The Backyard From My Head

During a casual search for real estate in Tulsa, OK, yesterday during our messy snowstorm, I came across this house.

Oh my goodness. Their backyard! The same, perfect yard which I believed only existed inside my head--right there! Displayed, online, before my eyes. And no lawn anywhere to mow.

With a pond, even...

And a screened-in porch in which to sit and survey all the beauty.

Happy sigh. Did my winter-weary heart good to absorb all the summer-time beauty (though honestly, I didn't feel winter-weary until I saw this amazing yard. heh.)

 And all for just $59,900. But alas, though it has two bedrooms and an office space (all on our list), part of it is split-level (Tom said he could handle that, but I said oh no he can't. I appreciated his willingness, though.). And no garage. But it blessed me that Tom, also, dearly loved this yard... and did I mention there was no lawn anywhere to mow? :)

Check out the rest of the photos at the website, including the indoor ones, and you'll see the owners poured their hearts and souls into their home. Their hard work, artistry and commitment blessed us both.

Happy Saturday. And remember--Spring is coming!

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So on Wednesday I took some free Bison baseball tickets over to our neighbor, Rob, then he and I stood outside chatting while the guys finished siding our barn. I asked Rob if he could write up a list for Tom and me of classic car shows, ones along the countryside. Rob and Barbara take their own classic car to shows, like, every week, and although Tom and I aren't such rabid fans, we sometimes get weird cravings to walk amongst old cars from decades past. Rob said he'd go and make the list right away but I told him, "Oh! No, there's no hurry. Really, just whenever you think of it."

Then yesterday finally we had some cool, cloudy weather and I was determined to finish planting my garden and not waste any of my energy on mowing the lawn. So there I was weeding in the early morning silence when vroom-vroom-vroom, here comes Rob's elderly lawn pesticide guy on his death-spreading machine just three feet away from my garden. Three feet! Gah! Rob and Barbara's property line is at least 15 feet from my garden.

So the guy stops beside me, idles the engine, looks at me and says, "That's a nice garden." To which I, tight-lipped replied, "Thank-you." And if he hadn't left the engine idling I would have added, "Please! Could you stay on the other side of the telephone pole over there? That's the property line." But I have a soft voice and I generally refuse to yell over machinery since it's quite unladylike. So I said nothing and continued pulling weeds and he moved on, leaving those death granules everywhere.

Then, not wishing to inhale insecticides, I practically ran back inside the house, fuming (but telling myself to calm down) and yanked down every window which had previously been welcoming fresh air, but now I wanted to protect Lennon and McCartney and myself from inhaling the stuff within our own walls. And for an hour I sat inside the house waiting for pesticide fumes outside to magically waft away (as if). And making plans.

Then after that hour, I returned outside (trying not to inhale), this time to our Bunny Pasture where I yanked the weeds in the raised bed I'd made out there, then using my wheelbarrow and shovel, I transferred more dirt to the bed (is anything more exhausting than moving dirt around?). Then I grabbed my buckets, returned to my main garden and dug-up my lettuce and tomatoes (some of them) and transplanted them into the raised bed since it's farther away from our property line and the poisoned lawn where the insecticides are now running through the ground into my garden. And our grapevines. And our orchard trees.

Later I pulled-up the weeds in the other raised bed I have out there, but was too tired by then to add much-needed additional dirt. Maybe I can do that today.

And all along, God kept calming me down. Or trying. He kept reminding me not to create anything in anger, for then there will be no enjoyment before or after the work. And how the way we treat people is just about the most important thing on this Earth. Then when I tried whining to Him about how I can't handle all this, He told me, "Yes, you can, Debra. I'll enable you. Do things my way and it will all get done eventually, inch by inch."

Well, I'll need Him to help me big-time. Now I must add more raised beds to the Bunny Pasture and replant my huge main garden with flowers (since we don't eat those). All that moving around of dirt! All that digging, arranging, planting and replanting...

