Dear Maine,
I can't believe it's October! Autumn looks good on you. Of course, this isn't the first time I've seen you dressed this way. It's hard to believe we've been officially acquainted for over a year now, and while there is still much work to be done, the progress we have made together is really incredible.
And now it's time.
The decision was made to pour, and the time is now. No matter how nervous we are about making sure everything goes according to plan (or at least close enough), things are happening NOW.
We got everything as set as we could on October 2nd, and we had a nice campfire before spending our first night in the shipping container. Just an air mattress on the floor, but it was just fine. We woke up early on the morning of the 3rd just to make sure everything is ready for the pour. There was really little else we could do after breakfast but wait, so we waited for the concrete truck.
I'm not great at waiting. Neither is Nate, it turns out, so he went for a walk to go do something down at the end of the driveway by the road. I stayed in the clearing sitting in my camp chair and reading my Nat Geo (have I mentioned that I love my Nat Geos?). I was sitting there, and I heard something moving through the woods... something BIG. I paused, looked up and looked around, but I saw nothing, so I went back to my magazine. But then I heard it again, this time accompanied by a huffing that sounded something like a cross between a horse coughing and a deer snorting like they do when they're annoyed at something. This time I got up, because whatever that big thing was, it was closer, and it wanted me to know it was there. I walked closer to the middle of the clearing for a full panorama (and thereby removing myself from any sort of cover that might protect me from this big thing, whatever it was, now that I think about it), and as I looked north, the crashing-through-the-brush started again in earnest, and then I saw it charge across a path at the edge of the clearing about seventy-five yards away... a moose! He was only visible as a tall, dark shape with a big, furry shoulder for about a second and a half, but he was unmistakably a moose, and a fast-moving one at that. This is so exciting!! We knew we had moose, because their tracks are everywhere, but this is the first official moose sighting on the land! I had tried calling to Nate, but he didn't hear me, so after I was convinced that the moose was permanently out of sight, at least for now, I went running down the driveway toward Nate. He knew something was up, because I never run unless something is chasing me (the moose was not chasing me).
But anyway, that was my little gift from the Universe on the day of the concrete pour: a moose sighting. It's kind of like everything is really coming together with this whole thing.
And here is our baby, all prepped and ready to pour. Ultimately what we have here is a 16 x 24 foot foundation with gravel and stone beneath the roughly 14-inch footer, gravel beneath the roughly 6-inch interior, a 6 mil vapor barrier underneath a layer of 2-inch XPS foam boards cut to fit and taped together with gorilla time with rebar running all the way around in the footer, a layer of wire mesh seated on top of little plastic chairs with Pex tubing for radiant floors attached to it. The wire mesh is connected to the J-bolts (That's probably not the right name, but that's what they look like to me. They are the bolts to which the sill plates will be attached to anchor the house to the foundation. Nate attached them to little pieces of wood which are attached to the form so that the bolts will already be in place before the pour. This seems like it will seat them better than trying to stick them into the wet concrete after the pour.). The two drain pipes (kitchen sink and shower) are in and have insulation wrapped around them to protect them from the concrete. The two ends of the Pex for the radiant floors are sticking up, and we put in two separate lengths of Pex tubing to run from what will be the utility room to the kitchen sink. There is also a multi-purpose 4-inch flexible pipe running from the utility room out under the foundation so that we can use it to run in whatever we might need from the outside. We may never use any of these things, but it's best that they're in there now, because once the concrete is poured, that's kind of it.
Here she is, all ready:
And here comes our concrete!
I didn't really know what to expect. Besides mixing up a little mortar to repair the front steps at my old house and dumping concrete into holes to secure fence posts, I have no concrete experience. The concrete guy (I can't remember his name, but he was very helpful) added some extra water to give us a little more time to work it, and he brought it in slowly for us, filling first near the rear and moving the chute from side to side as Nate and I spread the concrete into the corners. He paused to give us the time we needed to get everything moved around, and eventually, by taking off lengths of the chute and swinging it from one side to the other, the entire thing was full of concrete. There was a frog that had gotten into the foundation, but Nate tossed him out just before he was about to become a permanent part of our home! It was a close call for that guy!
