Posts Tagged ‘change’
New Ideas
We have a new idea about a way to make a hay shed fit in optimal orientation in the space we have available. We are considering creating a roundabout driveway to the barn. I have updated our planning image to show how it might look. It would allow a delivery of hay to pull in without needing to back up or turn around. After unloading, the route out would be straight ahead around the loop.
It is going to alter the perimeter of the paddock on that side, but we think it will be a worthy compromise. Determining the route of the fencing is important because the first batch of fence wood has been delivered. When weather permits, we would like to have paddock construction begin.
I have a new inspiration about possibilities here. We enjoyed a dinner date with Larry and Nancy, the wonderful people we purchased this property from, and during conversation, the word “spring” came up, and not in reference to the season of the year. I was pondering the fact that we still have so much to discover here, not having yet experienced the wet season after the snow thaws. I’m not sure what to expect.
Larry pointed out that it can happen that there will be areas that will be dry, but others not. One time he unexpectedly got the tractor stuck in a wet spot and needed to have a neighbor pull it out. Nancy mentioned the possibility of there being springs that are the source of wet spots.
I will be keeping a close eye on any areas that remain unusually damp after the snow melts, the seasons change, and the heat of summer begins to dry out the land. I would be thrilled to discover we have a spring. There is so much yet to learn, simply by being here for a full year of nature’s changes. It is a great thrill.
Today we are snugged in, having run errands yesterday, and we intend to enjoy a predicted winter storm from the vantage point of our living room. There is a fire in the fireplace, and plenty of indoor work to consume our attention. It is a downright dreamy Wintervale day.
Unknown Outcomes
I used to live in the suburbs. I don’t live there anymore. Now I live on a hill overlooking 20 acres of woods and pasture, surrounded by more woods and some farm fields. I used to live in a house with one cat, but I didn’t really want to have a cat in the house.
Now I live with two cats, and reveal how fond of them I am by my feeble attempts to complain about them.
I successfully convinced my family that we shouldn’t have a dog in a place where it would always be on a leash and we would be required to pick up its excrement, not to mention that our lifestyle didn’t align with the time and availability demands of properly caring for such a pet. Now we are pondering getting two dogs. I still don’t see how we will be fitting that time requirement into our plans to be getting horses, while still working day-jobs, off-site.
Of course, the long-term plan is to grow into a system of generating income from Cyndie’s training and consulting expertise, using the horses as guides in lessons. I have no guess how long it will take to reach that goal, and even less of an idea how we will acquire and care for dogs and horses in preparation toward getting there.
Isn’t this a great adventure! If you had asked me 27-years ago, how I was going to raise two children, in the suburbs, while we both worked, and keep our marriage together, I wouldn’t have had a clue. But we did so, and are healthier and happier on the back side of that stage of our lives.
Imagine what we have in store for the next stage.
Big Accomplishment
The big accomplishment achieved yesterday is the removal of two windows from the wall between the kitchen/dining room and the sun room. Early in our days of settling in here, we felt there was potential for having those spaces opened up.
The front sun room is an add-on to what was once an outside wall. That wall had very nice windows that were meant to keep the elements out. They were the style that crank out to open. With our little breakfast table under the window, it wasn’t conducive to having the windows open, but we both were wishing the space between the kitchen sink and our breakfast table was open for passing things through, or just chatting back and forth.
Yesterday, with the help of our friends Greg and Mel, the window over the sink was removed. The result was pleasing enough that we just kept on going and pulled out the bigger window by the dining table, as well.
I feel like we haven’t been here that long, and we are making some dramatic changes, even though we were thrilled with the place just as it was when we bought it. Each step is creating an increasing feeling of the place becoming more ‘ours.’
In this shot from Thanksgiving, you can see how it looked when the windows were in place:
Visible Difference
Good progress was accomplished yesterday, which begins to reveal the opening of space around the barn.
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I took a picture of a couple of our working diagrams, and then I tried to doctor the one on the right to indicate some of the old fence we are removing.
Routine Search
We are into the second week of our new routine, if you can call this a routine, and I feel like I am chasing my tail in search of a routine. I want to get over the hump of initiating accounts, registering for licenses, figuring out hours that places are open for business, plotting my travel routes and times, getting things ready in a timely manner, and finding the damn course-ground pepper.
We lost our pepper shaker. It was here a couple of days ago. We were using it at meals for several days, then it disappeared. I think it happened when Cyndie rearranged the kitchen cupboards the second time.
