Barn Quilt Pattern

Found this barn quilt template free online.  I like it, but no decisions yet. I may end up designing something on my own, completely different from anything else out there.  But with the right colors I think this could be pretty.

Barn Quilt

A barn quilt in North Carolina

So Big Ag's shop/small barn is finally finished, and we've ended up with one large wall facing the raised vegetable beds, which begs for something creative to be done with it. (In my book, anyway.  I'm sure Big Ag would be just as happy to paint it and forget about it.) 

This west wall has always been something of a bone of contention, ever since Big Ag decided to put the barn in. After all the presence of a building, as well as the color it's painted, will affect the temperature of the garden itself -- which means it will have a direct impact on the success we have growing our food, no small thing.  

A light color on that wall could potentially reflect heat (keeping the building interior cooler but possibly reflecting both light and heat into the garden) while a darker color would probably absorb the heat (making both the interior of the barn and the area around the wall hotter). Luckily most of our winds come from the west in summer, straight in from the Pacific, so we'll still have air movement.

So the whole thing was a mixed bag for me.  While I love the idea of Big Ag having a place to put all his tools, I didn't want the microclimate of our garden potentially changed for the worse, even by a few degrees.

There didn't seem to be any good solution until I remembered the idea of a barn quilt.  Barn quilts are colorful painted patterns, hung on large sheets of wood on the exterior walls of barns or painted directly on them.  The quilt can be anything you design, with colors or patterns with special meaning to you. 

I suddenly had my solution to the wall facing my garden. With so many different colors in the quilt, I think any heat-accumulating tendencies will be neutralized. 

This is a cool weather project which is going to be designed and painted in the workspace of our garage this coming winter, where I can open all the doors, watch the rain and paint my giant 5' x 5' quilt as it chills and blows outside. We'll hang it whenever it's done, but I'm hoping it will be in early 2015.

 I can't wait to begin designing it and picking the colors and shapes that best represent our homestead.

Life Goes On

Hmm ... eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini -- and herbs too.  Such delicious possibilities!  Ratatouille?  Farmer's Market sandwiches? Veggie lasagna?

It all sounds good. Now is the time when we pick up the pieces, dry our tears and go on.  Hard to feel bereft with so much edible bounty surrounding us, and so much of creation's beauty at our fingertips.

I did not make my friend's Celebration of Life service, which was several hours away by plane, but while working yesterday I did get a visit from this beautiful creature, who flitted and danced around me (not my image, but the same kind of butterfly).  

She reminded me that we are all just caterpillars, waiting to become eternal butterflies. And in the meantime....life goes on.

Peeking up

I find happiness peeking up from the most simple places on the homestead these days.  There is happiness in the near-ripe tomatoes I find on the tomato plants that seem to have taken forever to grow and produce.  Happiness in the strong, green new stalks on the olallieberry vines.  Happiness in the feel of the wind and sunshine on my bare arms as I hang the wash out to dry on the morning's breeze.

My friend in the coma finally passed, one day before her 55th birthday.  I think she lingered in the coma for a week to give her family and everyone else who loved her time to come to terms with her passing.

A couple of years ago, she and I had a frank talk about her upcoming death.  She told me (she was a registered nurse and therefore had some medical-level knowledge about her condition) that it would be "an event" that led to her passing, not the slow lingering of a hospice death.  In a way, she was correct. She fell into a coma rapidly, just an hour or so after feeling fine, fixing herself a meal and settling into her apartment for a night of quiet TV watching. And one week later, she was gone.

When I think about what she valued, it was the simple things, and it's what allowed her to be happy despite living with essentially a death sentence.  She loved nature, she loved people, and she loved God.  Although her life was relatively short and far from perfect, she always seemed to be able to find joy in the simple things of life.  Not the drama, debauchery, or angst this world is so known for. She was about as far from those things as anyone could get.

In honoring her memory, I am trying to do the same, and to live more mindfully. Too often around here the chores can just be chores, instead of opportunities to mindfully appreciate all that's been placed here for our enjoyment. Too many times, I complain about the heat instead of being thankful for the small breeze.  Or I focus on one unpleasant customer at the winery instead of rejoicing in the hundreds who come in and enrich our day with their lively stories, interesting ideas, or funny jokes.

