November 28: Thanksgiving

Something metallic woke me with a start.

“Oh,” Phil mumbled. “Maybe that was the mousetrap. We found a mouse inside last night.”

All hopes for sleep vanished in that moment. All day yesterday, extracting utensils from mouse droppings and washing them, pouring slightly nibbled packages into glass jars … all day, all I could think was, “This is all going to a mouse-free environment!”

But, no. This is the country. Apparently there is no such thing as a mouse-free environment. Mouse on the lam, and no evidence to find him. (And we can only hope it's a male, and not a pregnant female. Don't think about it!)

Although it didn’t quite drive me to tears for the third time in three days, it brought me very, very close.

Life. It’s imperfect. Get over it.

(And I found out later that Phil had stayed up until 2am, cleaning up the various boxes and other debris, hoping to rid the house of mouse. All for naught.)

On this Thanksgiving Day I made six loaves of bread. Four loaves of spelt, and two of pumpkin. My in-laws found a large KitchenAid mixer at an estate sale. Much as I have loved my KitchenAid, it is the small version, capable of two loaves of bread at a time. Phil isn’t convinced two loaves is enough for a day: “I sometimes go looking for bread at night and there isn’t any.”

I’ve been looking at baking three loaves of bread each day, and the larger mixer can help me do that. They all turned out beautifully. What a great joy, to prepare food in a climate-controlled space, and bake four loaves at once in a real, sealable oven.

And then leave the door propped open to let the smell of bread baking waft through the air, spreading both warmth and tantalizing taste buds.

I have been concerned about the temperature. It dropped to about 22 degrees outside, and with only a single radiator-style space heater, it was pretty cold in the night.

Then we pulled down a second heater. Both run at full heat, 24-hours a day. Combined with the exhalations of seven people, and the solar gain on the days the sun shines, we are plenty warm, even when the night temperatures drop to 22 and the wind blows. It’s pretty amazing!

Phil cleared off the recliner chair. “I’m in heaven.”

A bit later he carried down and reassembled our kitchen table, too. We don’t have enough chairs, but a few people can sit there. Very nice! Shockingly nice, really, to have a place to sit down, a spacious place, to eat.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. Phil dressed in clothes no one has seen him in, but he used to wear regularly: collared shirt, sweater vest. That used to be normal.

We arrived home shortly before midnight.

November 27: Crawlspace Waterbed

In the morning, the rain had stopped. The water in the utility closet had slowed to a very slow drip. Everything seems better in the morning.

Lately we’ve read and talked through some of Proverbs. Solomon uses words that may need explanation ("Froward" means "perverse," for example), and so we talk through maybe half a chapter, verse by verse. The startling bit today was that Wisdom calls in the street, but if you refuse to listen, she says that she will laugh at the day of calamity. That’s such an “I told you so!” response as to be shocking, unchristian. And yet … she offered to make fools wise, and they refused. So is that shocking? Or just a natural, right response, unkind though it may seem?

After he played some card games with the boys, Phil worked on storage cabinets for most of the rest of the day: doors, shelves, handles. The temperature is supposed to plummet tonight (“feels like 10” the forecast promised). I gathered together my kitchen goods from the white barn and RV; I cleaned various appliances and foodstuffs. Rather than five gallon buckets of popcorn and spelt and oats in the barn, I now have half gallon glass canning jars filled and on my shelves. If I want to mill some spelt, I open the jar and pour it in. So easy! So clean! I don't have to wipe snails off the spelt buckets (that is, until I need to refill the glass jars). And they look so nice, too.

Caleb probably didn’t need to eat more than usual, but I have a lot of kitchen goods and it felt like I was interrupted regularly. By end of day, I had not nearly finished putting the food and equipment where it should all be.

At one point, though, Phil headed down to work in the crawl space. And the rain yesterday had pooled at the corner of the house, where the grading is not quite finished because Phil had so much to do, he moved on to something else, something urgent at that moment. Phil said that he was walking on the plastic and about midway across the crawlspace, it suddenly felt like a waterbed.

Phil is so, so close to being done in the crawlspace, but will he get to work down there even yet this week? Hard to say.

As long as the end was not in sight, I could deal with most setbacks with equanimity. But the idea of even a few days’ delay brought me, yet again, to tears.

On further reflection, though, I can manage a few days’ delay. I can manage even for weeks. We will survive. We always have.

November 26: A Rainfall Disaster

We woke to a slow drizzle. No big deal.

