Relative Something

I feel like we are lucky, …and not so lucky. All of us are. Of course we are. It’s the balance of life.

The whirlwind of activity associated with hosting friends and family over the holiday weekend, many of them seeing our new place for the first time, has me in something of a “showing” hangover. I find myself contemplating all we have accomplished, and all that is yet to be done, which lies before us. There is a feeling of being richly blessed (lucky), and now socked with some big responsibilities (unlucky).

It is the part of me that wants to have everything tended to immediately that creates a feeling of pressure about addressing all the responsibilities. If I frame the new responsibilities as obviously transpiring over a span of time, it’s not nearly as daunting. We’ll get to it all, eventually.

My moments of weakness come when I see things that one day concern us greatly, then fade out of mind before we ever get around to tending to them. We start down a project path as far as is immediately convenient, but too often lose sight of it a day later, at which time something else easily seems to grab our attention away from our previous focus.

One of my projects for today will be to get our printer set up and running. We created a “to-do” list on Cyndie’s computer last week, but haven’t had it available for easy reference, and each of us has made individual changes to each of the copies on our own computers. I need to teach her how to use Google Documents, so we can both be updating one master list.

I want to be able to check things off the list as they get completed, as well as see the once-important ones continue to receive visibility, so items won’t linger unfinished.

As our littlest kitty approached me for attention the other day, I got the impression the cats’ behavior serves as an example of how life is. Pequenita strolled up to me for attention, weaving between my legs. As I reached to give her some petting, she kept walking to just out of my reach.

My “to-do” list will always be taking that one more step, out of reach of my ability to accomplish to my heart’s desire.

In the afterglow of a wonderful Thanksgiving day, highlighted by visiting family and friends, we are feeling a renewed sense of wonder for this place that has become our home. A home that we now share with two newly adopted cats. I am immediately reminded of our cats by the sound of one of them getting a drink of water, as I write. Unfortunately, Mozyr is dipping his nose into my cup of water on the end table to my right, to get that drink.

Hey, at least he’s showing confidence to be out from under our bed.

Actually, both cats have been doing really well with all the clamor and confusion from our hosting of a number of guests who have been infiltrating their space, just days after they have had the chance to learn this is their new home.

We are in this together, the cats and us, getting used to this ‘new home’ thing.

This beautiful paradise is our home?! Yes, indeed, kitties, it is.

Some of our first-time visitors of the last couple of days have inquired about which space we tend to spend the most time, and it occurred to me that we haven’t had enough time yet to give all the spaces a fair test. We love all of the different rooms. For just the two of us, we certainly have more rooms than we need. We didn’t really succeed in downsizing from our previous home.

We like sitting in the sunroom in the early light of morning, and at the kitchen counter of the center island whenever there is food-related activity going on. Climbing the wooden spiral staircase to our loft always gives a thrill, and the space up there is so appealing, it is hard to come back down. Since we started using the living room fireplace, where we have some new furniture, the thrill of sitting there and basking in the views through double doors on either side, as well as the glow of the fire, itself, is a big attraction. We logged a bit of extra time in the bedroom, hanging out with the cats when they first arrived, and that room has won increasing favor in our hearts.

They are all great spaces.

It has been a blessing to already have had the opportunity to enjoy hosting overnight guests on multiple occasions. This place deserves to be filled with the extra energy that additional people bring when they visit, and more so when they can stay a while.

I think that is a nice way to put this space to good use.

The icing on our cake is, after guests head home, we get to remain. And the space grows quiet, wrapping around us, and cradling us in all its amazing, glorious beauty.

Then, one of the cats slides around a corner at break-neck speed, claws trying to find purchase in the ceramic tiled floor, reacting to something that neither Cyndie nor I can see, or hear.

We have doubled the occupancy of our new home! Yesterday, with the loving guidance of our daughter, Elysa, we adopted two wonderful kitties from her neighborhood feline rescue organization.

We brought home a male, and a female, both short hairs. The male is a gray tabby, and the female is a tortoise. They are each around 1-year old and had names that sounded like someone at a shelter had to come up with something on the spot. We have renamed them.