And when I wanted to get red-eyed angry with Rob for poisoning his acre+ lawn three or four times yearly, here he came walking toward me, holding the handmade list of the car shows. It was sweet of him to make us that list so soon--Rob is always helpful like that. He's one of our neighbors who snow blows our driveway for us and mows part of our lawn and--well, all that other kind, country neighbor sort of stuff.

Sigh.

After that kindness, I did calm down. And I just felt deflated and bad for this poor old world where people feel they must have perfect green lawns and for ignorance and disappearing bee colonies and people with cancer and elderly men who ride around on machines spreading insect poison while wearing no face masks.

And so Life goes. At least for awhile longer.

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"The Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."

So Kristi said there are no more RH Shumway seed catalogs available this year and that y'all will have to sign up for the 2010 issue. Major bummer!





So I thought I'd take some pictures of these wonderful pages so reminiscent of the 1800's style of catalogs. We do have a scanner but it's upstairs buried in a box somewhere (and likely will remain there), so please bear with these photos. You can click on each to enlarge. Sorry they appear sideways--usually Blogger sets them straight, but obviously my photos have totally confused them this time.


Seed catalogs--what an encouragement! They remind us in January that someday this deep freeze will go, snow will vanish, Spring will return and with it, the time for the sowing of seeds.


Even weeks ago Tom and I already agreed that--this year--we will not take even five minutes of bright, lovely, warm weather for granted. We promised to appreciate every hour of sun and warmth here on our little farm as well as in our tiny town and its farmland surroundings. I will take more walks and look at everything and memorize every seen of this Life which flows too fast, like water between my finers.

We'll each place our hands over our mouth if we even begin to complain about anything. At least, that is our plan. Good weather and golden days in the country are just much, much too precious and too swift to vanish unnoticed and under-appreciated.

I forgot to tell you something.

Our "Have-More" Plan Book arrived some time ago. It's terrific and I recommend it to anyone even a tad interested in buying some land and 'going natural' or getting off the grid (and all that). I've also been rereading Sylvia's Farm, a book about her adventures as a lone sheep farmer and I've just begun reading Peace At Heart, a book very similar (so far) to Sylvia's Farm, except that the author has a husband for a partner.

These books tell of birthing sheep--and how sometimes you, uh, (gross alert) must reach up inside the laboring ewe to help her deliver her lamb, lest you lose both mother and baby. And on Sylvia's farm, some of her adorable young lambs (always, she gives each a name) die in freak accidents... or they freeze to death... or catch fatal diseases. In The Have More Plan book, there are pictures about how best to kill chickens (and other animals). In Peace At Heart, she tells the story of a weakened chicken which was nearly pecked to death by its peers (chickens do that, she says).

So here's what I've forgotten to tell you. I've decided to become a vegetable farmer. A flower farmer. A fruit tree farmer. A No Animals Allowed on This Farm farmer.

Oh dear. I would die if I had to help birth a lamb. Or faint, anyway. And most likely, I'd get so attached to my chickens that, should I find a dead one in the chicken yard, I'd be broken-hearted. And kill one of them to eat? Are you kidding?

Sigh. I know, I know. But I do realize my limitations. Hey, from 2002 - 2004 I raised pet mice, 10 of them, down in our basement. And when they started dying one by one, I sobbed. I stood above them, watched them breathe final breaths, stroked their backs, spoke to them and cried hot tears.

And I'm still not over that.

So it's flowers and fruit trees and vegetables for this farmgirl. A gal must know herself and her limitations and her callings--only then can she walk in peace. For there is no peace doing what others are called to do, but you are not. (And right there is a major reason why zillions of people are unhappy--they're on someone else's custom-made-calling road, not their own.)

Though, okay. I reserve the right to change my mind about the chickens. Maybe I could handle a few of those. Maybe.




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To thine ownself be true (even if your friends and neighbors don't get what you're trying to do).



