It’s the Dark That’s Losing

Old pic, but I like it

The barn is almost finished. We are installing windows, a mish-mash of the old double hungs that I paid too much for. “They cost me $40 each but they’re worth at least $20,” is what I like to say, and it’s probably true. Ah, well. Some days you bite the bear, and some days the bear bites you. Though the truth is, no matter what, they were cheaper than new.

I like the barn. Nah: I love it. It’s simple, sturdy, unpretentious. With the exception of a handful of metal scraps from the roof, every bit of waste generated in its construction is entirely organic, burnable or compostable. No plywood. No plastic. We’ll insulate the upstairs with dense pack cellulose to make it useable as a winter work space, and we might end up spraying a little foam around the window jambs, but then again, maybe not. Maybe we’ll just stuff some wool in there.

Soon we’ll start framing the house. The house is hardly more complicated than the barn, and will actually be a bit smaller, so there’s no reason it won’t be dried in by end of August, middle-of-September at the latest. Given everything on our plates, we feel remarkably relaxed; our primary daily challenge is the transition from here to there and from there back to here. Chores in the morning, make and pack lunch, checklist of materials and tools, load truck. And then in the evening coming home to milking, more chores, dinner, more chores, bed. We are eating lots of one-pot meals, and often we eat straight from the pot itself, the four of us gathered around the picnic table, dirty and weary and quiet, the pot strategically centered, the metronomic dipping of utensils. Sound of chewing.

It would hard to overstate how much we are enjoying ourselves, even in the face of the inevitable challenges. Strangely, I did not anticipate this; back in the winter, before we’d so much as squared the end of a single 2×6, the project seemed so huge as to be nearly insurmountable. Or it did to me, anyway. I mean, I always knew we’d get it done, but I guess I imagined it as being more siege-like. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around all the moving pieces, how we’d deal with power and septic and water and foundation and firewood and lumber and oh yeah, we still have gardens and animals to tend. Hay to put up. Cows to milk, butter to make.

We have help, of course – we’re not doing everything ourselves – but based on person-hours, we are still the primary labor force. And of course we’re the contractors, responsible for tying up all the loose ends. To put it mildly, tying loose ends is not my specialty, and while Penny is clearly more organized than I am, I have more building experience. She’s no slouch, and thank goodness for that, but I have the advantage of having been on more jobs, of having at least a rough idea of what needs to happen first so that what needs to happen next can actually happen. Any of you builders know what I’m talking about.

What I think I’m learning (well, one of things, anyway) is that a project like this is all about initiative, and then, once initiated, inertia. Momentum. It’s also about the sheer thrill of the doing, of seeing it come together, of feeling propelled by the sense of accomplishment but also by the sense – almost indescribable to those who haven’t experienced it or simply don’t care to – of laboring to put a roof over your families head. Over your own head. It’s one of those fundamentals – like growing your own food, or cutting your own firewood – that imbues you with the sense that your life is in your hands. Maybe it’s a false sense (or partly, anyway). But still: How many opportunities are left for us to feel that way? Pretty soon we’ll have pilotless airplanes, driverless cars, groceries by drone. Pretty soon we’ll be peopleless people, our usefulness to our communities and ourselves siphoned into the vacuum of progress.

Sometimes I can’t believe we won’t live here anymore. Interestingly, I rarely feel this in relation to the house itself, but more often to specific spots on the land: The old sugarhouse foundation, or my secret chanterelle stash in Melvin’s woods. Every so often, I find myself thinking this might be the last time I see this spot, and for me, that’s actually the hardest part of moving. I thought I’d feel it more in relation to people, but I don’t, probably because we’re not moving very far. A dozen miles isn’t going to stop us from seeing the people we care about.

A rainy Sunday. Catching up on desk work, later firewood, saw some lumber, a one-pot meal, more sleep. Always sleep. It comes fast and immersive, slumber born of labor, the sort of sleep you look forward to while splitting wood by the fading light of day. Eight hours straight through, waking into that same faded-light quality.

But this time, it’s the dark that’s losing.