One Week In

Since there are people who “keep up” with us by reading this blog and since this is my current scribbling venue other than my personal journaling, I will sit down at my desk for the first time this fine Saturday morning. I don’t exactly know where to start or what to write. Writing what I know amounts to commentary on house arrangements, organization, minimizing, cabin living. Lists and plans. I did read a book this week about the LOGOS ship mission effort. And Mother by Kathleen Norris. I did our laundry at the local laundromat on Monday and sat by the great Lake Superior while it washed. It costed almost twenty dollars for those five loads, only washed, not dried, and even though I used my own soap. Another day, Susan went with me to town to drop off some extra dishes at the used shop. It was handy and fun to have a friend to show me around town for anther “first”. I picked up two forms to fill out for our address change. 

Won’t you be bored? Will you be lonely? Why are you moving so far from your children? Whatever will you do about church? We field all such questions often. Maybe there will be answers to those questions here. Will I be bored? Not hardly. Selfish? Maybe. I’ll work on that. Lonely? Yes. I have never been alone for any amount of time ever before in my life. I honestly don’t know how to be alone, productively, yet. But we’re “empty nest”-ers, right? It’s time to learn. I’ll work on this, too.

I get to work on learning this, right away. For Elv was down in Wisconsin working four days this week while I stayed here at home trying to make our earthly possessions and regular living fit into this smaller-than-the-stone-house cabin. I hate being alone, especially at night. Even in the woods where its safe and secure I feel better with another human in the house. So Amber slept in the guest bedroom the two nights that Elv wasn’t here. This is purely psychological and ridiculous, I know. But we had cozy visits. So for now, I’m grateful and okay with being a big baby. Maybe I’ll grow up someday.

I put bird feeders out and the finches, chick-a-deed, and the tiny, rose-breasted nuthatches immediately showed up. The feeders are right outside the alcove windows by the coneflower that is blooming gloriously, so that I can see them closely. In the evenings the grosbeaks come by and feed long and quietly. No fluttering around fighting and playing while they eat, for them. Hummingbirds keep the hanging baskets swaying, as well.

Yesterday, I did up the laundry in the old wringer washer. What a lot of hullabaloo that becomes. First we have to clean out the tub of rain water and tree trash. And line up the hoses and drains. We have endless hot water these days so we filled the washing machines with gallons of straight hot water. Anyway, eventually I had cleaned jeans and rugs and towels hung out to dry on cables strung between trees. Elv will soon be building a clothesline, because one of my pet peeves is hanging laundry under trees on lines strung willy-nilly. Not cool and not how I do things. There are quite a few of those this-is-not-how-I-do-things-es going on here right now, by the way. And soon we will get a real washer and dryer.

While I washed clothes, Elv cut back a few more trees that were too close to the house. One too many snakes making residency and the rabbits using the crawlspace as the the local warren were rather convincing to him. The rabbits startled me one morning by thumping and jumping about under the house. I couldn’t tell where the racket was coming from. It sounded for all the world like somebody was walking around upstairs. I was jumpy all day then. The next morning I checked the back of the house and watched to see what it was. I discovered two rabbits playing hide-and-seek in and out of the crawlspace. Rabbits are perfectly harmless and I have no particular antipathy against them but they do not belong under my house. Another good reason to push the woods back is that we need a place to stack the winter’s firewood supply, not against the house, but not too far away either. (The most ordinary things need consideration when you’re newly moved into a raw space.) The best part of having those trees cut back is that now we can see the two maple trees that are growing tall behind the cabin. I am  grateful for them. I envision those maples towering high someday, providing a certain austerity to this woodsy homestead.