It wasn't until late afternoon that the horrible part of the day began.

To set the stage: the rain had been picking up all day. It was now falling quite steadily.

In the morning I had gone up to work in a space where I have consistent internet. It was unheated and cold inside; so cold that an unopened bottle of sparkling water had partially frozen. I found it hard to get warm after being chilled to the bone, so I spent a few hours afterwards huddled over a space heater.

When I wasn't quite as chilled, and the water was somewhat thawed in the RV (hooray!), I did dishes for an hour. Nice hot water, but my feet were icy by the time I was done. To warm up, I huddled under down comforters and fed the baby. I drank hot tea, but it didn’t warm me up all the way. I dozed off. When I woke up, I figured I should go start the steaks for dinner.

Before I left, I looked at some pictures the boys had drawn. And I heard a very odd noise, like gushing water.

In the utility room, I found the culprit: the pipe that Phil had carefully dug and placed yesterday, but not backfilled entirely lest he be unable to actually hook it up at the right time, was gushing orange, muddy water into the utility room. On the other side of the wall, the rain-drenched land had absorbed all it could, and now was sheeting down into the lowest point, the not-backfilled hole, now filled with water and seeking a lower place: our utility room.

I called for Phil and quickly found a bucket. Incredibly, the bulk of this terrific run-off had poured directly into a 6” square cardboard box. Once the bucket was in place, I poured the box out into the bucket. The box had held at least a quart, and I caught it before it disintegrated. Small mercy. A quart of muddy water is quite a bit.

Phil was home, recently returned from an errand. He turned the pipe up and the water stopped flowing. Small mercy.

With a damp floor and assorted plumbing and electrical bits littering the space, I left to go cook steaks.

This attempt was an utter failure. Not only was I wet and cold, but the steaks refused to cut no matter what knife I used. They were practically raw, despite following Phil’s instructions (perfectly suited for a different cut of steak). And I am predisposed to hate steaks because trying to get rid of the silverskin or gristle takes so much time: I think, for the most part, I’d rather eat some ground beef and call it good.

As I was trying the fifth knife, Phil came in to check on me. I was at the stage of the downward spiral where nothing seems like it will go right again: ruined steaks, more steaks in the freezer and those will (of necessity) also be ruined, cold, rainy, I was the one who suggested we dig the trench that poured out muddy water, grumpy boys, no internet....

Phil took the steaks to try to figure out what to do with them. If I was ready to toss them to the dogs, they could hardly get worse. I would carry the bread and toppings. He offered to wait for me, but I have a little pride issue about my ability to walk around the farm in the dark (never had any issues before), so I told him to go along.

In this case, "pride goes before a fall"—literally. I was carrying a cutting board and a heavy paper bag of groceries. The terrain was uneven and settling because the newly dug trench bisects the path I took. I stepped, and my foot sank. I stepped again and found myself down, fallen on elbow and muddy to waist.

Now sobbing loudly, I gathered most of the groceries into the torn, damp paper bag. A loaf of bread dropped out as I made my way to the boys, squelching on a mud clod in my shoe at every step.

I had finally bought a new farm jacket some weeks back, after the down NorthFace jacket I had loved since age 19 finally completely wore out last year (not only was it filthy, not only was it torn in multiple places from bits of wire on fences, not only was the down torn out around both sleeves, but the zipper was broken so that both sides stuck together in one place, requiring me to step into the jacket if I wanted even a bit of warmth).

My new farm jacket is rated to 10 degrees. It is navy blue firehose canvas, comes down over m hips, and is warm and beautiful.

And now it was ruined, at least for trips to town. Orange patch on elbow, orange on hem. (Truly, the amount of orange was less than I expected, considering how far I fell.)

I rescued the bread: only a small part of the bottom was muddy: how it landed on the ground did little damage.

But I should have been thankful. I was wearing nice jeans, but had just put on quilted overpants to keep more warm. Those were muddy, but not the jeans. And those quilted overpants are made to be muddy.

I found out later that I had stepped right into one end of the trench; basically, I stepped into a hole. I didn’t have to fall far to hit my elbow. No wonder I felt like I was lolling on the ground. I sort of was, except the ground was two feet down at that spot.

Instead, I was in tears and full of complaints. Why must everything be so hard? I emailed my sister and mother that I felt like a character in a Hemingway book.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Amy: To get to the dropped bread. In the rain. Left in the wake of a ruined new jacket.

