Home Chores: Mom vs. Dad

Great color for the pump house, not so much my hair.

The house painter is here as I write, patching, caulking and priming the exterior of our house to get it ready for painting, which will hopefully happen next week. Tuesday I went to the stylist to get my hair cut and as she was washing my hair, she asked, "so...doing some painting?" Apparently there were a couple of different shades of paint I'd somehow gotten into my hair while I was painting walls and a couple of outbuildings around here, before the painter showed up for the Big Job. 

I'm of the opinion that when you start to wear your work it's probably time for a break. 

I used to have some neighbors who had a very clear division of labor in their home: mom took care of everything inside -- cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc -- and dad took care of everything outside, like yardwork. Since mom had no interest in gardening, their roles were enjoyed by both and their house was run well. What was funny was that I was a single mom at the time I lived next door to them, and so I started to realize that around my place, I was both mom and dad. I still am to some extent.

That's because Big Ag works off property in a high-powered job in the agriculture sector, which leaves me pretty much in charge of the homestead. The things I can't do, he gets memos on, in the form of "to do" lists. Anything that requires significant upper body strength I leave to him. So he stretches fence, digs holes, and builds outbuildings in his spare time, which believe it or not, he loves doing, since most of his day job uses brain, not muscle power.  

I do all the typical housewifery-type stuff, but also work in the garden, manage the general landscaping, do the painting (wherever possible) and decor, and manage our finances.

I'll never hire someone to pick our pumpkins. Too much fun.

It works, but honestly after a day of being on a ladder painting or moving 10 yards of pea gravel, the last thing in the world I want to do is come inside, clean house and cook. And so on the days when I'm the Estate Manager and Chief Handyman (dad), those mom things suffer. I've joked before that all I really need to do is hire a professional housewife from 9 - 5 to manage all that inside stuff when I've got a lot of manual labor to do outside. But with the painters here, I've actually had time to clean the house really well, can some tomatoes, AND have some good food prepared by the end of the day.  

When I worked at the winery, I had a housekeeper, so many of my "mom" tasks were covered by her. This week, I'm paying someone to do some "dad" stuff. You can probably gauge how busy you are at times by how many auxiliary people you need to hire to help you. But unless your homestead is your job, some aspect of what you do is probably hired out, whether it's the construction people, electricians, or just hitting a restaurant for take out dinner once or twice a week because you're too tired to cook.

None of us can do it all, and even if you could, you shouldn't even try. It's exhausting, plus there's every chance you'll end up resentful over some aspect of your never-ending tasks.

But in a year full of dad-type house stuff, I gotta say being inside with a latte preparing dinner has been a little slice of mom heaven. 

Overwhelmed

So right now I'm slightly....OK, actually more-than-slightly overwhelmed at what we've taken on at the new house. As per usual, there is a lot we've learned since closing escrow that has added to our to-do list and will put a strain on our wallet. There are busted window casings, broken blinds, and garage doors that don't open. Is it ever any other way? Do people ever buy houses without hemorrhaging money for the first six months? 

I'm not even gonna list all the things that need to be done, because it will probably make me cry if I see it all written down in one place, and I don't think you have that long to read it all anyway. But some of it has to happen before we move, and the rest will be done by us (long) after we're in.  I don't even have a date for moving right now, because as I said....some things have to get done first, which means I'm relying on The Guys (collective term for the Flooring Guy, the LockSmith Guy, the Tile Guy, the Windows Guy, the Contractor Guy, and the Garage Door Guy) to start work on the things that are on the Before We Move list.

That's right, I'm expecting contractors to show up and complete work on time. Clearly I have lost my mind already.

But once we're in, I suspect I'll have projects going on for literally years. And since I actually like projects, this may be the most perfect house ever for me. But looking at it from the start is a little like staring up at a skyscraper you are about to climb. Hopefully once you get past the 10th floor it'll get easier. Hopefully.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying our last few weeks in The Vineyard House. The Vineyard House is like good, strong alcohol...incredibly enjoyable until it gives you a headache. I will miss the views, the grand trees in the back, and the quiet -- but not the total isolation or the fact that something died under the house recently and is causing intermittent stinkage. Neither Big Ag or myself feels inclined to crawl into the crawlspace and inspect, and the company does not seem to be inclined either. They already have this place rented out when we move, so I guess the new employee/tenants will have to deal with it.

I also had the fun experience of having a mouse living INSIDE my car recently, which stays in the barn when I'm not driving it. One electronic trap later and I have solved that problem. But living in a working vineyard has its drawbacks, I'm tellin' ya.  Yet I will miss it deeply. How dysfunctional is that?