I wrote the following yesterday afternoon, shortly after we settled in at home:

The male, who, at the time of this writing, is safely ensconced beneath our bed, under the headboard, as far back against the wall as he could get, was incredibly alert, athletic, and playful at the center. He showed impressive intelligence in anticipating the angle where a rubber ball would bounce off a wall to emerge from beneath a cage.

He is our mouser (we’re hoping), and that is how we selected a name for him. Based on Google Translate‘s Portuguese pronunciation for ‘mouser,’ which sounded a bit like, “mozier” to us, we have selected a customized spelling and are calling him: Mozyr. It could easily morph to ‘Mozes,’ for short.

The female, who is currently exploring the closet, has already scoped out the entire bedroom, and without hesitation, wants to leave this room and keep up the adventure down the hallway. She has claimed both Cyndie and me as her own, kneading our bellies, lying between us to feign a nap, then getting up in reaction to different sounds, immediately responding to our every move, checking to see what we are up to, and investigating whatever we are doing.

She is petite, and the name we have chosen for her is: Pequenita. It came from Cyndie’s memory of spanish for ‘little small one,’ and according to Google Translate (from spanish to english) means: “Wee.” At the shelter, ‘Nita appeared to bond with Cyndie almost instantly.

Both cats rode without fuss, in their individual carriers on the back seat of my car. It was about a 45-minute trip home, during which I needed to make a stop for gas. They both behaved as if this trip were no big deal.

We brought them into our bedroom, where we will have them spend whatever time necessary to display they are feeling comfortable, by eating, drinking, and using the litter box. After they have each demonstrated a level of contentment, we will open up the rest of the house to them.

Both cats exited their carriers very tentatively. Moz did move around the edges a little bit, but then settled deep under the bed and has decided to mostly stay put ever since. Pequenita has been up and down on every possible perch and already appears as comfortable as can be. She has eaten her food, drinks her water, and has been in the litter box.

We’ve decided to have her stay in the room for now, to help Mozyr get his confidence up, even though she seems ready to explore further.

They didn’t arrive at the shelter together, but we found them housed in a room full of other cats, and both seem familiar and comfortable with each other. They appear to be close in age. I am expecting them to do very well together. It seems we won’t be needing to manage the significant animosity of hissing and flying fur, anyway.

We have noted that Mozyr’s behavior, thus far, has matched exactly how the shelter adoption coordinator predicted he would act (which seemed a surprise, based on his robust performance, playing with everything and everyone at the time). He is shy and looks to need a fair amount of time in one room before really letting his guard down.

I’m suspecting that some of Pequenita’s activity is actually a cover up for some of her anxiety. She keeps coming up to me, as if to snuggle, but never really takes the weight off her feet, always at the ready to bolt, if need be.

We think this adoption is off to an excellent start.

Pequenita and Mozyr are our first animals added to the farm!

We have hardly been here a month on our new dream property, and I am noticing maintenance issues that trip some of my alarms. We haven’t even gotten to the new expansions and improvements we envision doing, and I am intimidated by the potential costs of maintaining this place.

One very enticing thing about this property (beyond the fact that it was just what we wanted) was the “affordable” asking price, as compared to the other listings we were seeing. The question that remains is, can we afford to keep it up at the level it had previously been maintained?

I worked hard to improve our previous home to a level that required minimal maintenance. Most significantly, I chose a maintenance-free siding. Now I have a beautiful log home. Yep, complete with splitting logs, separating caulk, spongy deck boards, and drying wood. The seller mentioned that he re-seals the wood every couple of years, and this fall it was due, but he didn’t get around to it because… well, he was selling the place. He left lots of cans of sealer for us. I expect it has gotten too late in the year to tackle this chore properly, and I’m not sure I’ve the capacity to succeed, given the part-time effort I would be able to put in. I wonder what it would cost to hire that job out?