Today, and for as many days after this as I can manage it, I'm going to try and be more conscious of the simple happiness that surrounds almost all of us, if we only have the eyes to see them.

Doctors and Tomatoes

So my childhood friend is still in a coma, still lingering on that mezzanine between life and death, but life on the homestead has to go on, and so it has, although I've felt off-kilter all week.  The first tomatoes have finally ripened and I was able to can five quarts of them, roughly one-third of what I need for winter.

I've also planted lettuce and carrot seeds, which sprouted unbelievably quickly (hmm, maybe there is something to that Farmer's Almanac Good Planting Days thing after all!), and we are still harvesting eggplant, cukes and zukes in diminishing amounts as the summer wanes.

I can't help but notice that the nights are now longer and cooler than they were a month ago, which is quite lovely. We have an automatic door closer on our chicken coop, and I recently had to reset both its opening time in morning (later) and its closing time (earlier).  The days are noticeably shorter, and it's safe to say the world seems ready for fall.

In the vineyard, harvest is going full swing at most wineries, which means a lot of extra people around, a general sense of busyness, and an increased number of flies!

I had my complete medical at the concierge doc too, the most complete physical I've ever had.  What a gift, and in my opinion it was totally worth the money, even if it was just for this one huge battery of tests and the two visits I had to discuss the results (and actually, it is much more than that, because I get free office visits for the next 12 months).  I don't think I've spent this much time with my doctor since I was a child.  These visits were truly old fashioned office visits, lasting an hour or more, which gives you lots of time to discuss anything you're wondering about, health-wise.

Oh, I am also current on my vaccinations now, which means I can be kenneled if necessary and can go play at the dog park without impunity, right? 

No, seriously, I am grateful to have good health, especially in light of my friend's plight.  Health is something that is easy to take for granted, especially when you do a lot of basic physical labor around your property. Maybe celebrating that I'm able to pick tomatoes, lift a canner full of water, and work all day without becoming overly tired is appropriate and good, for I know this will probably not always be the case.

The Hour of Separation

As I write this, my friend Lori is laying in a hospice in Nashville, TN, dying from invasive ovarian cancer, unresponsive and asleep to the world around her.  Her life will probably come to an end sometime in the next few days.  

When I got the news of her sudden decline (she'd been battling cancer for the last 20 years, with many ups and downs, but was in the midst of a long "up" spell for the last few years) my first impulse was to cry.  After all, Lori and I have been friends for 48 years, ever since my family moved in next to hers back in 1966.  Crying is what you do when you are faced with the loss of someone who has been a fixture in your life for such a long time.  We'd gone through bicycles, boyfriends, beaus and babies together.  The calm and normalcy of her grandparents' house (where she lived with her brother) stood in stark contrast to how I saw mine.  Lori and her life were a refuge and a role model for my future adult life.

And, to me, Lori always seemed to have led a charmed life, up until the point where, at 35 years of age, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. That, of course led to chemotherapy, radiation, multiple surgeries, and all the assorted troubles that come with those things.  

While the length of her bout with cancer was truly unfair, I can't honestly say that cancer is a bad way to make your exit from this life, however.  On a Facebook page remembering former students from our high school who have died over the years, far too many seem to have been taken young, and suddenly:  The automobile accidents.  The gang shootings.  The car wrecks.  The overdoses.

What I've come to realize is what cancer provides is the gift of time -- for the victim as well as their friends and family. There is, usually, time to do some of the things you still have on your "bucket list" that are important to you. Lori saw a grandchild born, traveled frequently with friends and family, and saw her youngest graduate from college just a couple of years ago.

Cancer also lets you know, approximately, how much time you probably have left in the world, which can also be a gift. You can say the things you need to, forgive those who need or want your forgiveness, and do what you feel you need to before moving on. Almost no one will be too busy for you if you're dying of terminal cancer, as they know they'd better see you now, because "later" is not a guarantee. Lori spent true quality time with many friends (including me).  She lived long enough that her first grandchild will remember her, and saw her own children off into their own secure adulthoods, with jobs and happy relationships.