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Oh, some of you will love this. It's a blog called Grandpa's 1947 Farm and at the top, Dawn has 59 pictures of her grandfather's farm which she's now restoring. Tom and I sat here on Saturday gazing at each photo and absorbed ideas galore.

What is it about this place, I wonder? There's an old-fashioned charm, I think... an obvious spirit of making the most of what one has... and I see love of land and family in every square foot. It is a Grandma and Grandpa kind of place--we take country drives and I recognize them and am always catapulted back in time.

Something else? The farm sits in Auburn, CA where not only did I live while a high school junior, but my own grandparents lived there lotsa years. My fondest childhood memories--they are all in Auburn still. Even now I return to the gardener's quarters on Acacia Dr. in my memory to sit with my dear grandparents upon the slate patio when present times get tough.

Be sure to click on "see all 59 pictures." And if you prefer cottage decorating you will love the sweet cottage in Dawn's backyard--she did an amazing job on that old woodshed. (Of course, now I want a cottage in my backyard!)  

The main house, also, is lovely in its simplicity.

Please tell me what you think about this farm. Perhaps you can explain more specifically than I why this 1.4 acre holds more charm than many larger, more extravagant, more expensive farms.


***


Dawn mentions a 1940's book called, The "Have-More" Plan. Read about it here. I ordered one from Amazon this morning--sounds perfect. Beyond perfect, actually.


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To view the best grandparents ever, go here.

So here's our barn about as finished as it's going to get before winter, for we've officially run out of time and money. A huge hole was dug all around and in front of it to level the ground, then a special kind of gravel was poured then rolled over which makes it nearly as hard as concrete. Well, kinda-sorta.

My outdoor "toys" are still outdoors. We've already had snow and yet there my terra cotta planters and wooden ducks and plaster of paris figures, etc., sit out in my garden or in the flower beds nestled against the house. At first I thought my not bringing them inside the barn meant I was lazy. And well, there is that.

But mostly? Mostly I think it's a rebellion of sorts. I am rebelling against the end of summer and an especially-early end of autumn. It all went so fast and I'm denying that soft, golden days have ended. We moved here in June, a whirlwind of activity and of acclimating ourselves to a whole different life woooshed by, swept us up, then sat us down-- bam! Right in the snow of an early winter.

Sigh.

But alas, there's next year. There will be a first Spring and a whole round of lessons and first sights and sunny mornings for appreciating it all. Yet now there will be snow and new wintry scenes from these windows and we will watch and wait patiently and remind ourselves there are times and reasons for each season we pass through in Life. I hope we will wait patiently, I mean.

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This weekend I sponge painted above the two smaller windows in our diningroom. I've got many projects planned even though "they" say you shouldn't redecorate/remodel your house around Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you've read here very long you probably have surmised I don't really care what "they" say.

Man oh man oh man oh man.

Oh man.

Did you notice the ghost town feeling of my blog? We were offline for three days.

It felt more like three weeks.

It's been test after test after test 'round these parts.

For starters, after the barn renovation, we have no money left. Well, just enough for groceries till next payday. I hope.  シ

Then there's that stock market thing. Tom says we have less money to retire on now than we had fifteen years ago.

I do hope he's mistaken about that.

The reason our computer wouldn't go online is that Tom (unknowingly) turned the 'online button' off on the Time Warner modem when the tv cable went all cattywampus Tuesday night. Then he had to go to work for two days and was too busy to find the problem after arriving home. *I* tried fixing it, but stopped when I realized (quite fast) that I had no clue as to what I was doing.

My friend, Wilma, helps me keep the email going through our Gladys Taber email group (emails must first be approved by one of us), but she went on vacation, which meant no one was here to keep the group going.

Remember how I'm always saying Tom does too much hard work out here on the farm and how I'd not planned for him to do anything? Well, this week he hinted to my 70-year-old mother about how the bottom rows of our (rusty-nailed, splintering) barn wall needed to be torn off.

So she got out there with a hammer and pried them all off. Right before climbing up a ladder to paint the new barn trim.