So in the overwhelming moments, I'm having to just breathe deeply and remain in the present. After all, how does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Of course this situation is actually TWO elephants. One elephant is this house (packing and readying to move) and the other is the new house (unpacking, projecting and making it  a livable home). But taking it all in good time all any of us can do when faced with a pages-long to-do list...

Hate is a strong word

So I officially hate the woman who owned these chairs before me. Not at first; I thought I was lucky to get them for $15 at a garage sale. But now that I've tried to strip them several times, and now that Big Ag has had to replace some slats that were rotting, I've decided I hate her.

But hate is such a strong word, dear, I hear my Aunt Margaret saying. Are you sure it's hate and not just frustration?

OK, so I don't hate the anonymous woman, honestly, I just hate what she did to these chairs. I hate that she coated them with a multi-layered blanket's worth of some mysterious white primer that liquifies when the stripper hits it, then painted 2,346 coats of teal latex paint on top of that. And I hate that she didn't bother painting the bottoms of the chairs, in places no one could see...hence the wood rot. 

And like most singularities in the universe, my hatred of this woman as Chair Caretaker points to a much larger issue in my soul, which is that I have issues with people who don't take care of things they've been entrusted with, whether that's a pair of wood adirondack chairs, a piece of land, a dog, or even a child.

I just realized it's why I have so much trouble with some people who move to the country yet aren't prepared to deal with the responsibility the land demands of us. There are a few of them in my neighborhood, and my house sits in eyesight of their eyesore. 

It's not their person -- they're usually quite nice --  it's their sloppy caretaking of cats, goats, sheep, grasses, topsoil and even the houses they live in that get me. Some people live like the objects they own and the places they live are ziplock bags...just use them until you're done and then toss 'em in the trash. 

It's very zen to think of everything as temporary and ephemeral, but we make serious errors when we start treating everything like it doesn't matter because of that. Because even the little things matter. And yes, I sometimes fall beneath my own standards when it comes to caretaking (if you saw the filthy interior of my otherwise-nice car right now you would agree with this). 

But the great thing about the world of ours is that it's mostly about increasing self-knowledge. And if you're willing to look at yourself in the work you do, whatever that is, you can learn a lot about how you relate to the world. It can be in doing something as simple as re-painting two wood adirondack chairs. Or running a vineyard. Or a business. Enlightenment in the simple tasks is available if we'll hold up a mirror to see our reflection while we're doing it. 

But to do that, you just have to be willing to do the work, both the chore and the corresponding inner analysis.

(which I will continue to do, by the way. These chairs will be getting fresh paint and weatherproofing this weekend). 

And to the lady who owned these chairs before me, I forgive you. Because as my Aunt Margaret always said, hate is a very strong word. I'm even working on forgiving the liquid primer that turns to goop on contact and becomes unremovable, but I gotta tell you, that one's gonna take some time.

Winter's rest

These next couple of weeks I'm completing the chore list I made when I decided to take an extended vacation from working at the winery back in November. The break turned out to be a great idea, and I've gotten more done in the last six weeks than I did the entire year before that. I plan on doing the same thing at this time next year. It just wraps up the year's end nicely to be able to make a significant dent on the list, giving space and room for whatever shows up in 2016.

But of course the items still left on my list are the ones I least enjoy doing, which is how they ended up at the bottom of the list -- isn't that always the way? If you hate sweeping, you'll do almost anything to avoid it, including a bunch of other chores you tell yourself need to get done more. 

Anyway, one of those bottom-of-the-list things which I'm finally getting to today is taking Sputnik into the vet's office for his rabies shot. The last time he got one he developed an allergic reaction in the form of a HUGE knot on his back, so this time I'm making sure the shot is done by the vet in a medical environment, where he can receive immediate treatment if he has a reaction. But as Sputnik does not ride in the car very frequently, a trip to the vet is stressful for both of us.

I have a few more things on my list before I return to work about mid-month, but when you have property, the list never really gets completed. New things and seasonal chores show up on the horizon just as old chores get marked off. 

But the break has been good for me in other ways as well, more than just getting stuff done. It's allowed me to return to living a little more in the moment -- to have several days in a row when there's nothing mandatory on the schedule to be done that day, which seems to be something necessary to really get stuff done around here. Creativity flows when time is in abundance, there's a creativity in scheduling things as well, so you can flow well from A to B to C, etc.