Then there is the driveway. Among the things I noticed, when we drove around to visit our neighbors, and when I rode my bike around the immediate vicinity, is that ours is the only home with a paved driveway. It looks great. We love our driveway, …all 440 yards of its rolling, turning length. It is a quarter of a mile long ribbon of asphalt. I can’t imagine what it cost to put it in, but I am about to become well-acquainted with how much it will cost to maintain it.

I expect that is something that was on the minds of everyone in the vicinity, when the paving crew showed up on site for this job. It looks real nice, but the type of abuse most farm activity dishes out on a driving surface, and the multitude of other places money needs to be distributed on a farm, explains why none of the other properties around here happen to sport the same luxury.

I gotta admit, though, it was real sweet rolling along the driveway on my bicycle the other day!

And, we have our address number embossed in the surface at the entrance. Try doing that in your gravel driveway.

Be careful what you wish for. Interestingly, I have wanted nothing more than to be free of the responsibilities of my day-job, and now, although temporarily, that freedom has been thrust upon me due to a down-turn in business. It is daunting to consider the reduction in income, especially at this time when we seem to be spending, left and right, on many little things, and some not-so-little, to get us going here.

It was hard for me to joyously embrace the fact that I had the day free yesterday, to spend as I wish on our property. However, I forged ahead, trusting my spirit would rise to the occasion, with time.

It turned out pretty well for me. I decided to chip away in small steps, and started indoors, to give the day outside some time to warm up a bit.

I washed the bed sheets

I brought in a ladder and surveyed the attic over our bedroom, to make sure there was no dead mouse obvious. I did find a trap (tripped, with nothing in it but insulation) and much evidence of tunnels and droppings throughout the insulation.

I realized it didn’t smell at all this morning in the bedroom.

I researched the hunting regulations online, to prepare for what to expect this morning, the opening day of hunting deer with guns.

I reviewed the manual for our riding lawn mower, noting the maintenance requirements.

I walked to the end of the driveway to retrieve the trash and recycle bins.

I cleared the accumulated grass clipping from the mower deck, checked the oil, added oil, checked the gas level, and started the lawn tractor.

I did some mowing up near the house, where the grass had been left too long for the winter snow cover. Mixed success, but okay for my first try, I guess.

I parked the mower in the second garage and headed for the barn.

I took a shot at an uneducated trial-by-fire attempt to reattach the brush cutter to the diesel tractor to move it to the garage for the winter. Mixed success, but mission accomplished, however crudely.

I drove the tractor behind the barn to attach the plow blade. Similar problem succeeding with the 3-point hookup there. Got it on, eventually, but crooked, and after a long process of attempts and failures. A simple lesson in the proper steps will easily remedy this issue. My neighbor to the south has been buying and selling tractors for decades. He will be a very handy resource.

Got tractor with blade and loader nestled in the garage between the brush cutter and the lawn tractor.

Put air in the tires of my road bike.

While there was still sunshine, cycled about 5 miles on the roads that create the “block” around our property. This was the big success of my day!

Remade the bed with clean sheets.

Lounged on the couch to watch the sunset and enjoy my day’s worth of accomplishments, while waiting for Cyndie to get home from work.

I could get used to this kind of life.

Yesterday was the first accumulating snowfall of the season, although most of it evaporated when the sun made a couple of appearances between flurries.

Since Monday is the day I don’t have to drive to the day-job, (I changed to a 4-day work week to counter-balance the loooonnng commute), I had time to go for a walk with Cyndie, before she needed to leave. It was chilly, but wonderful to be out walking in the falling snow.

Monday becomes the day we try to schedule service calls, and as Cyndie pulled out of the garage, the chimney sweep drove up to meet her. It didn’t take him long to check out the fireplace on the main floor, and then the stove in the basement. He cleaned the chimney and removed the rodent nest from the fresh air intake, and got out of here in about an hour.

My first priority after he left was to get a wire mesh installed over that intake port and then I started a fire burning. It was a perfect day to heat up those stones around the fireplace.

Now I really need to get the rest of that wood pile moved before the snow begins to start piling up!