She had stowed most items and we were operating in a semi-functional mode. When she was eventually ready to really tackle the kitchen, she needed to pull EVERYTHING out and then begin placing the new accessory shelves she purchased, and putting things back in a new order. Somewhere in that process, the pepper disappeared. It may be easiest to just buy another bottle of pepper.
I still find myself reaching to the left wall for the light switch when I enter our bathroom. The switch is on the right side, past the open door. Harrumph. I was told that 10 days is all it takes for something to become habit. Each day I’m hoping it will be the one I quit flailing away at the left side, in search of a switch, when I enter.
I did notice, on my drive home yesterday, how easy it was for me to make an incredibly dramatic shift in how I frame my long drives in traffic since we moved. I’ve historically felt very strong disdain for traffic jams. I abhorred being caught in stopped traffic. It was very important for me to have a short and convenient commute.
The move we just made was the absolute wrong choice, in terms of my feelings about traffic. However, this move was right in every other way. Now that we have lived here a couple weeks, I can say, it is better than right in every other way. It is a dream come true. It is a thrilling paradise that tugs at, and energizes, every ounce of my being. And just that quick, my feelings about driving a long way to work, and dealing with traffic, have completely transformed.
Granted, it has only been 2-weeks. Feel free to ask me what I think after the weather creates days of poor driving conditions. I am open to the possibility that I will grow weary of the long drive. That is okay. I don’t plan to need to make the long commute forever. During this phase, I have plenty of options available from which to choose, in dealing with traffic issues that arise.
I am just happy to discover the new level of acceptance that has occurred for me. It is the first step in establishing the new routine I long to achieve.
Amazing Change
This is an amazing time of change for us.
Amazing, beautiful, thrilling, intimidating, exhilarating, bucolic, inspiring, exhausting, all-encompassing change.
Looping Loops
Cyndie and I are growing loopy over the topsy-turvy world of uncertainty we find ourselves trapped in lately.
None of our possessions have a known location, and we can’t keep straight where we have put anything down at any given moment.
Yesterday was supposed to be the day Cyndie started her new job, but we have been forced to push back our plans by two business days to finally accomplish the second step in our 3-step plan to transition from old house to new.
We have already finished the third step, which was to get our possessions moved into the new house. Now we need to go back and complete the second step: signing closing documents, finally making this all legal and proper.
Yesterday, we set out on our half-hour therapeutic walk, and just up the road, met our first neighbor as she was headed to put something in her mailbox. Her husband eventually wandered out and there we stood, on the side of the road, getting up to speed on all the neighborhood tales. It was one of those wonderful conversations that seems to have no end. A little bit like some of my posts… So, no sooner than we had shared one last parting ‘nice-to-meet-you’ to set off on our walk, we found ourselves back in the depths of neighborly gab. It was a treat!
We learned there had been a tornado that moved through the area two years ago, just behind our property, which took out one of their sheds from behind the barn. They said it was 30-years, to the day, after an earlier tornado took the same path.
Later in the day, Cyndie and I heard our first rumbles of thunder here. It sounded GREAT! I’m gonna love watching the weather from our new perch.
It took half the day to determine any signing of closing documents wasn’t going to happen until Tuesday (today!!), so by the time we knew we were free to run errands, it was getting late. We made it to our new bank to make some deposits and get cash, then made a run to hardware and home improvement stores for things piling up on our shopping list.
This really got me spinning. There is so much for us to do, it is hard to figure out where to start. Of course, I like to start at a beginning, (any beginning!) , and proceed in a sequence. Cyndie likes to start everything at once and proceed in every direction, simultaneously. Shopping with her is a real trip for me.
I ended up bringing home things I was considering should probably be on my ‘future wants’ list, but hadn’t even begun shopping for. At the same time, we knocked off a few valuable items that we can put into service immediately, like a set-back thermostat, new shower head, push brooms, boot mats for our entry ways, and anti-fatigue pads for the kitchen floor.
To Cyndie’s credit, I was able to forestall a couple other uncertain decisions until we are able to spend a bit more time to be sure what we want. I do wield some calming influence on the shopping front.
By the time we headed home, it was dark, and I almost got us stuck in a looping round-about. Then I entered a turn lane, one turn too soon, and quickly ran out of pavement, making a last minute correction with too much speed. It was past dinner hour and I was loopy from too much shopping and too many days of disorientation.
We hope to get the last (previously, second), most critical step, wrapped up today. That will give me a solid beginning to plot my next step(s) toward our new orientation on our “Wintervale Ranch.”
Wild Ride
Twenty-two of the twenty-seven most-recent emails in my inbox are labeled with the name that Cyndie and I have chosen for the farm we are dreaming of acquiring. I have chosen to keep that name confidential, until we are able to close on the property, but I have been using it to categorize the email traffic related to the process that started back in February of this year.