While I was bemoaning my lot via email, Phil was being an adult. He cooked the steaks under the broiler which magically made them both edible and cuttable. He mopped up the utility closet and dealt with the leak that was developing. He put the cheese and meat and other assorted groceries away. He cut off the bread bits that were muddy.

When I was done venting, I ate some steak (pre-cut, mind you) and felt human again.

But the leak in the utility closet then intensified. And that was the battle we fought all evening and through the night. The water dripped and streamed a bit from chin-height. We had to somehow keep it from completely ruining the floor, the back of drywall, the framing, the paint. I used one method, and it started to flow into the crawlspace, which is now covered with black plastic (meaning, the muddy water would not just sink down through the gravel and away).

Phil went out to fill the hole back in as best he could. He stepped down and almost lost a boot, but had the good sense to keep foot in boot and dig his foot out. He covered the exterior pipe with a bucket, and it helped. A little.

He tried this a second time, later, but was then out of ideas and options. I mopped up every half hour, and then covered the back of the drywall with plastic wrap. That at least stopped the spatters from real damage.

But the better idea was to put a towel over the leak, and stick a pipe on the bottom of a towel, to direct the water right into the bucket.

We dumped the water, always two or three gallons worth, at 10:30pm, 12:30am, 1:15am, 2am, 5am. It was not a fun night.

I was grieving over my bad idea. Phil was grieving because “I knew in my gut it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t figure out why in my mind, and so I did it anyway.” I was sad for being so anxious to be done that I put pressure on; Phil was sad for giving in so readily.

It felt like we were Adam and Eve. “’Just dig the trench,’ said she, to her husband, who was with her.”

November 24 and 25

On Sunday, after church and community group, Jonelle and I looked through homeopathy books, comparing what we’ve used the last year with the course we’re looking to transfer into. We are excited about the books we’ll be using: much superior to what we’ve been using.

On Monday, I had a day in the car: up to Charlottesville to drop off Jonelle and home again. Up to Charlottesville to take three boys for evaluations by the holistic dentist and home again.

Jonelle was blessed with travel mercies: she caught a standby flight for the second leg of the trip and made it home hours earlier than she would have.

I had a mercy at the dentist. Although the appointment was scheduled for Jadon, Abraham, and Joe (all cavity-free, thankfully), I asked about Caleb’s difficulty latching on. It turns out he is pretty severely tongue-tied and has a very high dental palate. A frenectomy (to cut the frenum and free his tongue) can be done without anaesthetic up to six months: that might allow him to avoid later dental issues, and it will certainly help with his latch.

I’ve scheduled it for ten days from now.

We returned home to find that Phil had had a profitable four hours. He had dug a trench and laid a water line, and backfilled the trench.

Our water to the RV froze last night. We have done no dishes. We have steaks thawed, but no plates to eat them on, no forks to eat them with, no knives to cut them into bits. So we had popcorn for dinner. And some bread.

When we have no water, life feels much harder than normal.

Phil told me later that he had had an issue with water, too. I had done a good job during his illness making sure the water line was unhooked from the spigot to the cows. But the line curled in a few places, and the water in those places froze. To water the cows, he had to go out with a blowtorch and melt the water, but not the plastic. I suspect it took quite a long time.

November 23: Visiting Provision

Phil’s chemical prostration continued through today, at least as bad as yesterday. How frustrating for him and us!

Jonelle and I had a productive day, though. We had gone to bed waiting on the paint to dry. The second stage of the Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint process is to put on a wax that will bind to the paint and make it durable (or something like that). Another thing the salespeople didn't mention is that the paint is almost smell-free, but the wax is quite toxic-smelling. Blah.

Bt Jonelle waxed the dresser first thing. Then put on the new handles. It looks fabulous, and makes me smile every time I look at it.

I also have a garage sale bookcase that has been useful, though ugly.

Because we had to mix two colors, Jonelle used the straight navy to paint the bookcase. It was tough to paint in the creases, but after two coats of paint and the wax, it looks entirely different. I love it now!

