We got back from North Carolina last Sunday night, taking the weekend to drive home. I really wanted to spend a little time working on Mom's gardens while I was there. She isn't able to do it herself anymore, and between Mom and Dad, they have covered several acres with perennials, shrubs and blooming trees. The shrubs are getting overgrown, particularly the ones near the house, and John and Bob, the men who work around the farm to keep things going, are great guys, but it's apparent that shrub shaping isn't their strong suit! With all the family and friends events, I finally got about half an hour out there the morning before we were leaving, and I was feeling pretty good about it when it began to rain, and that was the end of that. I feel especially bad because Mom allowed a local garden group to come in and weed the gardens in exchange for taking "some" perennials. It seems they took every hosta except the few in pots and much of the liriope. Mom was really depressed, and it made me angry that people would take advantage that way. I suppose that sort of less appealing side of human nature is something we will have to think about in any future plans we make.
There was some exciting news, too. NC State is considering using our project in possibly two of their classes this spring. It still has to come up for a vote, but the idea passed the preliminary committee. That means we would have landscape architecture students putting their fertile (ahem--that's a landscape joke) young imaginations to work for the farm. I'm hoping it passes the final vote because I think we would get some wonderful ideas from the students, and it would be nice to have NC State, the alma mater of John and his sister Jackie, involved.
On Saturday evening, we stopped in Bristow, VA, which is not very far outside Washington, DC. We had four tickets to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in concert. It was their Freedom of Speech tour. The night was beautiful--about 70 degrees (F) and a near full moon. The outdoor arena was just about full of nearly 13,000 enthusiastic people and our seats were mighty good. It was a wonderful concert. And they ended with "Woodstock" in that lovely, haunting harmony--
We are stardust,
We are golden,
We are billion-year-old carbon,
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Back on the Farm: 10
I'm here on the porch--at the farm--listening to the cicadas and the occasional nicker of a horse. Things are winding down for the evening. My son and daughter are sitting at the kitchen table playing chess and John is outside giving the last shreds of a tour to Deborah. Yes, we managed to get together, had a lovely dinner, caught up on old times, and put our heads together a bit about the future of FarmFront. We've been talking to various family members about all this during the week. My niece and nephew, in particular, have a lot of enthusiasm and some great ideas. Sometimes, it seems as if this all just might happen.
John was reminiscing with his mother this morning--where else but in the kitchen--and they began to speculate about the ways the old roads used to run through the farm before the bottom land was flooded for the reservoir. There used to be four piles of stone that marked the corners of a large rectangle and a deep circular hole nearby. John used to go there as a child, and always thought that it was an old house and its well so he assumed that the road must have run that way. But Mom said no. That was an old slave house. I guess there's no reason to think there was a road there at all, since I don't imagine there was much of an interest in putting roads to slave houses in the bad old days. I've always known that there was a slave graveyard somewhere on the farm, but the idea of the house makes it all more real. Mom says this house was the overseer's house and that the plantation owner lived in town, in Raleigh. It's hard to truly imagine it all.
Tomorrow is our last day here before we head home to Connecticut. Of ocurse, we didn't do anywhere near as much as we would have liked as far as making progress on the FarmFront project. But there is the reality of being here and seeing (and hearing and smelling) it all again, and that's important too. From the youngest family member--one-year old Elahna--to the oldest--Dad, who will be 87 in September--we got to see just about everyone who still lives nearby. And if all goes well, future generations will be able to reconnect here for many years into the future.
John was reminiscing with his mother this morning--where else but in the kitchen--and they began to speculate about the ways the old roads used to run through the farm before the bottom land was flooded for the reservoir. There used to be four piles of stone that marked the corners of a large rectangle and a deep circular hole nearby. John used to go there as a child, and always thought that it was an old house and its well so he assumed that the road must have run that way. But Mom said no. That was an old slave house. I guess there's no reason to think there was a road there at all, since I don't imagine there was much of an interest in putting roads to slave houses in the bad old days. I've always known that there was a slave graveyard somewhere on the farm, but the idea of the house makes it all more real. Mom says this house was the overseer's house and that the plantation owner lived in town, in Raleigh. It's hard to truly imagine it all.