There are 283 messages in that folder. The first one is from the person we chose as our realtor. Then there are messages with the drywall company and painter that fixed up our house while we were preparing to put it on the market.
In hind sight, it would be accurate to relabel email exchanges with our precious friend, Ian Rowcliffe, to be marked with that same identifier. Traveling to Portugal to meet Ian and his family, and spend time with their horses at the paradise that is their Forest Garden Estate, definitely deserves credit for inspiring this dream.
The current batch of 22 messages received in the last two days reveals a boost of activity that has come from our finally taking the step of visiting farms we have been marking as “favorites” on the list our realtor has been providing weekly. That step follows the milestone of having received an offer on our home.
The fact that our first offer was received only 3-days after Cyndie returned home brings a smile to my face.
Three days after that, we drove a lot of miles to visit 4 different properties. Yesterday, we finally had an opportunity to walk through the property that has been on the top of our favorites since we first received a list from our realtor.
There are a fair number of issues, all with contingencies, that are yet to be determined, but this flurry of messages coincides with our having signed our names on a lot of documents in an act of hope toward realizing a precious dream.
Will all the pending uncertainties resolve in our favor? Regular readers here should know how Cyndie is willing the universe to direct the outcome. I am doing everything I can to keep my feet and hands inside the cart at all times during this wild ride.
Not Sure
I wish I had some of the horse sense right now that this guy possesses, to help with the negotiation process in which we are engaged.
I like the mysteriousness of having the eyes out of view in this image. There is still a lot conveyed by the rest of the face and muzzle.
Is this view destined to be a daily experience in my future? It’s quite possible, yet how near a future remains uncertain.
I’ve waited this long, I can wait some more. I’ve said many times that we aren’t in a situation where we really need to sell our house and move. If we can’t get an offer that we are satisfied with, we are still more than happy to stay where we are and continue to enjoy the luxury of a house we are very lucky to have.
For the time being, Cyndie can take advantage of the open invitation to visit the horses she has worked with in the recent past. I’m okay where we are at. I’m still trying to get used to having a housemate again. It’s almost like living in a new place.
One thing that has potential to change our mind about how much we want to be paid for our house is, if the place we are most interested in became available for a similar discount to what we are being asked to give. It can’t hurt to inquire.
This is one of those times when my propensity for not easily making decisions becomes most evident. A right or wrong decision? I wish. It’s all in how you frame it. If I wait long enough, either an answer materializes, or the question goes away. That is my usual modus operandi.
It’s a good thing I am pretty proficient at waiting. Time will tell all.
Change Happens
Last night was the first time all summer that I have been able to sleep under covers. The dew point dropped, the temperature dropped, the air conditioner was turned off, the windows all opened, and a blissful night commenced. What comfort!
Yesterday, I took the bike for a roll during an afternoon showing of the house. Checking with a neighbor, after I returned, he reported the visitors were there for all of 5 minutes. Guess it didn’t take them long to make up their minds.
I discovered that the shop where I had some work done on my bike, didn’t put as much air in my tires as I usually do. Before I headed out, I topped off the pressure, so during yesterday’s jaunt, I felt much more like my old self on the pedals.
It being the first weekend in August, the local Lion’s Club was hosting their annual corn feed in my town. I pedaled up to the park and around the school to check out the scene and see if there were any familiar faces hanging out. On my mind were thoughts of getting the house sold and moving away from this place where I grew up.
I have been slowly cutting ties to my home town. One early step toward that effort occurred when I stopped paying for the local paper. I no longer see the articles about the goings on in our community. It left me unaware that the park where the corn feed is usually held was under renovation and totally torn up. I found the corn feed activity in the community center parking lot. There wasn’t a soul I recognized.
There were plenty of families, most of them with kids much younger than mine. I realized I should be looking for older faces if I was going to find someone I recognized from my past. I coasted through the softball fields that were filled with the energy of a tournament. It felt alienating to see all these people and activity, but have no connection to any of it.
At the high school, I found a large youth lacrosse tournament in progress. It appeared to include teams from around the state. This sport continues to grow in popularity, but since it wasn’t played when I grew up here, seeing all this added to the alienation I felt.
When my kids were in school, one of the primary activities at the end of summer was the marching band. I was startled to find a full-size semi trailer in the school parking lot, painted with the school colors and identified as the Eagles Marching Band. A little further along, I came across another trailer painted up to identify the marching band, but at least this one was the size I remember seeing used. It used to be plain white. Now they need both trailers!
It feels like seasons are changing to me.
Relative Something 