It was a close call for us, too... The concrete guy was awesome in that he poured our extra concrete into 5-gallon buckets for us (we had exactly 2 1/2 buckets worth of extra concrete - so about 12 extra gallons is all... I'm not sure we could have gotten much closer to having the perfect amount of concrete... or much closer to not having enough to get the job done...), and then he busied himself with cleaning up his truck and pouring some extra water into buckets and our concrete-mixing tub for us since we have no easy water source while we took the first pass with the scree board to see what we had. There were a couple low spots, so we used up one of our buckets of extra concrete, but once we got it screed a second time, it was darn near perfect. And now we're down to just 7 extra gallons of concrete! That works out well, because we really didn't need a giant pile of useless extra concrete kicking around.
And here she is, screed:
It was really kind of fun mucking around in the wet concrete with rubber boots on and pulling the concrete to the edges. It was also fun making it all flat and level with the scree board.
After we got it screed, our concrete truck left (and it got a lot quieter), and we went to work with the bull float and the trowels. For our very first time, we did a great job! If we had worked just a little bit harder, we probably could have gotten it to a near-mirror finish, but we wanted it to have some texture since it will probably be our floor for a while, and super slippery concrete isn't such a great idea.
We kept checking it and checking it and checking it, just to make sure there was really nothing else for us to do. Because we had the extra water added, there was a lot of "cream" that we had to keep scraping off the top and off the edges of the foundation.
I think it looks really good!
We got so lucky that the sun came out and helped to dry it. While we were waiting, we took a walk. In a normal forest, the trees come to rely on each other to stay upright, so when larger trees are removed (as in logging), some of the taller, spindlier trees who relied on the bigger ones can no longer hold themselves up, and they fall over into arcs. They're not healthy, certainly, but they're not dead, and these few created this beautiful arch of fall foliage. It seems like right now is getting close to peak leaf beauty time.
Before we left for the day, we made sure it was solid enough (we didn't walk on it, but we could tell it could support a decent amount of weight), then we covered it with tarps held down by firewood and crossed our fingers.
The next time we could get back up to see our masterpiece was Thursday, October 6th, which was another lovely, bright sunny day. We pulled back the tarp, and voilà! Perfection! The only imperfect thing (which we really don't care about at all) is that the tarp left almost like stains in the concrete where it was touching. It had rained in the intervening days, so maybe that's a factor, Either way, we are very happy with the results. We took off the forms, cleaned up the foam where excess concrete had been, backfilled to the foam and attached the sill plates. The J-bolts worked well. There was an issue with the first ones we tried: it seemed that not enough of them was sticking out of the concrete! But by countersinking the holes, Nate was able to make it work. Fortunately, it was only the first two we tried that had this issue, and all the rest of them were perfect. The only extra work was that we had to chip away little ridges of concrete that had hardened around the pieces of wood that we had used to hold the bolts in place before the pour. That really wasn't a big deal. We are very pleased, because everything is just about perfectly square and level. There are a couple corners that the water likes to pool in, but they're only maybe a quarter inch lower than the rest of the surface. I would say that's pretty good.
As time draws short, I am all about being productive and getting things off my to-do list. Back in July I bought the bat house builders handbook, and I bought all the materials and Nate cut all the pieces then, too. For the past several weeks I've been meaning to get to it, but now that I know that I'm heading back south on November 1st, there's no time to wait. So here you see the inventory I took on October 8th, and Nate is drilling holes in the pieces that need them. (The holes are so the bats can go between chambers.) There are three bat houses' worth of wood there on the ground.
This is probably the least fun part (according to Nate; I wouldn't know because I'm scared of the circular saw), but it's necessary. The bats need some kind of traction so they can land and climb up and down within the house, so there need to be grooves every quarter inch or so, and the grooves have to be very shallow: only about 1/32 inch deep. We couldn't think of a better way to make them for now, but we are going to have to if I make any more of these, which I probably will if there's any demand for them. This part made Nate cranky.
We headed back to the land on October 10th. Now that the Fair is over, we are only working on the farm Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday morning. Our tasks at this point (besides daily animal chores, which don't really feel like work) consist mostly of harvesting for Tuesday and Thursday CSA pick up and for the Farmers' Market on Saturday. When we're not harvesting, we are tearing up plants and composting them and getting the fields ready for winter. We spent our time on the 10th putting in orders for lumber and sheathing and working on the container, because that's where Nate might be living for the winter.
