8. One Monthiversary!

We’ve been here for one month.

In that month, we have started (but not completed) many projects around the house. The first night we were here, we tore up all of the carpet. Then came the renewing of the floors, and my love affair with tung oil.

Once the floors were looking like their beautiful selves, we started on the walls: stripping borders and wallpaper, patching holes, tearing down bead board (to reveal a lovely hole in the ceiling to the attic), and ripping out the plaster around a sagging beam to diagnosis the possible problem: it needs replaced (like pretty much everything else).

While plugging away on the big issues (replacing floor joists and supports, patching holes, replacing broken appliances, trying to get the damned cat pee smell out of the house, killing mice by the handful—current count at 11), we’re also sprucing and updating things that don’t cost a bundle: painting all the rooms, replacing quarter-round, cleaningcleaningcleaning, resurfacing the kitchen cabinets, taking the previous owner’s crap to the dump one truckload at a time, and oh yeah, starting the farm. I’ve laid out and planted 80 beds at this point, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, flowers, and all of the cold-hardy produce you can shake a stick at.

Whew!

Meanwhile, in the one month we’ve been here, I’ve fallen in love with the land, the so-much-quiet, and the pace that centers and slows me. Each morning I wake to the sunrise, the call of red-winged blackbirds, killdeer, and starlings. It’s strange to access the news because the world came to a halt just as we moved out here, but it all feels like this is what we’ve always been doing; nothing about this major transition feels unfamiliar or anxiety-producing (as long as I stay news-free), and it feels really, really good.