Is that a contradiction in terms?). I wallowed in the mellow. Now, a good deal of this was anticipatory wallowing. The house is still missing trim, paint, wallpaper, furniture, etc. But I couldn’t help hanging out in each and every room and watching the fall colors and sunsets and thinking, “wow, this is going to look so incredible when it’s done!” Keith would find me, say, sitting on a box in the living room, and see the glazed look in my eyes and just turn away and shake his head. But it’s just so awesome! Feathering this nest is going to be the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.
A somewhat spur of the moment decision saw me to head to Dublin towards the end of the month for niece Helene’s graduation from Trinity College. I’d been meaning to visit her there for the past four years or so. Now she was graduating. Not only that, graduating at the top of her class with awards from the Neuroscience department, including a new award of which she was the first recipient.
So how could I not show up? As an added bonus her parents came from Germany, and her cousin Luka studying in Barcelona this semester showed up with his parents as well. So it was a mini family reunion in Ireland and we had a really, really fun time. In addition to her graduation festivities, Helene proved to be an excellent tour guide of Dublin. She seemed to know every single pub in the city. Next stop for her is a graduate program in neuroscience in Munich. I think I might have to find a reason to visit her there over the next few years.
While on the subject of education, I was saddened to hear of the death of my high school English teacher. I kinda view my high school years as a purgatory that I had to endure before finding ‘real’ educational challenges in college and beyond. But Mr. Baltz provided an inkling of what it meant to think critically. And for that I am forever grateful. At the time, I thought my high school teachers were just mediocrities teaching other mediocrities. And truthfully, most of them were. But there were a few bright spots, and he was the one who shone the brightest. I remember a Christmas reunion of some of my classmates some 20 years or so after graduation. It was a small group of us who had stayed in touch over the years. Someone had thought to invite him to join us, and he came along and sat and watched us catch up. I remember thinking how nice it was to see him again and thought we must have been a special group for him to make that effort to see us after all those years. Well, we were a special group, but what I didn’t realize was that to him, in his 50 years of teaching high school, ALL of his students were a special group to him, and he stayed in touch with hundreds of them over the years.
It was so touching to read the tributes that poured in on Facebook and other fora when his former students heard of his passing. Clearly his class was a lifeline and sometimes a game-changer for a lot of bright students stuck in a drab suburban wasteland and attending a philistine high school named after a football coach. Sometimes one person, in a quiet little way, can make a profound impact in the trajectory of a young person’s life. Please take a moment to read a few encomiums here.
Drew and Tyler show me a great time at their beach restaurants
Here are many Dublin photos:
The river Liffey
N O V E M B E R
November took its time to get going. The month started with a lovely visit from friends Greg & Wes from DC. We had had a few ‘guinea pig’ guests before them. Most notably Dave & Brad in March, Jon & Michael in April, and Barbara & Brian in September, so we had the guest routine down pretty well for their visit. And they were gracious about having cardboard box nightstands. After this year’s trial run, there’s no reason to delay your visit – unless you want a room with real furniture and a functioning dining room. But that will happen eventually.
The big news was the start of the last of ‘les grands projets’ on the farm. Now that the house was finally built and the small barn in place, the last remaining piece was the completion of the ‘large pond.’ This was a project that had been kicked down the road for decades, mainly because we didn’t have the money or there were more pressing goals. Now though, the Gateses were renovating their pond on their side of the farm, and it seemed that if they were going to tear up fields and roadways with heavy construction equipment we might as well do so too and get it all done with at once. Plus the fact that their pond contractors said, ‘Look we already have our equipment here, we can cut you a deal.’ So Keith and I thought about it a bit, and Keith brought up the very good point that we were living in an unfinished house and should probably finish it first. It was a good point. But my reasoning was, we only have so many years left, and once started the pond will take about a year or so fill up with water, and several years after that before all the plantings around the shores make it ‘settled in’ to the landscape. He said that that was a good point too. But he thought my motivation was really just an excuse to have a pond measuring contest with Eric Gates. He may be right.
Our Thanksgiving this year was a non-event, but we had a really nice ‘pre-Thanksgiving.’ Niece and niece-in-law Riley and Katie said they’d be in DC on their way to Philly for Thanksgiving. Hearing this, my sister Jen, decided a detour through VA on her way from NC to Chicago was just the thing (she’s a glutton for punishment), and so she and nephew Henry showed up on Sunday night and we all had a great time catching up. The next day nephew Stuart joined us as well and we all went into the city to meet up with Katie & Riley and had a fantastic dinner before everyone went their separate ways.
