The photographer and stylist have been and gone, shooting for a solid week with Dixie in the kitchen of the blue house. A side effect of Dixie making a dozen dishes each day to be photographed for the cookbook: amazing leftover meals all week. It's not often one gets to sit down to a plate of shrimp and grits, with a heaping side of corned beef.
I took a weekend trip to a conference in New Orleans, speaking in a session on creative economic strategies for American towns and cities. Alexe's father and sister came for a visit. The roof is mostly on, waiting on a few extra pieces of trim. The cedar siding is showing up on Monday. The old kitchen has been demolished, and there's one wall left to add 2 sets of french doors to, a set of double windows, and then the sunroom will need paint and floor-refinishing, and voila, that'll be the last of the major work here. Everything else will be finish work.
The kids are great. Alexe is tired. We're gearing up for a fun, busy summer, with a 50s style beach vacation to a motel on the gulf coast, a longer trek to Vermont for family and Natalie and William's wedding, and then who knows what the fall will hold for us. I' hoping to wrap the house here in the next 6 weeks, and have some time to put up fencing before heading north.
I took the advice of a friend, and after 30 minutes of taping up plastic, I used the paint sprayer to spray the kitchen, and then upstairs bedroom, ceilings. No cramped hands, no hours of looking up, 30 minutes of prep, 30 minutes to spray, (15 minutes per coat,) and another 10 minutes to clean out the sprayer.
And they look nice.
Andres came over to take some photos with a cool old black and white camera.
He's landed a teaching position at Ole Miss, and is getting in some picture-taking before his schedule fills up. Talented guy: http://andresgonzalezphoto.com/miscellany/
I took a break from the house to expand the fields, and wandered into one of the best afternoons I've had here. Started with another brush burn, which is always gratifying.
Four hours later I picked the kids up, and we came back to carry on the brush clearing. The kids stripped down to the waist to match me, and for 3+ hours worked as a team, taking turns working the clippers while the other scouted out the next piece to cut, and ran the clipped piece to the fire.
With water and posing breaks.
And a longer interlude to watch the turtle Olive found in the woods and yipped at until I came to see what she was up to.
I love turtles.
The afternoon wrapped with the kids playing in a mud puddle.
Despite the gritty end, this was exactly why I wanted to have a farm. Hanging out with the family, (missing Alexe, but brush clearing is not her cup of tea,) and having the time to look up and take it all in.
What is Alexe's cup of tea: her garden. I haven;t had time to build her the proper garden she will get to putter away in over the coming years, but she's making do. Last Wed. we had a morning date while the kids were in school, just the two of us, for the first time in months, and we threw our boots and shovels in the back of the truck and went hunting.
For Gold.
My bride has taken on a lot of responsibilities in the past couple years, and grown to meet those challenges. When I'm around, she still manages to find her inner teenager.
Kitchen floor, patched where the carpet nail strips were hammered straight into the concrete, ground smooth around the brick and over the channel cut for electric and gas lines, and sanded with a floor sander, then sealed twice.
This town has been hopping, with excellent music, gallery openings, the Crappie festival coming up, another house concert coming to my office... Last night's set at the Fiddler's Loft (https://www.facebook.com/FiddlersLoft) was incredible, first set a pair of young ladies with the most playful, relaxed, and rich voices weaving in harmonies, (Buki and Immie, from Nigeria and England respectively), followed by a very talented modern classical composer finishing her PHD in Montreal, (http://www.reikoyamada.com/Reiko_Yamada,_composer/Biography.html) here with her boyfriend, who teaches at Ole Miss, is from french speaking Quebec, and just bought a house in Water Valley, and the last set, an amazing guitarist from New Orleans.(http://jimmyrobinsonmusic.com/Home.html) I had fun watching people who I know are very skilled guitarists in the audience watching and shaking their heads in wonder.
I was in New Orleans last weekend, and I never would have known to track this guy down. And yet, here in our little corner of the world, I can drive (literally) five minutes out in the country, climb upstairs in a loft filled with friends, and the most amazing talent is there to play to and for and with us. Please see the previous post here for further gushing about our little corner.
Mickey, at Bozart's opening last Friday night.
The next morning we hit the road for New Orleans. 4+ hours late, and a few miles before arriving, Mickey confessed he had waited to long to look for hotel rooms, so the first night we would be crashing at his brother's house.
I'm tempted to say don't ever get roped into traveling with Mickey.
However, if you're going to NOLA, where Mickey grew up, he's a decent tour guide. You just have to lean on him constantly to do simple things like stop talking and move on to the next thing, pick an open restaurant or make a reservation so you can eat before 10 pm, etc.
Looking out over Lake Pontchartrain. Julia, seamstress with a shop next to the BTC on the right, Christy, Main Street Director from North of Boston that we met and brought with us for lunch, which turned into a five hour sight seeing trek.
The graveyards, with above ground burial to avoid the embarrassing problem of the swamp pushing coffins back up when they're buried, are beautiful. The many angels, with the sun shining behind me, had me humming Doctor Who music as we strolled along.
"Closed forever."
I took five hours on Sunday night to walk the French Quarter alone. The French Quarter Festival was just wrapping up, and there were remnants of bands playing all over the place. My biggest expense on this trip was tipping these amazing people.
Breakfast in a cafe before heading home, I saw this on a bulletin board. Fun to be part of such a productive generation.
I came home and decided to wrap this house up so I can move on to other things. Three days on the roof, and it's 90% done. I managed to miscalculate my trim pieces, because I forgot about building crickets for each chimney. (We have three.) Metal roofing doesn't allow for traditional flashing around a chimney, so you have to build these:
Simple enough, but it used up a bunch of my valley metal. A few ore pieces will come in this week, and I can finish that up.
My little helpers, with me wherever I go. We grabbed the kiddie pool from the blue house, but that just isn't as fun and chilling with me on the roof.
Nothing being simple, the porch roof had to be squared off before the metal could go up on this side.
Rafters extended.
Three hours later, I could get back on the roof.
So the house project continues.
And the kids are still heart-achingly beautiful, especially when they're like this:
1 comment:
It's all good, Kagan--every single little morsel of it.
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