You Are, Too

Chore time

This was the first morning in nearly seven months that I didn’t start a fire in the wood cook stove. Our summer cooker is an old gas range that resides on our porch. Having abandoned our propane hot water heater a few years back, it’s our only gas appliance, and it’s hard to get used to how little it demands of us. Little blue flames at the twist of a knob: No match, no birch bark, no kindling, no wood, no waiting 15 minutes for the cast iron to transfer the heat of the fire to the water for my coffee. It’s a miracle, really.

The warmth has snuck up on us. It feels like something we earned the hard way. Yesterday I saw pockets of north-facing snow at the sloped edge of a fertile, already-green hay field, and the contrast between green and white took me by surprise, two seasons held in suspension, though I bet that snow’ll be gone by nightfall.

The peas are in the ground and probably poking through the soil by now, though I can’t say for certain; I haven’t looked in a couple of days. The onions need to go out. The pigs are looking appropriately succulent, though it’ll be a while yet. Two cows to freshen, Apple and Pip, both due Map 28, which is the epitome of homestead convenience and exquisite timing, to boot, as the grass will be at its seasonal peak of abundance and nutrition. Butter. Cream. Skimmed milk for the pigs. The offspring to beef. The milk cow provideth. The lambs are still cute but not in the same cuddly way they were a month ago, which is good, because now it’s almost possible to imagine eating them.

I’m up at 4:45 most mornings now, and in motion until near darkness, though frankly, I don’t always make it that long. Last night my lids started drooping at 7:30, and by 8 I was a goner, splayed out across the bed with the late light still filtering through the windows, which in turn were being rattled by the deep bass rumble of my snores.

It is, for me, a grounding existence, life stripped of the superfluous. Seeds and seedlings. Soil. Sore muscles. The animals and their sundry needs. Shelters to be built. It is a lot for one summer. At times, I’m sure it will feel like too much. But that is the beauty of a four-season climate: There is a season for everything, and just when one begins to wear you down the next one arrives, and one morning you go outside and everything is different. And it almost feels like you are, too.