They only thing around the homestead that's new is that we are getting two Yuzu trees in a few weeks; they were my Christmas present from Big Ag and I couldn't be more thrilled. The Yuzu is a Chinese citrus which tastes like a cross between a tangerine and a lemon, which is quite cold-hardy and therefore a possibility for us to grow here, where temps regularly dip into the 20s in winter. 

I've picked out the most temperate place in our yard -- the south side by the house -- to place them, and will look forward to seeing how they do once they show up. They also love poor soil, so the rocky dirt that makes up our hilltop may be perfect for them.

I'm hopeful, anyway. And I start my Master Gardener classes in a few more weeks, too, so now the trick will be to not end up over-scheduled and burned out again, but to still leave myself enough time to work, enjoy life and get things done around the property. 

Same thing everyone else is probably striving for, right?

Land those airplanes!

My chores, in a holding pattern.

Last month my tasting room manager was telling me that she was going to be cutting staff hours now that it was wintertime and not nearly as busy. Since I know several of the young people there rely on their income from the winery to survive and pay their bills,  I volunteered (Selflessly! No work -- what a sacrifice!)) to help by taking the month off. 

But as I've said before on this blog, you know, there is no real altruism. Of course I had an ulterior motive in not working for a full month, and it was to get caught up around here. Every fall I feel like I'm the sole air traffic controller at O'Hare airport, with my chores being the airplanes put into an endless holding pattern, circling and circling until I find time to attend to them.

It's probably a hold over from being a teacher, but I basically seem to have trained myself to need some kind of "summer vacation" in order to knock out big chores, which demand several days of attention. Teachers get about eight weeks off in summer, which for me was always time to do major projects around the house and get caught up on stuff I'd let slide throughout the school year. So I still seem to need the same amount of time each year -- just a few weeks, all in a row, when the stuff I've perpetually put off until "tomorrow" actually get done tomorrow. 

And so I have been and will be off until the New Year, and I have to say while I've missed my friends and coworkers at the winery, I've never been more caught up on my chores -- all those "airplanes" which were crowding my skies in September and October are being managed quite well right now, and everything is coming in for a landing more or less on schedule.

Landed some soap!

A couple of days ago, for instance, I finally made some more soap. This is a task I only do about once a year, as I make enough to last a long time, but it's something I always enjoy doing. This time around I'd managed to get my hands on some lemon essential oil, so my soap has a lovely scent, and I used a slightly different formula than usual (more shea and cocoa butter, less olive oil and lye) to make it extra creamy and sudsy. 

And I can't tell you how nice it is to see the far side of the back yard project. Although I'm in no way tired of the chores of planting, arranging and designing at all, my aching back says otherwise.

Signs you are overbooked

As the tourist season has slowed down here and therefore my work schedule at the winery has as well, I've been thinking about being overbooked -- chores stacked up like planes waiting to land at O'Hare, circling, circling, with me in the middle trying to prioritize and manage all the "air traffic" and feeling more and more overwhelmed. 

My chores can easily take a half-day in summer -- every day, 7 days a week, with no exceptions due to the heat. This is mainly because we grow so much of our food. but add to those half-days full shifts of outside work, plus other things like my family, people coming to visit and the things we want to do (concerts, beach, parties) it's easy to start feeling overbooked.

My Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) resolution was not to let this happen again next year. I'm not in the phase of my life for that anymore, and I certainly don't want to miss out on things I want to do because I'm squashed under a mountain of responsibility. If my kids come up here, I want to be able to visit with them. If my husband gets a couple of days off before grape harvest starts, it would be nice to spend them together.

So in thinking about it, here are (for me, anyway) the Top Ten Signs you are overbooked: 

1. Family coming to visit feels like one more chore to add to the chore list. And squiring them around town feels like a few hours that will cause you to fall even more behind on Life's Chore List than you are already. When you resent having to go wine tasting and out to lunch, there's a problem.

2. You start to dread the concert, party or event you have had on the calendar for awhile (and were at one time looking forward to attending) because you'd just rather stay home and catch up on your rest or your chores.

3.  Things you formerly loved doing around the house now feel like time-wasting manual labor.

4.  You start to forget things; your brain's memory files are so filled with deadlines and commitments that other things begin dropping out, like paying bills on time, remembering to clean the litter box, etc. (apologies to Kitty)

5.  You see good friends on your Caller ID and let it go to voicemail. No time for aimless chatting.

6. You set time limits on everything -- "I'm going to the party, but need to leave by 9 pm so I can get to bed and get enough rest for work tomorrow because it's going to be SO busy." And you hold yourself to them, because rest at that point has become more important than fun.