Keith worked on Thanksgiving day, but came home to a late night turkey breast and a glass of wine, so we sorta celebrated. But it was a bit anti-climactic.
A week later Keith had a vacation week. He was determined that we should go ‘somewhere.’ I, of course, only wanted to wallow in my newfound passion as a homebody and stay put and ‘manage’ the pond building. But, I know when to pick my battles.
So the question was, where do we go? We’d pretty much explored most of the places within a day’s drive or a day’s train ride. Keith’s vacations goals are generally about fancy food and fancy wines while mine are more about museums and architecture and maybe an antique shop or two. So we said, “oh what the hell, let’s go back to Charleston.” We hadn’t been there in about 10 years, but it fit the bill perfectly. It was a great break. We ate too much, drank too much, but walked endlessly and toured house museums to see what our house could be like once finished. It was a good break.
fencelines all cleaned up and ready for the winter
D E C E M B E R
Once back from Charleston it was right back to pond building.
In my 30-odd years of annoying contractors and workmen who’ve worked for me, I honestly can’t think of another project that has gone as smoothly as this one. It was like ‘buttah’ all the way. The excavator, Brian Colbert, was easy-going and smiling when he originally came by to take a look at things, didn’t flinch when I told him what I wanted, came in well below the other two bids on his estimate, and was able to start work almost immediately. So I hired him. Within a few days he had several bulldozers, a huge excavator, a large dump truck, and a team of workers to start removing trees from the streambed. Seeing all the large trees plucked from the ground was kinda thrilling and kinda sad at the same time. When I had first seen this land 27 years ago, the fields were all reverting back to forest and had some good sized trees already. But while I cleared out the fields, I left all the trees along the stream beds. There were two reasons for this: 1) I couldn’t afford to put in the pond at that time; and 2) I didn’t (yet) own the fields I would be exposing beyond. Another quarter century later, these youngish streambed trees were now oldish trees and pretty massive. Seeing the large excavator literally plucking them out of the ground was truly impressive. Yet I couldn’t help feeling a bit bad for them as well. Trees take decades to grow this large, and here I was destroying them in an instant. Yet that sadness was short-lived as the view they were hiding slowly revealed itself.
It was the best sense of delayed gratification I’ve ever experienced. I vividly remember tromping through knee high snow in early March 1996. My feet were frozen from all the snow inside my boots, and the sun was slowly fading, but as I stumbled along the wooded ridgeline excitement mounted. This could be it! After two years of looking, had I really finally found ‘the place?’ I squinted through the trees and tried to imagine what it would be like as cleared fields instead of scrubby forest. For there, off in the distance, was the range of the Blue Ridge – from Mt. Marshall to my right, all the way down past the Thornton Gap and Mary’s Rock and continuing on to iconic Old Rag, dead center. Sure, it was a distant view. And it was obscured by dense vegetation. But it was there alright. The mile long hike through the snow back to South Poes Road got me thinking, “was I nuts to consider this? This parcel was way off the road, and would take forever to convert back to farmland. There was nothing there and I would have to start from scratch.” But as I thawed out on the way back to DC, I became more and more convinced that this would be the place I could call “home.”
Now here it was almost 30 years later, and the view I had spied all those many years ago was finally being revealed. And it was spectacular. For as much as I had had “winter views” all those years, the true depth and features of the mountains always remained obscured through the branches.
My joy at taking in the view was still tempered by remaining concerns. Would my pond ‘fit’ the way I imagined it to be, or would reality fall short? More importantly, what would happen if we didn’t find any clay to line the pond? I was already over-extending myself on the budget as it was. I couldn’t afford any added expense.
For once luck was with me all the way. The bulldozers started dozing and soon uncovered a vast sheet of clay that gave us everything we needed and more. As the streambed was excavated and final contours sculpted, two more springs were uncovered in addition to the three that I had already known were there. Water would certainly be plentiful. Finally, once work began on filling in the space between two hills to form the dam, the final shape was evident. It would be large – roughly three acres – and the shoreline would map exactly where I’d hoped it would. I was well pleased.
December usually gets high marks on my annual calendar. Christmas parties and events are always some of my favorite moments of the year. But last year’s hallmark movie overload of coziness would be hard to top, and this year I just wasn’t really feeling it. Oh, I had the holiday spirit and was all about seeing good friends and egg nog and whatnot, but I surprised myself by just wanting to stay at home and sit by the fire. I surprised Keith even more. I’m usually the one usually hustling him out the door, but this year there were more than a few times when he’d have to ask, “aren’t you ready yet?”