The last gift cancer gives is not to the one suffering, but to those around them.  To know that each "I love you" could be the last, that every Christmas might be the last one you share, makes the true importance of those things apparent.  In "The Prophet," Kahil Gibran says, "Love knows not its depth until the hour of separation," and he is right.  But having that hour of separation stretch for a few years, with all parties aware and living in mindfulness of that fact, is in fact a gift that many who have passed suddenly would probably wish for, if they could. God knows their families would probably want it.

Lori and I said our goodbyes the last time she came to visit.  We knew we would probably never see each other again, and all the good that could be said was said. I will be grateful for that until it's time for me to leave this world.

So as Lori prepares to make her greatest journey yet, I am thankful to her cancer -- not for the suffering she had to endure, but for the fact that because of it, Lori knew her time here was a finite thing, and she made the most of it, which made all of us aware that our lives are also not infinite in their scope and breadth. Her life was truly an inspiration and a reminder that few of us know just how much time as have left on the clock.  Lori did, and she made it count for something.

There is not much of this life left for Lori to live now, but I hope it's filled with comfort, peace and perhaps even satisfaction, in that slow, winding-down sleep she's in now.  I hope in what she knew was a limited time, she said what she needed to say and did what she wanted to do. I think she did.

Safe travels to that which comes next, my old, dear, and very loved friend. 



  

In Any Large City

Watching.

Sometimes, when I was a little girl, the conversation around the dinner table would shift towards talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers and how they were doing that season. My grandmother, who knew nothing about sports whatsoever, pulled me aside one day when this was going on and whispered conspiratorially to me, "Schatzi, just remember this: In any large city, you're going to find troublemakers." (Apparently she thought The Dodgers were some kind of violent street gang.)

But her adage is true.  In any gathering of individuals, you are going to find those who just want to cause trouble. In my hen house, this position goes to Floyd, the pigeon.

I found Floyd on the steps of our dry cleaners several years ago. He was barely two days old and freezing to death. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and I'd just stopped in to pick up Big Ag's dry cleaning.

"Hey, how long has that baby pigeon been sitting in the entry way?" I asked.

"I don't know, a couple of days I guess," replied the guy behind the counter.

"Has the mother been dropping down to feed it?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so," the guy (who really couldn't have cared less) replied.

I picked the pigeon up and took him home with me.

Since I'd done some avian rehab and release, I took care of the pigeon, who we named Floyd, until he was ready to be released.  The only problem was, he was much too tame to be released by the time he was ready. He absolutely loved people, and would land on the shoulder of anyone who happened to walk in through the door. Any friend of ours was a friend of his. Or strangers, for that matter.  Floyd was clearly a people pigeon.

And so Floyd stayed.

Inspecting.

We built him a big flight cage and doted on him, and he grew into a magnificent pigeon. People who stop by to see us rarely even realize Floyd is a common domestic pigeon. He's extremely clean, smells nice, and his feathers positively gleam.

Floyd is also one of the troublemakers my bubbe tried to warn me about.  Floyd loves me, but is bossy with everyone else.  What Floyd really needs is a small, South American nation to run, where tyrants and demagogues are the norm.

Instead, I let Floyd run the chicken coop.  Or so be believes.  

Floyd wanders around the chickens all day now, cooing and puffing up his feathers and looking quite important.  But when the chickens have had enough, they let Floyd know with a warning peck or two, and he flies up to the top of the coop, where we've built a railing for him to strut his stuff on.

The objects of Floyd's true affection are the silver food container and the red chicken waterer, who he puts on quite a mating display for.  So far he has only tried to mount one of the hens and the waterer a couple of times, and as you can imagine neither partner really worked out for him, biologically speaking.

But I see him as kind of the Donald Trump of the henhouse, an assessment I think Floyd would be proud to take ownership in. Being so beautifully feathered, he doesn't even need the toupée.

Workin' it.

Yes, Floyd is both troublemaker and seeker of strange pleasures in the world of the Hot Flash Henhouse, a solitary gray general amidst an army of indifferent hens and stoic food and water dispensers.