And then…. LIFE.
Dear Family and Friends,
Last week I started writing on Sunday fully intending to post brilliance on Monday. Then—life happened. I got sick. One of those headaches that just make you sick inside and wish you could curl up and die—or at least sleep until the next week.
So instead of writing and posting an exciting blog report, I was huddled on the sofa, a ball of absolute misery, with the blanket literally pulled over my head to block out all forms of life and light. Exciting, I must say!
Rest and Rejuvenation
I then was a good girl and voluntarily went 3 days “technology-free” to rest my eyes and regenerate my body. Tuesday reminded me of why we bought this little house in the alps.
I was on sick leave, so I carefully placed myself on our terrace overlooking the mountains (more on that in a bit). There I sat, wrapped in a blanket at first with a cup of hot tea and an audiobook set on volume 2 (mice and I can hear it—men cannot). Leo, the cat who has officially adopted us, came over for loving. And there I sat, watching the nuthatches and finches playing in the hedge around our house, admiring the view and enjoying the peace.
By 4 pm I had an awful feeling. Waves of guilt washed over me. People pay a lot of money to go on vacation to do what I was doing right then. And I was on paid sick-leave in my own personal retreat! Life is so rough sometimes.
We are still working out the finer points of the house, not one single room is truly finished. And yet, this is my retreat and my sanctuary.
Visits from a Stranger – or – Clearing Things Up
Thomas’ son came to visit the weekend before I got sick. We haven’t seen him since our move in July, so we were very happy to have him come for a couple of days. It did, however, make us really feel our lack of a second bedroom. We have 3 finished bathrooms but only one room anyone can sleep in comfortably.
Thomas’ son took the bedroom and we moved into the living room. Like any properly growing 18-year-old, he has his own rhythm and we knew that there was a chance he would sleep until noon. He was up by 11.
When I told him we had missed him these past months, he looked down at me and said in his most grown-up way: “But this is how it is supposed to be. We kids grow up and get a life of our own. But we still come to visit.” I do think he will come more often when he knows he has a place to stay that is not our bedroom. Just another reason to push ahead and get things cleared.
There is a distinct advantage to having a strong and active 18-year-old at your house. It reminds you of just how old you REALLY are. Usually I think of myself as quite young and energetic. Yeah. I’m truly not, no matter what my friends and loved ones tell me.
I was fighting the good fight with our inner hedge—and was quite proud of myself. I was not going fast, but I was enjoying the process and dreaming about the gardens we will someday have. I was also mulling around some ideas Thomas had thrown out concerning modeling the yard and spent time measuring and factoring while wielding the loppers like a (semi-)pro.
When the boys showed up, they assessed the situation (I was drinking ice tea during a short break) and decided I needed all the help I could get. The son picked up those loppers and attacked the green monsters with a vengeance. A 3×2 meter swath of head-high bushes was cleared out in minutes and I was left to cut down the rods to manageable sizes and stack them to be recycled. Then came a tiny dead Christmas tree hiding under the hedge, a bunch of stinging nettles (just for the adventure, I’m sure) and a larch growing out of the terrace and under an overgrown thornless blackberry (I want to try and keep).
An hour later, we could finally see our apple tree from the terrace. Oh, the JOY! We could also assess the grounds we have to work with and could open the cistern to see in what kind of shape it is. Now THAT is progress!
The next day, we took down the 2 ½ meter high azalea growing too close to the house. For the first time, we could walk through the front of our yard without ducking or pushing branches away. That evening, Thomas was lying on the sofa when I heard him say with amazement, “I can see the sky out of the window.”
And he was right. For the first time we could look out of our window and see blue skies. It was a beautiful sight.
Knock on Wood
The time has come. I got to knock on wood for the first time — for real. Now, I don’t know if this is where the saying comes from, but if you don’t want something bad to happen and your wall to topple, you had better take the time to “knock on wood”. I have learned that when you stack wood along a wall, it will settle over time and this can cause the logs to “push out” of the stack. This makes the stack uneven and can lead to it toppling over if it is left alone. There are several solutions to this. One is to have larger logs. Longer logs can handle shifting without falling out of balance. Another is to brace the pile with a piece of wood nailed across the front. We chose to knock it back in place.
Thomas showed me how to do it, but it really is easy. You take something straight and hold it up against the log wall. Where it bulges out, you just take a piece of wood and “knock it into place”. It really is that easy. As our wall is 4 meters long and 1.5 meters high, I could eventually eye-ball it down the line, knocking back the wood into a proper straight line. It took about 20 minutes and now we have a wall of wood to make anyone jealous.
Birds of a Feather
One of our favorite past-times has become watching the birds playing in our yard. Now that we can finally see into our yard, we can see the activity that surrounds us daily. Blackbirds, sparrows, nuthatches, robins and crows are some of our daily visitors. We also have a woodpecker, magpies and a few birds we cannot identify as yet.
In the fields we often see hawks and every once in a while a falcon will show up. At night we were listening to odd sounds unable to identify them until the neighbor told us they were screech owls. Of all the bird we have seen, what most surprised us has been seeing (and hearing) the golden eagles overhead. It seems that they will fly over here from the mountain top where they nest. Usually they are so high you cannot appreciate them, but every once in a while they fly so low, they just take your breath away.
Ps: I have also determined I am a really bad nature photographer.
Time to get the camera out and practice, practice, practice.
