{"id":3466,"date":"2019-12-31T16:29:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T16:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zuschlag.us\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2026-02-07T16:14:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:14:04","slug":"2019-christmas-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zuschlag.us\/?p=3466","title":{"rendered":"2019 Christmas Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

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The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time \u2013 VII, 10\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The quiet start to the year didn\u2019t last very long.\u00a0 Maybe a couple of hours.\u00a0 I found myself having to leave in the middle of Jeff & Scott\u2019s traditional New Year\u2019s Day brunch to go show properties.\u00a0 And it didn\u2019t let up from there.\u00a0 I was hoppin\u2019 the whole month. Part of the reason was that I was acting as my own general contractor in completing the walled gardens and outbuildings, overseeing the transition from sheep to cattle on the farm, and dealing with a surprisingly robust real estate market all at the same time.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Well, since the fates (and Keith) have decreed that we’re staying, it was time to see those projects through.<\/blockquote>\r\n

The three of you who actually follow the sturm and drang of my life will have remembered the incessant dithering last year as to whether to sell the farm or stay and complete some large projects.\u00a0 Well, since the fates (and Keith) have decreed that we\u2019re staying, it was time to see those projects through. The biggest of these was the gardens and their outbuildings. We actually started on these mid-December, but it was in January when things really took off and Decisions Had To Be Made.\u00a0 This is how I found myself careening around the countryside from quarry to stone yard trying to find just the right shade of bluestone cap our garden walls.\u00a0 You have no idea how long this took.\u00a0 Well, knowing me, perhaps you do.\u00a0 The thing is, I wanted my bluestone to be green.\u00a0 I wanted green bluestone. Everyone told me it didn\u2019t exist. \u00a0But I eventually found it in Pennsylvania, and fully vindicated, I could move on to the next obsession.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

The first of these was making sure that my hayfield was \u2018cattle proof.\u2019\u00a0 I bought this part of the farm in 2001 and had spent the past 18 years turning what once was a motorcross track into a nice smooth and lush hayfield.\u00a0 Now since I was letting it revert back into the cattle equivalent of a motorcross track, the first order of business was to fence it entirely.\u00a0 Of course, the fencing had to go in the \u2018right\u2019 place.\u00a0 So there were several heated exchanges between the cattle owners and yours truly along the lines of \u201cthe fence can\u2019t go there!\u201d \u00a0\u201cThe fence WILL go there!\u201d etc, etc.\u00a0 But we got it done the right (my) way.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Split Fillet<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The next was getting the garden pavilions built to my architect brother\u2019s exact specifications.\u00a0 You think I\u2019m obsessive?\u00a0 You haven\u2019t met my brother Wayne. \u00a0He spent hours building and ripping out framing and sheeting on these buildings to get them \u201cjust so.\u201d\u00a0 So now I was having mere carpenters complete his work, and it was tough going.\u00a0 The big issue involved something called a \u2018raking cornice\u2019<\/a> and making sure there was a \u2018split fillet.\u2019<\/a>\u00a0 Now my brother is pretty much a Chicago modernist when it comes to architecture, but he\u2019s also a professor of architecture<\/a> who would rather see my classical Greek temple pavilions burnt to the ground than to have them have the improper molding, or God forbid, as he sniffily told me “a suburban shopping mall pediment.\u201d<\/em> God forbid indeed!\u00a0 So, we had to rip out all the pediment molding (which to my untrained eye looked pretty good) and start over again. \u00a0It took a lot of phone calls and video messaging, including Wayne shouting at us on video conferencing before the poor carpenter and I understood a split fillet properly. It seems like such a mountain out of a molehill, but you know what?\u00a0 Now that I know what one is, I too cringe when I see it done in the \u2018surburban\u2019 way.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

So January was a blur of picking just the right stone cap, making sure fencing was going in not an inch out of place, ensuring that the split fillets lined up properly and dozens of other time consuming decisions being made. It is simultaneously both a wonderful and anxiety provoking experience to be the cause of so much activity.\u00a0 I exulted in the \u2018progress\u2019 of it all, but at the same time that under-current of anxiety was there \u2013 how am I going to afford this?\u00a0 Did we pick the right doors?\u00a0 Should we have gone with the lower gauge fencing?\u00a0 Is that the right stone color? <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0It was exhausting.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Oddly enough, my one decompression and mind-clearing activity was messing around with two aquaria I had set up late last year. \u00a0Since I can\u2019t putter in the garden in the winter, it\u2019s nice way of gardening underwater. I even went to a meeting of the GWAPA<\/a>, just how nerdy is that? \u00a0After running around all day, it was nice to sit and stare at the two tanks and watch the fish swim by and wonder, “should that plant be moved just a bit to the right?<\/em>“<\/p>\r\n

January Photos<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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