7.  You stop reading anything longer than a standard news article on the internet, and you even skim that. Your focus and attention are in too much demand elsewhere.

8.  Pets feel like customers -- just one more entity with needs you must fill. (apologies to Kitty x 2)

9.  Spouses become coworkers you rely on to keep things running, meaning the only romance you have time for is kind where he does the dishes for you while you're squeezing in a trip to the supermarket at 9 pm on a Sunday night. Nothing says romance like sitting with a gallon of milk and tortillas in the Express Lane knowing your husband is at home putting away all the clean pots and pans away in unusual places.

10. You have a whole list of things in your life that go into the category of "I don't have time to deal with that right now. I'll get to it after all this chaos clears out." Projects, things that need decisions made, long-term planning -- even routine medical care all get put into this category.

I'd say if you felt an affirmative nod to three or more of these things, it's time to make some changes. You are overbooked.

Begats

In the Old Testament, there are a couple of sections which feature genealogies; they usually go something like, "And Joseph begat Simon, and Simon begat Benjamin," and so on. Homesteading chores are like the Bible in that way. Everything you do begats something else.

At the winery, to give you an example of the opposite principle, when I empty the glass sterilizer at the end of the evening and drain it, that chore is done. I won't see the glass sterilizer again until I next work. The act of draining it, setting the glass-holder up on the bar and turning the switches off is all that's needed to accomplish this chore. I won't be the one to turn it on the next morning, most likely. So my chores there do not begat anything in my world.

Now think of something like, say, tomatoes. When I plant some tomatoes, tomato planting will inevitably begat harvesting the fruits from the plant, once it's time for that. Once I harvest the fruit, that then begats some kind of preservation method or a lot of cooking. When I save the seeds from a few plants, that begats the next  round of planting in the spring, when the whole thing will start again. 

And the thing about begats is, if you leave one item in this task list undone, the whole system comes to a grinding halt.  Because the begats basically give birth to the next generation of tasks that succeed the last one, just like the old kings of the Bible succeeded their fathers.

It's also a truism around the household even if you're not a homesteader. When we finished the patio landscaping, that begat sealing the stone, something I did yesterday. Now that it's done and looks gorgeous, I see the dead grass next to it and realize I need to get moving on finishing the planting portion of the remodel, so that can then begat laying down some gravel and bark. I'm sure once that's done, I'll want to add something else to the area. You see how it works? Nothing with begats ever seems to end.

Dusting begats....more dusting.

Around the house, chores may get finished, but they inevitably begat other chores and improvements that keep your property in a continual state of improvement -- a good thing, but a time and labor consuming one. Let's be honest here: the moment after you dust, the new dust particles begin dropping down from the ether, onto the tabletop to form the base of what you'll be dusting next time. As soon as you replace your worn out sofa with a pretty new one, you notice that the worn out armchair in the corner looks terrible next to the brand new sofa....old dusting begats new dusting, new sofa begats new armchair, new carpet and new coffee table. 

At least that's how it usually goes in my household. I'm finally learning that, around the homestead anyway, the begats are as inevitable as the dust motes dropping onto the table one nanosecond after I finish dusting. The begats always win in the end, because they have the power to dictate not just what you're doing now, but also what you'll be doing next week or next month. 

It makes me think that if I want a real vacation, I need to start by heading to a place where there are no begats.

Too many monkeys

The other day I was planting my fall lettuces and in the midst of digging around in the dirt, I found myself muttering, "I am so bloody sick of doing this." I soldiered on through and got everything in the ground, but thought about what I'd said later on.

I was sick of it? Really?

It's a sad fact but sometimes frustration will make you turn on things (and even people) you love. For me, it's been a tough few months with some health issues (a labral tear in my hip socket, not fixable but it is getting treated at this point), some work issues for Big Ag, and an elderly relative going into a nursing home. 

We've definitely seen that for all the plusses about living in a rural area, there are definite drawbacks as well. Medical care is most definitely inferior, and if you want an even slightly complex medical problem solved, you'd better plan on a trip to the big city. If the weather doesn't kick your ass in one way or another, the endless, endless, endless chore list of a rural homeowner will. 

Days off are kind of a joke. Crisis with the relatives? Need something not available in-town? Plan on hours-long trips away to handle it. Big Ag gets one day a week off from his regular job and usually spends it ticking off a honey-do list I've made for him. Not meaningless chores, either. Mainly just doing the things I don't have the upper body strength for but which are absolutely necessary.

Yes, if you want that homestead, you'd better really, really, want it. Because even the ones who desperately want it still hate it sometimes. That's the secret no one tells you in the glossy magazines and pretty homesteading blogs, of which there are many.