Nate's working on insulating the container. It's framed out with 2x4s, and there is a 6 mil vapor barrier on the floor, mostly to keep us safe from all the nasty Chinese chemicals that saturate the floorboards to keep them free of pests, mold and mildew. (These containers take a one-way ride over from China, and then they stay here, hopefully to be repurposed. It annoys me that it's cheaper not to send them back for reuse. But then again, it also annoys me that we buy so much cheap, toxic crap from China instead of buying quality items made locally and thus keeping our local economies healthy, but that's another story... and a large part of my personal philosophy behind this endeavor. But it's not time to talk politics and philosophy just yet. Maybe next winter once I'm actually living in this house we're building and there's four feet of snow on the ground and the cabin fever is raging.) Then there is a layer of one-inch XPS foam board for insulation. The 2x4s in the walls create separate bays that Nate is sealing with spray foam then adding foam board to in such a way as to add an air gap that will (ostensibly) increase the R-value of the walls, simply by using air. That's a sciency thing - it's Nate's realm more than it is mine. Not that I'm not good at science; Nate's just better. He's more physics/electricity/mechanics. I'm more biology/chemistry.
The next step is a layer of OSB flooring. After this, we will need to seal the cracks and come up with some sort of cheap, durable flooring to lay on top, as this will eventually become Nate's workshop and a backup emergency living shelter. At any rate, I'm pretty excited about sleeping in it on our next overnight now that there's insulation on the floor. It should be warmer!
We set up all our deliveries for Monday, October 13th. It was a dreary day, but we are running out of time, and now that the concrete is poured and the sill plates are in, all we need are materials so we can get building. Nate tells me this is the part when things start going really fast. I hope he's right!
Our first delivery arrived around 9:15 am, and it was a surprise! Crescent Lumber was going to call first to make sure we were there, but they just came on over anyway. No big deal. We are excited to have sheathing. Unfortunately, it doesn't do us much good without lumber, but...
...as the Crescent truck was leaving, this guy arrived! (Literally about three minutes later!)
That's Mike from Parker Lumber (about five miles up the road, which is really cool, because it means our lumber is about as local as it can get!). He unloaded our order, and then we were ready to begin. Here's Nate making one of the very first cuts. By the way, aside from a screw gun, we have no other power tools, so everything else is being done by hand -- every cut, every nail.
Before we could get too far along, our third delivery of the day arrived. This is William with a load of topsoil that we were able to get for a ridiculously awesome price - but this year only, because it may be gone soon and William isn't sure he can get any more next year. We had to jump on it while we had the chance. So after William dumped this load for us (on our grey water pit, which needed just a little more fill), he went back for a second load. We would be seeing him in another couple hours.
I've been looking for the moose. No moose, but moose tracks! This one is right next to the fire pit, about fifteen yards from the house. I'm sure he's checking out all the things we've been doing on his land.
So. We had our lumber by 10:00 a.m. We paused to talk with William for a bit, but here we are by noon: our first wall ready to be lifted.
Since we waited to put in the headers and footers for the window until the wall was raised, it wasn't too heavy. Nate and I were able to lift it by ourselves. Here's Nate nailing in the top plate. And just like that, Wall No. 1 is in place. And it's only 1:00.
We had the second wall lifted by 4:00. This one wasn't so easy. Just because of the differences in it, it was either a little heavier or balanced differently (or we were more tired), and we weren't able to get it up by ourselves. We got it to about shoulder height, but that was it. So we enlisted Nate's truck, which solved the problem.
And just like that, just one week after pouring our foundation and a mere six hours after receiving our lumber, our house has two walls!
William came back with our second load of topsoil, and he got out and started walking around, clearly pondering something. He had a little time to chat, so we explained a little more of our plans. He asked what we planned to do about our debris-filled clearing. We said we didn't know (because we didn't. We've toyed with so many ideas as to what to do about that mess.). He kind of rubbed his chin and said, "You know, I think I could skim that down nicely with my 'dozer and get you a good, flat layer of topsoil to work with, and I think I could do it in about half a day for [insert really reasonable range of figures here]." Nate and I told him we'd think about it. We didn't think about it for long, because William is awesome (he's been bringing us stone and gravel and other things all summer), and because William's estimate was really reasonable. William is going to come back and make our clearing a lot less of a mess on the 20th.