I tried talking her out of it, (so, like, how do you forbid your own mother from doing something?), yet I knew it was hopeless. But when she wanted me to hold the ladder so she could climb to the top rung--the one which has stickers on it showing a dark little stickman falling backward and the word, "Danger!" written all over it--I stood my ground and said, "No way." I told her she could tie the paint brush onto a piece of plastic pipe.

Sigh. It's been one of those weeks. Two weeks, actually. Two weeks of --again--coming to terms with the fact that, in reality, I have so little control of anything on this planet. No control of anyone else, anyway, nor the weather, appliances and so much more.

No, when all is said and quite done, I believe I have control only over my own thoughts, my words, behavior and reactions. And even there, well, it's pretty hit and miss. But at least with God, controlling myself is possible.

And well, lacking control of my world should be ok with me. There's so much in this life which I must let roll off my back, much I must just accept--and then leave the consequences to God, knowing that He will right all wrongs (eventually) and take care of me no matter what.

It's about trust--and that will always require unanswered questions. And where trust is real, there will be true peace.

Always there is much to learn. Let's just hope I am learning it.

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One good thing? While offline, I finally made a work space for myself up in our barn loft. (See above photo.) Doesn't look like it, but it's a 30-year-old-dream-come-true. My own space. My own organized tools in a loft where no one else walks away with them.

Heavenly.

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P.S. I may disappear again. Time Warner is messing up once more tonight so, if I do, never fear... I shall return!  ツ


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So Far, So Good

So here's the new garage so far. The crew will return tomorrow to finish the next phase, including the windows, above, windows which were given to us by friends. Then we'll have another group come and lay forms and place crusher stone inside the new construction and around the front of the barn, perhaps along the side you see--Tom changes his mind a lot (and we run out of money a lot, too) so plans change and it's hard to keep up.

Then that will be the end of the big projects for this year. It's one of those "know when to say when" kind of things. If you don't, you get into trouble financially and just about every other way as well.

Oh, how important it is to learn to listen to the voice of Wisdom! I can see why Proverbs says to pray for it most of all. Because well, (she says with a smile), if you don't have wisdom, you might not be around long enough to pray for the other stuff... You know, like love for others and patience with people, projects and dreams just around the bend.

Wisdom... so unworldly, so welcome. :)

Arghh!

You missed something today. Debra became livid. Livid!

No, not at Tom. Not this time. heh.

No, at our neighbor, the one whose property line is only around ten feet away from my garden. Why was I so mad? Because today he had his lawn sprayed with chemicals. Pesticides. Without warning us. And only feet away from my garden!

I am an organic gardener. I'm trying to run an organic farm.

Oh, I was so mad. I saw that lawn care truck pull into their driveway ("Fifty percent less pesticides" was painted on the truck. Bah! Give me a break.), and I ran out the door, telling Tom to come and help me. I grabbed a bucket then ran to the garden and hurriedly picked some tomatoes, squash and broccoli. Then, as the kid on the Motorized Contraption of Death zoomed around, I got tarps out of the barn and had Tom help me spread them over my garden plants. Over some of them. There weren't enough tarps for the whole thing.

I was just so mad, mad at our neighbor (who helps me mow our lawn--which made me feel guilty). Mad at this whole stupid, clueless world which doesn't realize how pesticides are destroying our planet --and the human race. Mad at their right to do so. And just mad at the lies we've been told. 

And sad. Sad that these pesticides could possibly be part of the reason our neighbor's wife just last month had a tumor removed from her heart.

Now I understood why some people want, like, twenty or more acres to live on. They want to be as far away as possible from what they cannot control. I so wanted to move to the center of twenty acres at that moment.

