We followed google directions and drove and drove and drove, up and down and round and round. Then suddenly, there we were, the house from the picture, on its little rise, with gigantic oaks looming behind it. We were early, so drove the loop while waiting for our contacts to arrive. That makes us all sound like CIA operatives but really it's just that the connections are part of the complicated story that belongs in another post.
Eventually we came back, met up with L & C, took the tour, found our heads not just exploding but expanding with possibility and potential and risk and longing.
We came back several times in January and February. Not once was it raining. The next time we brought Builder D of dragon fame, to help us figure out if the house was a tearer-downer or a fixer-upper (option b, duh). The creek was still churning and the oaks were still casting long shadows.
The next time we brought M and a picnic, enjoyed out in the meadow in the cold February sun. Bulbs were coming up but they were not foremost on our minds. Really, I think we were saying to our friends, to our dogs, to ourselves: Is this right? Can you see us here? Can you see you, with us, here?
Some time in late February, we met with the sellers, all five of them. We enjoyed coffee and pastry (they brought some, we brought some) outside in the cool sunshine next to the snow drops. (It did not rain) Terms were discussed. Numbers were floated. Fears (ours) were released and all the way home we tried to talk ourselves out of this very large step: second house, debt, etc. etc. etc.
Calmer heads prevailed (ours, friends' - especially Fab Twin M, whose "Hi HOMEOWNERS voice mail left our first weekend in residence I resave every month). We own the farm. It is our land of dreamy dreams, our safe place and retreat. Our life goal now is to get there, full time. Self-sufficiency commune is the phrase we've been using.
But I have lost my thread. SPRING. The thing is, after that late February meeting to negotiate the tedious process of purchase, we DID NOT GO THERE AGAIN until Memorial Day. March, April, May: it was all contract/lawyer/title company/panic attacks. We missed spring. We had no idea.
This weekend, Spring arrived. She might as well have sent an engraved announcement or paid a sky writer. It's not just the daffodils, though they are a huge part of it. We've planted 300+ every fall, in addition to all the ones planted by Mrs. EF in the 50 years she lived there.
It's also the rain (I believe Phrodaux has mentioned, NEVER say "Can it rain any harder?" because the answer is ALWAYS yes, yes it can) and the water everywhere.
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Basketball soccer is best played in 3 inches of standing water! |
It's the way our gentle wading/swimming creek becomes a ferocious torrent.
It's the new growth on everything: roses, currants, peach tree, moss.
It's frog songs (we think the lyrics are will you be my girlfriend) and salamander love.
But most of all it is something that cannot be photographed. It is a Saturday night, at the end of a two-week run of nasty flu at our house(s) and the end of a long, cold, irritating winter. It is stepping outside to check the slow-roasted salmon on chickpeas and mustard greens, smoking away on the grill, and realizing many things at once:
1. Better. I am BETTER.
2. It is 8:30 at night and still 60 degrees.
3. It's a warm wind blowing around. I quit hunching against the cold and stand up straight.
4. Spring came to the farm, and we were there to see it.
long collective sigh
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