I enjoyed putting all Phil’s work clothes away. I almost cried to Jonelle that Phil had so few clothes that were fit to be seen in public. She said, “But he’s a farmer. He can wear work clothes that get worn out.” This was a good thought, a continuation of the conversation we had begun earlier in the week. I can think of myself as a person who lives in the country. I can wear clothes I like and change into work clothes if I head out to garden or help Phil. But I don’t have to live in work clothes that are the wrong color or make me feel ugly. I’ll keep a few less-than-stellar things for my work times, but can choose to dress nicely the rest of the time. (Also, I then found bags of professional clothes that Phil had worn when he worked in an office, so he actually has tons of clothes fit to be seen in public; they just haven't seen the light of day in a few years.)

I was surprised by how the boys eagerly came to try on clothes. Abraham was happy to find three hoodies that fit, and Joe came and wanted to find hoodies, too. I don’t think I was happy to try on clothes when I was their age.

The most amazing moment of the day was when we headed up to move the wardrobe. If we could move the wardrobe, we could finish putting the boys’ clothes away. Jonelle and I scooted the wardrobe over to the door, then tipped it carefully out. “It doesn’t weigh that much!” she said hopefully, to which I replied, “It’s all relative.” But when we actually pulled it out of the door, it was much heavier than we expected.

Just as we were standing, confounded and unsure of what to do next, we heard a yell: “Lykoshes!”

Doug and Denise Bush “happened” to stop by at that precise second. Doug came running when he saw us, and took over the wardrobe moving process, until it was in place. Phew! I think Jonelle and I might have died if we had tried to do that on our own. Such a gracious provision of the Lord, when Phil was completely unable to help.

Jonelle vacuumed the construction debris, thought about nice groupings of wall decorations, and spent an hour or so with me going through a mass of accumulated life-debris (what my mother would call "rummel," which, I have heard, means "sand" in Arabic). I held the sleeping baby and she put things in boxes or give away bag or with like items until the mass appeared more manageable.

After I had managed all day on about four hours of sleep, we went to bed early.

November 22: An Amazing Amount of Errands

Jonelle and I had a seriously burly day. We got ready as fast as we could to leave, and left the farm at 10:30 with the two littlest children, a girl almost 2 and Caleb, almost 6 weeks.

In Charlottesville, I withdrew cash at the bank.

We went to Lowe’s and had a fabulous time buying about 15 assorted things. Normally I wouldn't think of a stop at a big box store as the highlight of a day, but because we had the littles, everyone—not just the women but male employees and scruffy men—gave us big smiles and tried to see the baby’s face. Caleb nursed while I sat on the floor and Jonelle and two employees picked out tiles and the setting mortar and grout and tools. The first person to help us was a young lady, and she was soon joined by a young man.

When I asked the young lady where to find a particular part, she said, “I’m a girl. I don’t know what that stuff is called. We’ll ask him.” And he first showed us a photo of his 6-week-old on his phone, and then answered our questions for every other item. Aisle 12, aisle 16, aisle 17, aisle 24. It was brilliant. We knew, then, exactly where to go.

Jonelle and I had talked earlier about Virginians, and how I thought the people were a friendly bunch. “Yes, people here are friendlier,” Jonelle said.

The particular part I needed was a nut and bolt. Quickly stymied in finding the identical part, we asked for help from a cheerful man with an accent: “We are females and are clueless. We need help!” He gave us a little tutorial on how to locate the proper bolts (match them into the guides on the wall, count the number of threads) and how to buy them (put them in a bag and mark the quantity and part number). We also needed a piece to hold up the shelves in the armoire, and he helped us again. He was still holding the final brass shelf-holder and I laughed and said, “Yes, you probably don’t want to keep that as a reminder of our time here,” and he laughed and said, “Oh, I don’t need that to remember you.”

He was wearing a ring, and we had our babies with us, so was that outrageous flirting, or just good cheer? In any case, we left the store almost giddy with good experiences.

On to Whole Foods, where we again had happy interactions with clerks.

Then we located Michael’s in the local shopping center. I had found some art and wanted to frame it. Jonelle went in first and I stayed in the car to feed the baby and eat a sandwich.

Picking frames and mats is not easy, so it was really helpful to have her there. And then the pieces were all 25% off! We left feeling really good about our experience.

So then we hit the walking mall to get Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint at a new store in town. After paying $2.75 to park, we had an hour.

This was the first sour note to the day. Chalk Paint is not the same as chalkboard paint (which is cool in its own way). Chalk Paint is a thick paint that does not require sanding before painting, nor between coats. I had really set my heart on a particular blue, and they had pulled the last can from the shelves just 20 minutes before. (Why they mentioned this—I don’t know. It didn’t help, but instead made me frustrated that we hadn't come earlier.) A nice red was my back-up color. That was out of stock. Grey was a distant third. That was out of stock. So was the burgundy.