We did have to have the Bee Guy come weeks ago and spray two nests of yellow jackets/hornets under our siding. We hated to. But otherwise, they would have tunneled into the house. The Bee Guy shared a horrible story with us. (Dog lovers might want to skip to the next paragraph.) His neighbors had their lawn sprayed and his (Bee Guy's) German Shepherd (who went everywhere with him. The family dog.) was barking so the lawn guys sprayed him. The dog got sick almost immediately and slowly died. I am still recovering from that horrid true story.)

Tom said, "There's one more tarp, do you want to spread it over this section?", but I was crying by then and told him, no. He said compassionately, "Oh, don't cry. It will be all right." But I just shook my head and stomped into the house.

Fortunately our neighbor was no where to be found. I would have bitten his head off.

But alas, I sat down on the couch and flipped on the tv and guess what Dr. Phil was about? Feuding neighbors (very childish, foolish ones). How it just doesn't pay--and can escalate into endless wars.

I calmed down. I told myself, "Think! There must be an answer, something besides moving away next year. (I could just see myself explaining to prospective buyers, "We're moving because our neighbors spray their lawn with Death.") Too, staying angry can be even more unhealthy than the pesticides, themselves, since held-onto anger is like poison.

Then I came up with a plan, one which Tom says would be extremely hard, but in my current wild mood, I didn't care:

Next year I will move my garden way out to the meadow. It's the farthest place I know of from spray-happy morons who are--cluelessly, ok!--killing us all, including the rabbits and birds and toads which frolic here. If I must lug tons of soil and water out there alone, so be it.

When we moved here, I so wanted to create an Earth-friendly eco-system on our 4 acres. Today I felt helpless to do that, hence my frustration, tears, and feelings of doom for our planet.

******


"Let not the sun go down on your anger..."

(Yeah, yeah, yeah. heh.)  シ


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Please, please do not leave me comments saying, "Pesticides are as safe as fluffy white marshmallows. Relax."

Please don't go there...


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The past three days I've done something for the first time in all my 49 years. See that opened door at the top of the barn? Well, I've been pitching hay from there. Can you imagine? Right on down to my wheelbarrow (one of the niftiest inventions ever, by the way).

I'm using the hay for this:
If , two years ago, you would have said, "Debra, soon you will be pitching hay from a barn loft," well, I would have (unfortunately) laughed at you. The lesson? Never assume your life will always be the way it is now. God is very into variety, creativity, movement, flow, change, growth and living.

So never say never, for you never know. シ

We've owned this house for six weeks yet not until yesterday did I step into Bunny Meadow (so named for the Bunny family frolicking out there.)

I don't blame them--what a peaceful place! The grass is sweeter out here and grows more slowly and the cutest, tiny fuchsia wild flowers grow here, along with white and yellow flowers, too (I tried not to mow them all down). I'm tempted to put our someday-screened-gazebo out here instead of in the back meadow. Hmm. We'll see.

Remember how I wanted more bird feeders? Well, I think we have enough now.

This one was here at the house already.


Our realtor gave us this yellow finch bird feeder as a housewarming gift.

 

A woman at a yard sale gave this to us for free this week.

 



Plus, there are the three I made from candle holders which I already showed you. That's enough. I love it when Tom and I can stop searching for certain items for this new life, cross them off our list and move on.

Knowing when enough is enough is important because we are only given Grace to care for the things God means for us to have. Well, that's what I've found, anyway.

Everyone tells us our hydrangea bush will be gorgeous when it's in full-bloom.

The flowers are deeper purple in real-life.

And remember the 'so far' photo of our front porch? Well, it's changed again. I'd been wanting to make it a sleeping porch, so I did.



We bought a bed and I painted it yesterday morning, then rearranged this room. Usually you don't need a lot of money to go after what you want--you just need a lot of imagination.

My mom will be staying with us for the month of October so now we have a place for her to stay -- or for me to stay if she would prefer our bedroom (Tom can have the recliner which he likes to sleep in, anyway, and we have those pocket doors to make the living room private). But whatever, I do not want my mom climbing up and down those steps I showed you to the guest room I'll be making up there. That guestroom will be for our spry-er, er, less-vintage guests.