Fall has been beautiful back on the farm. This is Willow basking in the morning sun.
And the work on the bat houses continues (at a somewhat frantic pace, since it's now October 15th). Now that all the grooves have been cut in, construction can begin in earnest. But first, everything needs at least two coats of stain. The bat houses need to be black in order to be warm enough for the bats in this northern climate. And stain is better than paint since it soaks in rather than creates a barrier, and the bats will be able to get a better grip. Stain also seems (but probably isn't) less toxic than paint. As you can see, space is at a premium, but it is what it is, and I WILL get these bat houses built!
So this is life: harvesting and doing farm work, going to market, working on the bat houses, and going up to the land, kind of in a revolving pattern just like that. It's starting to cool down a bit, so we are firing up the wood stove at night, and it's delightful. Makes the stain on the bat houses dry more quickly.
Unfortunately, we are feeling the pressure now that there are only two weeks left before I head back to New York. Nate will stay up here a little longer, but it's certainly easier to do things when there are two of us (even though Nate does most of the hard stuff). We went up to the land on Sunday, October 16th, with all our gear to stay overnight so that we can make the most of the 17th as well. We have a house to build!
The end of the day on Sunday saw us with four walls framed and lifted into place with all the top plates put on. Once we get some sheathing up, this thing is going to be solid! It's amazing to me how flimsy this thing really is. It's just not sturdy at all! I realize that it will be much better once the sheathing is up.
Lifting up that east wall with the truck gave us an idea. For whatever reason, that wall had a really short scab holding the two top pieces together, and it bent A LOT at that joint when we lifted it up. So, since our north and south (front and back) walls will effective be made of two 12-foot sections, we built them half a wall at a time and lifted them in the same way. We then connected them and put in our headers and footers for the windows and the French doors. We framed the windows rather generically since we don't know what size windows we will ultimately get; it depends on what's available for what price at the Hammond Lumber semiannual tent sale in May. We are going to sheathe over the openings for winter anyway, and we will adjust our framing once we actually get the windows. So by 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, here is where we stand:
The days are getting shorter, the wind is making a nuisance of itself, and the temperatures are starting to drop a bit more sharply at night. Still, temperatures are in the 40s or 50s, and work can still be done. I'm glad we have that newly insulated shipping container floor to sleep on... or not. It was SO COLD!! I climbed into bed relatively early because it was starting to rain and I was really cold. I stayed really cold until Nate came to bed, then I got a little bit warmer, but not much. We were both so cold (turns out that container just decides to be whatever temperature it wants, and it seems to want to stay colder than the outside temperatures), that Nate got up really, really early to build a fire, and I was too cold without him, so I got up, too.
This is our Monday morning survival fire, complete with moonset in the background. Dawn is sneaking up over the eastern horizon, and I can't wait until she brings her warmth with her. It's about 6:30 a.m. We've been huddled by the fire for about two hours now. Brr!
And I am grateful for the glorious, clear night, despite the cold. I looked on a map of light pollution levels around the world, and our land falls into a zone only two zones away from As Dark As It Can Possibly Get. And, so, under these conditions, I can confirm that the Milky Way indeed still exists in all her magnificence. I look forward to more clear, starry skies; brilliant moons; and maybe even some aurora borealis!
But this is how it works: the sun comes up, it warms up, we drink hot beverages and eat breakfast (thanks to the local general store) and we get right back to work, right where we left off.
Our first Monday morning project is putting in the floor joists for the half loft. We used 16-foot 2x8s, and they were measured perfectly so we didn't have to cut them at all (this is a rare occurrence so far in this project). This made for a not-terribly-difficult installation. And some of the boards have a really pretty grain, so I chose which way they would face to show off their best sides since they will remain exposed. They are the first truly aesthetic part of this build, and I got all excited as I started to envision what this is really going to look like when it's all done (in, like, ten years...). It's also easier to envision what it's going to be like as a home now that there's a "ceiling" in the kitchen.
Yep. Strong enough to stand on. A good quality in a floor.
Just as we were putting on our first piece of sheathing, Beth and Dennis rolled up to check out our operation. They'd never been up to visit, but they had heard us talking about it so often that they needed to see it for themselves. It was nice to have friends stop by and create a little break in the work for us.