We got Cyndie’s new iPhone activated on my account, so she should now experience more stable coverage at our new home. It only took an hour and a half on my phone with a technician to make hers work properly. Ain’t technology grand? I’m hoping to convince her we don’t need a land line, so I’m hoping this new phone and provider will work flawlessly for her.

Instead of being frustrated by the difficulty with the activation, we are focusing on the progress that resulted. It is one more thing accomplished.

We also delivered all the pies Cyndie baked, and met all of our immediate neighbors. That was very rewarding. We are definitely outsiders. There are family connections and grade school relationships for most of our neighbors. They must be wondering what the heck we are doing here. Of course, it didn’t help us blend in at all when we pulled into their driveways in Cyndie’s bright red Audi convertible. It is so NOT a farm vehicle. Not that mine is much better, but mine isn’t a convertible, and it’s not bright red.

I was pleased when one neighbor asked me what I was doing for internet connection out here, expressing his dissatisfaction with the slow speed of their DSL connection. I was thinking I would need to learn from them, but it seems the solution we chose, of going with a mobile hotspot through our cell phone provider, is a pretty good, if not best option to go with.

We also heard a good bit more on the hunting plans for next Saturday. It is definitely a pivotal activity in these parts.

The weekend produced progress of mostly small accomplishments for us, but each little step is one that helps us to feel a bit more settled every day.

Having now talked initially with each of our neighbors is a big part of being able to feel just that much more settled.

I think surviving/getting past the deer hunting season here will allow us to take ‘settling in’ to yet another level of settled.

Yesterday we were planning to get out and introduce ourselves to the rest of the neighbors that border our property. Cyndie baked apple pies with a crumble of oatmeal and brown sugar for top crust to go along with our greetings.

As so many of our projects go lately, before we could start that effort, we needed to clear the counter space of the pile of electronic cables and mini devices that needed to be dealt with. Among them was Cyndie’s Sirius Satellite Radio device, which I offered to get set up so she could enjoy music from it while she was baking. Cyndie headed into the basement to search though boxes to find her apple peeler.

Once I became engaged in the challenge of locating and orienting the antenna, I began to sense that level of insanity where I found myself trying the same thing, over and over, expecting different results. How long do you wait for it to connect, before you determine you have waited too long? After that indeterminate amount of time, adjust the antenna again, a fraction over, and wait some more.

Meanwhile, Cyndie was coming upstairs with bundles of things discovered in the basement, which she wanted for use upstairs, but none of which were the apple peeler she originally set out to find. Both of us eventually gave up trying, and moved on. She cut apples with a knife, and I put up an outdoor thermometer that could be read from inside the sunroom.

Once the pies were in the oven, we headed out in attempt to document, on paper, the location of our buried utility routes. An extension of that effort was to get some measurements of the existing fence lines. We wandered about with paper and pencil and drew maps of the trails and paddocks as they are now. We dragged a 25′ tape measure around, flip-flopping past each other to determine a variety of distances.

After that, we were ready to head out to deliver some pies and meet our neighbors. The house smelled fantastic, filled with the enticing aroma of fresh-baked deliciousness. Cyndie was off hunting for something to use for a greeting card to provide our contact information on each pie when I heard a knock on the back door.

Our next door neighbor to the south had beat us to the punch. He saw us out wandering the property and decided to seize the opportunity to come meet us, with the added incentive of needing to check in on our opinions about the impending deer hunt season, due to begin next Saturday.

He let us know that he had previously owned this land, and had been hunting here for a long time. He made it clear there would be plenty of people staged on all sides, engaged in the hunt, and he didn’t want it to be a surprise to us.

He was clear to let us know, as owners, we had the option to “post” our 20 acres as ‘no hunting.’

Neither Cyndie nor I felt that was the best choice at this time.

Similar to the time we met our neighbors to the east, across the road, we ended up spending most of the remaining daylight swapping stories and telling tales. The moment when he finally said that he had better get going because people would be wondering where he was, happened about midway through the duration of his visit.

The remaining pies will need to be delivered today. We know to start early, and leave plenty of time for long goodbyes.

We also know that next weekend, and the following, we will need to be wearing blaze orange any time we are wandering around our property!