So we made the rounds, had a good time – I even won a pizza oven at my office Christmas party – and saw everyone. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was glad when it was all over. And New Year’s Eve was a non-event. I was asleep by 11 p.m. And so ended the year. At home, where I am happiest.
Local street gang in Little Washington
E N D N O T E
Joseph Campbell once wrote “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” Now I suppose those are true words and probably teach us an important lesson on acceptance, etc, etc. But I think they’re kind of a cop out. I’m a firm believer in plans, setting goals, and measuring the time you have left in life, and figuring out how you’re going manage it all. There are too many people in this world that never realize their own agency and just let life happen to them. To me, that’s a life wasted, not a life lived.
Most of my life has been guided by the goals I set for myself as a young man. For a good long while those goals were never achieved, or only belatedly, well past their goalpost dates. I’d recognize the delays as just that – delays along the way – while the end goal never wavered. According to my schedule I was to enjoy my 20s as a single man and then by age 30, find my life partner and settle down and build a life together. Life didn’t go to plan in that regard – but I didn’t give up on the goal. And while it happened belatedly (very, very belatedly at age 47) the goal was achieved, and Keith and I have been building a life together for the past 17 years.
Much the same happened with the farm. My goal had been to find some land to build my dream of a country house (with my planned-for-but-yet-to-be-found husband) by around age 35. This I actually achieved at age 36, but without the husband. Then I was to have cleared the land, planted trees, outlined gardens, and built a house. This was all supposed to happen by age 50 at the latest. My thinking then was that 50 was awfully old, and that I’d be too old and decrepit after that age to do much else besides putter around the gardens the rest of my days and enjoy what I’ve created.
I never waivered in those youthful dreams. Even if they were predicated on money I didn’t have, or a partner I didn’t have. They were the touchstones by which I measured the rest of my life. When I did find the land that would become my farm, I named it as a nod to my constant comparing of my life and actions against this set of goals.
Unfortunately, as in even the most carefully planned lives, things can happen to derail those goals. But I struggled against Campbell’s admonition all the way. Age 50 came and went, and I still was living in the cramped little guest apartment above my garage, with no house in sight. My friends and family had all moved on with their lives and created homes for themselves, while I consoled myself with my woodlands, fields, and gardens. But inwardly I bemoaned my lack of space to invite friends to stop by for dinner. I cringed at what a failure I was when family would say “we’ll come to visit. Where is the nearest hotel?”
My friend Jonathan Rauch once wrote a book that was very well received (like all of his books, of course). I remember listening to him on various talk shows and podcasts waxing lyrically on how life has a way of sorting it all out so that you find contentment despite squashed dreams and setbacks. I remember thinking, “no, no, no! He’s got it all wrong.” There is no “U” shaped curve of happiness! Not for me at least. Some of us are destined to rage against their fates forever! I thought the contentment that he sees in our age cohort (he’s 3 weeks younger than I am) isn’t so much a function of age, but a function of how much one buys into Campbell’s version of the serenity prayer. Giving up your goals to make peace with your situation is just not how I’m wired.
So I struggled onward. I’ll admit that depression hovered in the background for a few years when I really thought my dreams could never be realized, despite all my efforts.
And yet here, some 13 years after my planned deadline, I finally have my house. In the exact spot I planned it at age 36. The views, the light, the landscape, all as glorious as I could have hoped those 27 years ago. The house fits among the waiting walled gardens as neatly as a hand in a glove. The last piece in the landscape puzzle, the large pond meant to tie it all together, is now, as of this writing, finished as well. As it slowly fills, I can look out my living room windows and see my pastures, shimmering waters, forests, and the entire range of the Blue Ridge mountains spread before me without any other sign of human habitation.
So I sit in my house and stare at the landscape before me. I lounge on the porch and contemplate the bounty of my orchard and gardens. I lie in my bed and watch the sunrise coat the mountains in an orange glow. And I think how my 36 year old self envisioned this all and I want to say to him, “it’s even better than you imagined.” I am content.
I wish all of you the same measure of contentment in your life in 2024.
Alan
Well, there you go! What a lovely read 🙂 Already searching the internet for the softest slippers in the world for me and Kayce to come and patter around on your floors xxx
My advice – don’t buy antiques. Old wood is dry and brittle and for that reason antiques are a bitch to maintain and heaven forbid you have to move because it’s 100% sure the movers will damage every single piece. Buy contemporary faux antique furniture which you can appreciate but require little or no real maintenance.