Once Beth and Dennis left us, we went back to work, and we got the north wall entirely sheathed. We finished up around 4:30, and the shadows were lengthening and our bodies were tired, so we decided to call it a day.
Each night before we leave, we cover our materials back up with tarps, put all our tools away out of the weather and put our tarp back over the concrete pad, just in case.
Maine does have strange weather. Indian Summer seems to be upon us here on October 19th, so I was able to leave the confines of the cabin to do a second coat of stain on the bat houses outside. This day was so warm! No need for long sleeves or long pants, and very easy to break a sweat while working! We got a couple day stretch like this, and it was very nice indeed. One last little summer hurrah.
We headed back to work on the homestead on the 20th. The skies aren't so clear today, and the temperatures are much more autumnal. Nevertheless, there is work to be done.
Early morning east-facing pictures never seem to come out very well, but this is the "before" picture of the clearing:
Yuck, right? All those garbage weeds and piles of mulch...
But this is the "after" picture (while William is still working, and Nate is sheathing the south wall). It's SO much better. Aside from a few stumps (which will be perfect for an experiment in hugelkultur), everything is mostly flat and stick-free, leaving behind a nice, rich layer of what was once forest soil. (I hear plants like that stuff.) I can finally see how this place can turn into a homestead capable of producing enough food for us to live on.
It was really nice continuing to build while William was working away with his dozer. Reminded me of being a kid on our farm where I would be playing or doing chores with the steady, comforting hum of my dad running some sort of tractor or heavy equipment in the background. It's not a sound I especially remembered from childhood until I experienced it again today.
And here we are, all four walls sheathed. Now, when I stand inside it, it feels kind of like a house. It's pretty exciting. It's supposed to rain these next few days, but it's not supposed to be terribly cold, so everything should be okay. Zip sheathing is supposed to stand up especially well to the weather. Let's hope so.
It's getting down to the wire, so every moment not spent doing farm work or on our land building our human house is spent building bat houses. From here on out, it's all me (except when I get frustrated or don't know how to do something and need help, then Nate's got my back). This is the inner chamber of the pole-mounted rocket box that will be going in our clearing. The instructions say you just make the two boxes then just slide one inside the other. Oh yeah, right. Mmhmm. Maybe if you make everything exactly perfect... which I did not do. So this is where Nate stepped in so that the rocket box did not become firewood. No big deal, really. I just backed out all the screws to loosen it up, took off one side, nestled the inner box inside, then put it back together. It's not perfectly square, but the bats probably won't mind.
This is serious diligence: the work on the rocket box continues, even with laundry hanging all over the cabin. Sometimes that's just how it is: my work environment isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be. We think we need to have everything be just so, but we don't. We could really get by a lot more simply than we think we can.
One week left, and we need a roof. Unfortunately, the weather is not exactly cooperating. It's cold, but that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the wind, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the gusts - the gusts that make it hard to stand on a ladder, stay warm, or maneuver giant sails in the form of lumber. But here we are on the 23rd: half our rafters are up... the easy half, because there is a floor in the loft on that side. We are cold. We are tired. We are sore. We are cranky. We are NOT spending another night in that freezing cold shipping container. We will spend the night in our toasty cabin then come back in the morning. At least we can use Brian's extension ladder for the rest. You'll notice that the sheathing is now taped. That's Zip tape, which doesn't just adhere to the sheets; it forms an impenetrable chemical bond over time (or so I'm told). That was all me. I did all that. Even the parts on a ladder in the wind.
After a good night's sleep (and more bat house work), we came back up to a less cold, less rainy, slightly more sunny day. It's clear that Mr. Moose has been around. This is a really great print we found in the driveway, which, judging by the number of tracks going up and down it, seems to be one of his major thoroughfares. It's also clear that he has fully inspected our work, as we have found tracks really, really close to our build site. We joked that we might find moose prints in our concrete after the pour on the 3rd, but that didn't happen. I decided if it had, I would have filled the prints with some sort of colored epoxy to preserve them. We've got the tracks. We've got the scat. Now where's that moose?!?
