After four+ years of living with goats, I truly believe they have Monday morning meetings, complete with note pads coffee, and doughnuts. "Stella, you take down the north side of Pasture A, I'll handle the south side. This should keep the Tailless One busy mending that area of fence, and with the distraction, we can get into the pump house rose pavilion."
But all messes in one's day have a golden lining. Because I had to mend the fences, I also was had a visit to a spot of the property I have loved from the first moment I stood on it. And because it is also part of the Joe Pye field, it is not an area I get to frequent. Joe and I have an understanding - "You stay over there, I'll stay over here. You come in here, I take my head which is thick bone mass and hit your thighs."
Our land used to be 100 acre dairy, mostly on rolling hills that bordered up top to the forest lands and down below to the river. Within time, the farm was cut up and our spot is the original home site and barns. Fortunately, the house was well sited, sitting in a spot where we don't get too much distraction from nearby properties. And the property goes about 10 acres up the hill, so the higher one walks, the more vista one sees. When the fog rolls in, and I stand looking down over the 100+ year old barn, I can't help feel transported back to another time.
There's a certain pull of this spot of the land, and a certain welcoming. Perhaps it is the century old oak that stands there, some of its limbs newly mangled by a wind storm. Those limbs now keep our house warm, and perhaps it recognizes the partnership we have together. I stood up there for awhile, enjoying the view and the silence of the fog, the rose hips scattered behind me. I thought about how I had come here, an unknown to the state, the county, the people, but this one section of land just welcomed me that first day we looked at the property. I like to think it was a personal greeting specifically to me. All the houses I'd lived in and fixed up and nested in over my 30's and 40's, there was still a horizon out there that seemed a bit more enticing. There was always a sense in me the house I was in wasn't quite 'it'.
This small piece of our property always rekindles the small embers in my heart, reminding me in a very physical way, I am standing on 'it'.