Tomorrow is our last day here before we head home to Connecticut. Of ocurse, we didn't do anywhere near as much as we would have liked as far as making progress on the FarmFront project. But there is the reality of being here and seeing (and hearing and smelling) it all again, and that's important too. From the youngest family member--one-year old Elahna--to the oldest--Dad, who will be 87 in September--we got to see just about everyone who still lives nearby. And if all goes well, future generations will be able to reconnect here for many years into the future.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Old Friends: 9
A lot has been going on here this week, what with my daughter arriving home from Maine and leaving the next day for a short stay with her friend on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And the whole family is getting ready to leave for a week plus on the farm. In fact, we'll be picking Natalie up somewhere along the way as we drive down to North Carolina from Connecticut, and the family she's with drives up from NC to CT.
Last week, John got a surprise email from an old friend, Deborah. She and John go way back to those crazy-friendship days you have in your early 20s. You know, the kinds of friendships you make in college and graduate school when anything is possible, and everything is new--and usually hilarious. It's all about sharing horrible dinners you cook yourself in some pan you found in the neighbor's trash, helping each other build bookshelves out of cinderblocks and old boards, and, well, other things that I just won't get into right now. But John and Deborah were friends in the city when John was at NYU and I've heard a lot about this group of pals over the years. I even met Deborah once a long time ago. John and Deborah have stayed in touch on the once-every-few-years level, and this email was just a hey-how-ya-doin' kind of thing.
John decided to answer with the news about FarmFront, and to his great surprise, got a most enthusiastic reply from Deborah. It seems that she's interested in sustainable living too, and even owns some land about an hour away from the farm, so now they're talking. She knows about straw bale houses, log end houses, and solar houses (hmmm--there's a bit of a Three Little Pigs thing going on there, if you think about it) and seems to spend a lot of her time growing things. We're hoping to get to see her while we're in North Carolina. By the way, she mentioned a story about an "attack goose" on the farm that is going to require some looking into.
I'm a huge Paul Simon fan, and always liked the Simon and Garfunkel song, Old Friends. At 16, I was completely overwhelmed by the touching image of two really, really old ("...how terribly strange to be 70...") people, sitting next to each other on that park bench, useless "bookends" living on borrowed time. Seventy! Hey, seventy is the new 40. So now I see it a little differently. Maybe 70 will be a time we spend in our state-of-the-art, sustainable house, keeping in shape with a little work outdoors, and book-ended by lots of people just like us--and who knows? Maybe even by some old friends.
Last week, John got a surprise email from an old friend, Deborah. She and John go way back to those crazy-friendship days you have in your early 20s. You know, the kinds of friendships you make in college and graduate school when anything is possible, and everything is new--and usually hilarious. It's all about sharing horrible dinners you cook yourself in some pan you found in the neighbor's trash, helping each other build bookshelves out of cinderblocks and old boards, and, well, other things that I just won't get into right now. But John and Deborah were friends in the city when John was at NYU and I've heard a lot about this group of pals over the years. I even met Deborah once a long time ago. John and Deborah have stayed in touch on the once-every-few-years level, and this email was just a hey-how-ya-doin' kind of thing.
John decided to answer with the news about FarmFront, and to his great surprise, got a most enthusiastic reply from Deborah. It seems that she's interested in sustainable living too, and even owns some land about an hour away from the farm, so now they're talking. She knows about straw bale houses, log end houses, and solar houses (hmmm--there's a bit of a Three Little Pigs thing going on there, if you think about it) and seems to spend a lot of her time growing things. We're hoping to get to see her while we're in North Carolina. By the way, she mentioned a story about an "attack goose" on the farm that is going to require some looking into.
I'm a huge Paul Simon fan, and always liked the Simon and Garfunkel song, Old Friends. At 16, I was completely overwhelmed by the touching image of two really, really old ("...how terribly strange to be 70...") people, sitting next to each other on that park bench, useless "bookends" living on borrowed time. Seventy! Hey, seventy is the new 40. So now I see it a little differently. Maybe 70 will be a time we spend in our state-of-the-art, sustainable house, keeping in shape with a little work outdoors, and book-ended by lots of people just like us--and who knows? Maybe even by some old friends.
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