Here I am braving the ladder in order to zip-tape the upper edge of the wall, since this wall doesn't go any higher. (I do have a legitimate fear of heights, complete with racing heart, sweaty palms and vertigo... this is why I climb mountains. The only way to defeat fear is to face it.) The taping is my job, and I have to do it! Nate just climbs around up high like a monkey, seemingly fearlessly. I don't know how he does it. I'm not wired that way.
Our half rafters look pretty straight! They'll look even better once there are more of them, but for now, I'll take it. Besides, it's still very windy - too windy to be up there right now.
I liked zip-taping the bottom edge way more than I liked zip-taping the top edge. Our house doesn't look very big until I'm in the picture. Then it looks bigger. Or maybe I just look small.
Can you believe it?!? The bat houses are FINALLY complete! In the foreground is the four-chamber nursery (destined to become the official Fisher Farm bat house) finished just in time for our LAST farm dinner (and last CSA pick up at the farm) this evening (October 25th). Behind it stands the rocket box that will go in our clearing. There is a second four-chamber nursery that still needs some work, but that one's for Brian, so I still have a few days. For my final farm meal, I requested that Rose make crispy, cheesy kale. I'm not sure what's going on lately, but I am OBSESSED with kale. I can't get enough of it. And this is weird because historically I don't even like kale.
October 27th...our last Thursday (or mine, anyway). Here I am proudly displaying my completed rocket box. I can't wait to get it mounted so it can be inhabited!
We took Brian his bat house, which seemed to please him, and we got to work on those rafters. Not easy work, and not the straightest job in the world, but they're up, and so is one piece of sheathing. I have one more market, then two and a half days to get everything straightened around and ready to leave, then I'm gone. It makes me nervous that this is where the house stands with only four days left to go. But at least the house stands, and Nate is certainly capable of continuing without my supervision. I'm just one of those people who seems always to have to supervise (or throw myself right into the middle of everything).
Our last day of harvesting on the farm was one to make me glad the season was ending. It poured, and it was cold. The sheep had knocked down their fence and were half out, and it was raining so hard that when I yelled for Nate, he couldn't hear me, so I had to deal with that on my own, sopping wet with frozen fingers. And at this point, the cold doesn't make my hands feel any better; it makes them burn with pain. It's time for this to be over. Fortunately, this isn't my last day on the farm. There's still market tomorrow, and that's my favorite part. I will be sad to say goodbye to all my market friends... until I come back and see them next year! I will still need Rick's flowers, Bob's bacon, Jenny's sourdough and Izzy's (and everybody else's) delicious treats!
The next trip up to the land was a productive one. It started with this:
That's Bill. Above you can see how close he is to our vehicle. And below you can see just how close he is to our house!
We knew he had been snooping around and checking everything out, and we caught him in the action. We pulled onto the land around 9:20 a.m., didn't notice him; backed into our regular parking spot, still not noticing him; shut off the truck, STILL not noticing him. Then Nate went to get out, paused, said "Holy shit! Tamarra, LOOK!" And there he was, in all his chomping majesty, browsing through the fall grasses. He took a leisurely look in our direction, then went back to eating. He didn't seem at all bothered by our presence, which is great, because we want him to keep hanging around. Our land is a sanctuary for him; no harm will come to him here (unless he endangers us, of course, but our first encounter was very calm, so I have high hopes for peace between the humans and the moose). He made no indication that he had any intention of moving on from his breakfast spot, so we slowly and quietly got out of the truck. I climbed into the bed for a better vantage point (okay, for safety). We watched him for probably a good ten minutes, until he finally ambled off north, snatching mouthfuls of shrubs and leaves as he went. I watched him go up past the house and finally out of sight. What really amazed me was how difficult it became to see him among the young trees. You wouldn't think something that massive could hide so easily in an open clearing, but it can. Nate named him Bill. Bill seems to be a young bull, judging by his antlers. I would guess he is a year or two old. And while he's big, he's not full-grown big. I hope Bill sticks around for a long time to come and we can watch him grow. I want him to get a wife, settle down and raise calves on our land. That would be so cool!! It's already pretty cool - our very own moose!
But once the moose excitement was over, it was back to work.
Despite the wind, the roof had to get sheathed. Nate is very much in his element up high, but I was very nervous as he was way up there with only tiny pieces of wood to support him. He developed a pretty good system of nailing and taping as he went so he only had to move his supports a few times.