We briefly considered driving to the next store, but it would have been several more hours in the car and, actually, they were out of the blue also.

Thanks be to God, Jonelle has an art background. She suggested combining two colors, a bright green and a solid navy, and those two, fingerpainted together, made an approximation of the color we wished for.

After buying the needed wax and a medium brush, we were out of there; a bit deflated, but pleased that we had the chance to move forward.

Eliana was getting ragged and Caleb was getting fussy, but we quickly stopped at the high-end lingerie shop. Jonelle was again a huge help, and getting the properly sized undergarments completely reshaped my body.

Hurry, then, to the car to avoid a ticket or towing. Caleb was fussy, but we didn’t want to pay $2.75 so I could sit there and feed him. I was going to stop at a local elementary school, done for the day, to feed him, but he was sleeping, so we drove on to the post office. He slept through that, and new homeopathic books had arrived.

Home again by 4pm, we found Phil, completely prostrated from chemical exposure the day before. It took quite some time for Jonelle and me to unload all the purchases, and Caleb slept through it all.

At 6:30, we received delivery of a beautiful dresser. One of the knobs had fallen off, but the owner found it and will mail it to me.

The weather was a magnificent, balmy 62, so we moved bags of clothes.

Then, after the children went to bed (slumber party again!), I worked on framing (most of the frames gave us fits: they would not work unless there were no mats, and even then … super tight. Some pictures I just used cardboard as a backing and taped it up.

The pieces I finished, though, were magnificent. I am so pleased!

Jonelle sanded the dresser down for a time, and then began to paint.

The Chalk Paint had been built up too much for us, so we were quite underwhelmed, verging on disgusted. If all that was promised was that we wouldn't have to sand, that would have been great news. But none of the other assurances came to pass.

Yes, the paint is thick and the brush chunky. Jonelle had a good time with it, at least for the first hour. The heavy brush did tire her out, after that. (I am not a painter. I tried a few brush strokes, but Caleb was fussy, so I didn’t do much. I would probably not do it again.)

But the “one, maybe two coats” reassurance did not prove to be our experience. Neither did the “ten minutes and dry” promise (we finally went to bed about two hours after the third coat, still waiting). We did get a fairly good amount of coverage, but the dresser took more than the cup of paint that the store suggested we might need.

Plus, because we hadn't had the cans premixed, we needed to get not only the color we desired but also the right quantity, because if we didn't mix the entire amount, we could never match it perfectly to do a bit more for touch up. Our first color was a bit too green (see foreground drawers), but the second coat was exactly the blue we were after (see background dresser).

Plus, we had received so many reassurances about how we don’t need to sand or prep, that when the paint dramatically threw into relief just how not flat the sanding job had been—it was a bit of a bummer all around.

But we ended the day well. Jonelle searched through the newly arrived homeopathic repertory and we talked through remedies for Caleb. He continues to be just uncomfortable, choking in the night, aspirating some of the reflux, wheezing, fussing, sometimes reaching full-blown panic. He is very sweet and not intentionally cranky. He just doesn’t feel good.

Jonelle suggested Calc carb, and after we discussed, I dosed him. Almost immediately he fell more deeply asleep. He did have a bit of a choke about an hour later, so I dosed again.

So the day was a mad rush, but good!

November 21: An Ugly Dresser

On Thursday morning, I continued to deal with the things from my wardrobe while Jonelle started to replace the veneer on the dresser that Phil loves and I loathe.

Our friend Susan gave it to Phil before we were married. It’s about 100 years old, and does have beautifully dove-tailed drawers and wooden runners. But the veneer is peeling off much of the top and part of every drawer.

And the top drawer, randomly, has a bit of black inlay that isn't on any other drawer. Why?

We checked online and found directions to refresh it: cut the veneer so it is missing in squares and rectangles instead of flaky bits. Use wood veneer tape, an iron-on adhesive, to fill in the missing spots. After the veneer tape is stuck down, smear on wood filler to make it all even. Then sand.

Jonelle chipped away for many hours. I would never have had the patience. Then we used veneer tape, purchased at the local hardware store, to fill in the spots. I will say, that was pretty awesome, to see how easily it sticks down.

We spent the evening going through the middle three boys’ clothes: sorting, folding, in some cases tossing. We talked about homeopathy, which was quite fun.