This whole 'free bed-and-breakfast' thing keeps returning to me. I tell our city friends, "If you ever need a place to get away from it all, please come out here and stay. Anytime." It's important to me to provide a resting place for the weary. I remember how many years I longed for such a place, one especially to experience morning in the country.

And now I know for certain, from experience--there is nothing in all of Life and this world like an early country morning.

--and I want to share that with everyone.



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I guess Tom and I had such a marvelous time on his birthday a week ago that we nearly repeated the whole day yesterday. Yard sales, estate sales, eating out for lunch and seeing an old-fashioned-like movie (Leatherheads) at the old-fashioned theater. (Great movie except for the occasional naughty word. Very reminiscent of Cary Grant-style romantic comedies with a bit of Disney sports movie thrown in.)

But my favorite part of our day? That was the part where I raced through a rainy parking lot into the huge supermarket to search for Mary Jane. Her long (long!) awaited magazine, that is, the one which I called Barnes and Noble about last week and was told they didn't have it. Well, you can imagine my audible gasp (probably scared the lady standing next to me) when I spied Mary Jane there on the shelf! Hooray! A new issue of Mary Jane always makes for a memorable holiday-esque event around my house.

And this latest issue is amazing. Perhaps the best issue ever(!), it has tons of personal stories by other kindred spirit farmgirls and amazing photos, also. And now since Mary Jane has handed over the publishing of her magazine to someone else, issues will come out way more regularly than one every year or so. (Just picture me happy dancing my way out to the car yesterday then, once inside, yahooing to Tom. Truly a day to celebrate.)

The only problem? I can just read a few pages at a time before I become even more feverish and bonkers to begin my new life out at our own tiny farm. Will this month never end?

And yet (I forgot to tell you) I have seedlings begun in little yogurt containers all across my kitchen windowsill and inside my small greenhouse on our counter. I'm babying those plants--keeping a lamp beside them and carrying the ones from the windowsill to the greenhouse so they can warm up in the mornings. And loving watching all those seeds growing... and dreaming of the day I will plant them in my new huge garden.

Anyway, if you are at all a farmgirl or farmguy at heart... if you'd like to discover others who actually understand your farmlife yearnings... you will love, treasure and devour the new issue of Mary Jane's Farm Magazine. I promise.

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Favorite Mary Jane links:

Here.

Here.

And Here. Lots of incredible essays under 'past listings.'

When Tom and I move out to our little farm we will meet new people. Down-home country folks, I hope, old-fashioned souls like the ones I described here.

The waiting gets harder every day.

But there is someone else I hope to meet out in that tiny country town. She's a woman who's day-dreamed about living on a farm since she was 14 years old. She's taken myriad countryside drives all the while trying not to covet every farmhouse set back from the road, and instead, rolled down her window in hope of tasting what a country morning must smell and feel like to those blessed country dwellers. 

She's made-up stories about how hideously happy farm folk must be to live on open acres, all the while putting her own dreams shyly on hold because, well, you can't really have what you desire in this life--can you?

And now for certain I will actually meet that woman. When she comes bounding out of her car in the driveway in front of her barn I will rejoice with her that finally--all these 35 years later--the dreams of her countryside drives all came true and she'll live a whole new way only 20 minutes away from her old life. But everything will have changed.

She'll have room to create, grow and run around. There will be no end of work to do--and she will love it all. The art and beauty of it in a place where even mucking out a stall feels like freedom. The creating of a whole new world at the half-century point of her years upon Earth just when she'd imagined her days would continue their mediocrity and slow pace.

She's delighted by the surprise of it all, amazed by the Giver of it and His compassion for her. And that at age 49, one can start over, live better, fuller, and fulfill the dusty dreams long ago placed resignedly upon shelves.

Yes, that woman is the one I am most anticipating meeting out there in my driveway, out in the countryside where--instead of driving away--I'll be staying, calling it Home, and calling it Good.



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