I did not enjoy this part of the process, though I'm sure Nate did, but ultimately, it got done, and now we have a roof. An actual, sheathed roof. We decided that was enough for today and went back to the farm to return the next day.
Halloween (my favorite day of the year, by the way) proved to be a very windy day, and, of course, it's the last day both of us have to work on things, so that kind of sucked. Today's tasks included putting plastic over the doors and window. We only left one window unsheathed, for which I am glad, and that took clear plastic in order to let some light in. We put black plastic over the doorways. Since Nate will still be here, we only covered the French door. I don't have a picture of how it looked the last time I saw it, but it looked mostly like it did in the photo above, only the window and door are covered with plastic. We tried in vain to get tarps up over the roof, but the wind made it impossible - and dangerous, since we tied rocks into the corners of the tarp in order to get it up over the roof. At one point one of those rock-filled corners came whizzing by at about 40 mph, narrowly missing my head. That was about the time we decided to call it quits with the tarp.
This was kind of a sad day for me, because I had to say goodbye to my land for the next several months. It's unknown how long it will be until I can come back. It depends on the prognosis with the injuries, what happens with work and money, and what the weather offers come spring.
So on Halloween, I said goodbye to my land... my future homestead and a big piece of my heart. I will miss it.
We went back to the cabin, and I loaded the last of the things I wouldn't need in the morning into the car, then settled in to spend time with Nate for my last night. We had some serious things to talk about. The last few days had been very, very tense between us, and we had serious doubts as to the wisdom of even continuing this adventure.
But Halloween is truly a magical time, and the magic of Halloween (along with open, honest communication) made things right between us. I think it's good that we will have a couple weeks apart. We've been on top of each other and in each other's (very tiny) space constantly for the last six months, working together, living together, building together... doing just about everything together, in a small, challenging environment. It's enough to test any couple's resolve, love and commitment to each other. But this test only made us stronger.
I got up on the morning of November 1st, had a nice breakfast with Nate, went for a walk to say goodbye to all the animals (and thank you... the sheep, except for Nancy and Pearl, who will go to a new home, will be slaughtered in December, and the pigs will meet their end on November 19th. (I hope Beth and Dennis save us some bacon...). Then I packed up the car, got the two yowling cats into their places. I was able to belt Willow's carrier into the front seat, and Mittens, who has a hard-sided carrier, got to ride on top of the boxes in the middle of the back seat. I really packed the car to capacity. I headed down to the packing shed, picked up my Bob-bacon and the bags of veggies I had packed for myself the night before, said goodbye to my Fisher Farm family, and headed toward I-95 at about 8:45 a.m.
Thus ends my summer in Maine...
... almost.
My car had been acting finicky for the last few weeks. She was reluctant to start, and the clock would spontaneously reset itself from time to time. And this morning, she really didn't want to start to go to the packing shed. She didn't really want to start to get on the road either, so I just decided I wouldn't shut her off at all until I got back to Binghamton.
A great idea, it would seem, until my clock started resetting itself while I was driving down the highway. I called Nate for advice, and he said I should get to an AutoZone ASAP to have the battery and alternator checked. Fortunately, there's one in Newport, and I was only about six miles out. I stopped, and thankfully, the alternator is just fine, but the battery is on strike. I installed it in August 2012, so I guess it had a good life. I had two batteries to choose from, and I asked the clerk if the more expensive one was really worth the extra money and asked him what he would tell me if I were his sister. He said it's worth it, so I went for it. He was kind enough to give me a discount, so it ended up costing the same as the cheaper one. See, this is why I love you, Maine. I didn't ask for special treatment; I was just nice, and he went out of his way to be nice in return. I'm going to miss all the Mainers until I come back.
Anyway, he and I got to talking about cars and such, and I told him about the 138,000 miles on mine, and he told me she's just a baby by Maine standards. Mainers run their cars to 250k or more, so mine's got a lot of life left in her.
After our half-hour pit stop, we were on our way. I had two yowlers this time, and they serenaded me all the way to New Hampshire. The timing worked out just right. With stops for gas, I made it back to New York, where Jason was waiting to help me unload and get settled in, by 6:00 p.m.
And now a new chapter begins; a chapter that leads me away from you, Maine, but that will ultimately lead me right back.
Don't worry, Maine; my heart is still yours.
Until we meet again...
