All Is Well Again

On 22 July I wrote about circumstances “Orwellian,” but on 2 August I can report that “all is well again.”  We have cured the problem: gone is the gravel pile, our insurance will not be terminated, and we have made arrangements to switch to another carrier at end of this month.

The project was twelve years in the making.  When we bought the farm, Labor Day 2012, our son was in utero and my wife in her third-trimester.  We had but little money, and less time to make any renovations.  The barn was beyond repair – beyond our budget, more precisely – so we tore that down.  I saved as many beams and sheathing boards as I could but the rest was hauled away.  Nine yards of rubble, from two brick chimneys and concrete sidewalks remained, overgrown by invasive plants.  Last week, having moved the gravel and made the driveway larger, we continued north to grub out more than 50 stumps – along 50 linear feet of fence line – of the rapidly growing, invasive Norway Maple.

Our farmhouse, in the classic New England style of “big house, little house, back house, barn,” is 200 years old, built when Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the United States.  The barn was completed in 1840, which I know for a fact, having saved one beam with that date proudly carved by the makers into the wood.  All materials used in this house were sourced locally, within a mile or two, trees felled, then moved and milled by hand.  

Some of the barn sheathing boards are 26” wide, and given the growth rate of pine trees, we can deduce that the tree from which that wood came sprouted circa 1681, which is five years before the English King James established the “Dominion of New England” which covered all of New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies.  The Charter of Pennsylvania, sovereign and independent from the Dominion, was signed by King Charles in 1681 granting the Quakers land for religious freedom.  

Restoring this home is a yeoman’s task.  We bought the home at a foreclosure price, plus 20-years of hard labor.  We are only halfway toward our goal.  In doing this work we are not making this home great again; “never better” is my goal.  The home never had insulation and was cold and drafty.  We have super-insulated more than half, but work remains.  I will need to rebuild the foundation of the Ell, while we live in the house.  The invasive Maples are an ongoing nuisance.

The charm of the hand built home seems to be its simplicity, its economy of purpose.  I have neither the income nor interest in anything opulent.  I seek not a monument to myself.  For the driveway project I chose gravel, which is underwhelming to many, but to my mind the better choice because it is both less expensive and fully functional.  I have learned that I am happier living on a dirt road, and on my half-acre I have chosen same.  

More importantly, in terms of environmental impact, gravel has a minimal carbon footprint compared to the very high embedded energy – the petroleum consumed both in manufacturing and applying – of asphalt pavement.  Hard though it may be for my children to grasp this point, it is my responsibility to model sustainability, to the extent possible.   

My curse is the adage “a carpenter’s home is never finished.”  And so life goes, but in the meantime all is well again, never better.   

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The abundance of August has arrived. Onions and potatoes need be harvested, Italian Frying peppers await us, we pickle cucumbers then give armfuls away, fruits – tomatoes, grapes, peaches – tower overhead, our lime tree provides the citrus for a Gin & Tonic.