That's because a few months of constant busyness can make you hate even the things you should love, because they're just one more "to-do" chore you have to complete by sundown, (which happens earlier and earlier these days  by the way). It's like putting 3 monkeys in a cage in a zoo, who do very well. 3 works. Add 30 more and suddenly even the ones who liked each other before begin starting to attack each other, because there are just too many monkeys in the damn cage.

And so, if you follow the metaphor, if chores and obligations are monkeys, we've just had too many monkeys in our cage of late, and it's even caused us to resent and attack the things we love, like me hating my lettuce (I have since apologized to it). That's a kind of sickness only found in our modern society, but luckily it's one which has a simple cure if we're willing to go into the cage and remove whatever extra monkeys we can.

Today the fog of all the work kind of cleared and I actually had an entire day when I could spend it doing exactly what I wanted. That hasn't happened in weeks. And so where did I find myself? Not in front of the computer, TV or even with a good book on the patio. I found myself in my garden, trellising olallieberry vines and pruning back the summer vegetables. Because, it turns out, that was where I wanted most to be in the world.

And I realized I'm not sick of it at all. I just need more time to do it so it's not the proverbial last monkey that makes all hell break loose in the cage that is my life's work.

Part of homesteading is, ideally, putting together a more simple life, but even the simple life can get impossibly busy if we try and do too much on and/or off farm. When canning, gardening or animal care interferes with work or family obligations, something has to give or you will absolutely resent your time spent in front of the stove, digging in the dirt or hauling hay into the pasture. It becomes the monkey you want to kill, which would actually be the worst thing possible. But your instincts are off at that point, and can't be trusted.When those chores you love are just one more mouth crying to be fed with your time and attention, it is possible to hate anything. Even the wrong things.

I don't know how the next month is going to shape up, but I'm making a concerted effort to bar the door to any more monkey business. But it is nice to know I've chosen at least a few of the right monkeys for my cage, and my goal is to feed and care for them well, enjoy and be entertained by them, but to resist adding any more at this time.

Winter's List

My chore list for winter is now about halfway done, which is good because I saw the first Bradford pears in bloom a couple of days ago outside the local supermarket, meaning spring is just around the corner.

I don't remember spring coming in January; by my accounts that's about three weeks earlier than in my childhood, but considering the impacts of climate change I don't doubt the change.

It does, however, make me want to speed the plow a bit where my winter list is concerned.  The barn quilts are almost done (I'll post pics once I'm finished!), the raised beds are almost ready for spring planting, I do already have some nice lettuce in the ground and the carrots are all harvested.

We have a couple of landscape projects to start, which will entail removing even more lawn than we already have.  In this drought, I just can't tolerate putting fresh drinking water on a pleasure lawn, and so we may end up with a bigger patio area (which means more room to entertain and lounge outdoors!). Plus we'll be adding some nice, drought-tolerant landscape shrubs, to provide some pretty color. 

If we can make it through this list, I will feel a great sense of satisfaction as the days grow longer and warmer.

How are your winter projects coming?  

A Perfect Day

Yesterday was a perfect day.  To some people that might mean a fancy vacation or at least drive to the beach, but for me it meant a day here on the homestead when I was caught up on everything and could just putter.

In my opinion, puttering is extremely under-rated.  To have the freedom to amble through one's house and across the property stopping only to do whatever seems fun or interesting is a gift.  Puttering is, to me, very light and pleasant labor -- a bit here, a bit there, then a little of something else.

So many times on this homestead I am outside doing things that I love, but many of those things are also physically demanding or just repetitive, like weeding, pulling and processing crops, or planting.

Puttering gives me the freedom to spend 10 or 20 minutes outside, come back in, and do something else for awhile. Even if that something else includes nothing.

Yesterday, for instance, I harvested about a pound of carrots, watered the lettuce, froze some onions and worked with the new hens a bit.  But then I came inside, made a carrot souffle and an alfredo sauce with chicken and peas, and cooked both up in the solar oven while I spent the bulk of the afternoon lounging on the patio.  It was 96 degrees here yesterday, so the option to lounge was huge.

And today I feel refreshed and hopeful that we will get all our major tasks done before the heat of summer sets in.  One day of wandering around the property made me realize how much we've accomplished, as well as the fact that what's left to do will all be done in good time.

In other words, puttering offers refreshment and perspective.  Both valuable enough that I hope to include more puttering on my days off, instead of trying to cram them full of in-town errands or day trips. Puttering is productive and free, and therefore a bargain on all counts.