Farmhouse

I spent the weekend on my friend E's farm up near Strasburg. Chris and I had planned to drive up to Pittsburgh together to pick up our roommate, who stayed with his folks for the rest of the week after the Tool show, but when E called me and told me he was having an uber-bonfire on Saturday, I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather have been. So, I had Chris drop me off on the way up to PA Friday night with my tent and sleeping bag, and there I stayed until Sunday evening.

Oh, there was so much work to be done.

I've gotta tell you about this place. It's Civil War era, about 200 years old. 2 acres, with an old stone cottage, a barn, a chicken coop that's off its foundation, an office/milking building (it was a dairy farm back in the 1960's), and a building of undefined use in the corner. Oh, and an open garage, and next to that an outhouse. The ultimate goals are to turn the barn into a metalworking shop, the stray building into a guest cottage, the office into a livable building for the time being, and the stone cottage into a permanent home. The entire property had to be cleared from the start, and 6 months ago that work started. We didn't get to see it until the end of August when we moved back to VA, and even by then there was significant improvement. The barn needed a whole side wall rebuilt, the roof has almost been fixed, and quite a lot of the sumac trees choking every inch of the land have been cleared out. That's what we had to start with this weekend.

I wouldn't say we made headway in leaps and bounds, but we got a lot done. The roof was supposed to be finished Saturday, but we woke up to rain, so that plan was scrapped. We didn't do much until the afternoon, when it stopped raining, but all afternoon we hauled firewood from all over the property to the space for the bonfire. We cleared out all the dead wood from the space between the barn and the office, which was a lot of logs and quite a few dead sumac trees, branches and all. E and I made a grocery run, since his friend D was going to be cooking most of the food for the festivities that night, and I got stuff to make hot chocolate. I figured I'd be the only one drinking it, since most everyone else would probably be drinking beer, but what the hell, I wanted hot chocolate. Having the bonfire that night was incredibly chill and laid back, as always. It drizzled a bit, on and off, and rained for about 20 minutes at midnight, but it wasn't that bad. Made it a good night to burn. I met so many cool people that night. The next morning, talking to E, I reminisced about the group of people he was friends with when I first met him, and how we had both moved away from that group and formed new groups of friends, and how much fun it was to comingle with groups of chill people like that. I asked him, "Is it always this much fun to make new friends?" I'm pretty sure he knew what I meant. He was part of the first real group of friends I ever had, and that was years after high school. He said it was. That makes me look forward to what kind of people I will meet in the future.

The real work came on Sunday. Now that we had the field between the barn and the office cleared of brush, E wanted to pitch down some of the old straw in the upper part of the barn to spread over what was left and so leave it to decompose into good growing soil. The land is in the Shenendoah Valley, so it's already good soil, and this way the sumac wouldn't grow back and the land could be used for gardening. (In fact, he's already told me I can use a small plot for a garden of my own, if I come up to tend it during spring planting and fall harvesting...one more excuse to come up for the weekend!) Between E and myself, we cleared out an entire roomful of straw, about 10x20 feet, a few feet deep by the door but about 8 feet high in the pile at the other end. I cleared out a good deal of it myself, since E went down after a while to start moving it from the side of the barn to the field. I was soooooo sore the next day....but it was worth it.

Friday night, E, D and myself were sitting around the (small) fire talking, and D asked me why I was going to college. When I mentioned that in the end I really wanted to do just what E was doing, D said something to the effect of you can't learn the kinds of things you need to live off the land like that in school. And you know what? He's absolutely right. I want to know the why of things, so I go to class and learn about them, but the only way to learn how to maintain a farm like that is to actually do it. I can't think of a better reason to spend as much time as I can on this farm. Not only is E getting a willing pair of hands to help out, but I'm learning so much every time I'm there, and things as simple as the correct way to efficiently pitch straw can make a big difference when you have to do it yourself.

When Chris and Andy got back on Sunday, we all went down to the local pub and had dinner, BSed around a bit, and then the three of us headed home. Last night, Andy mentioned how cool E was, and how everything he said about everything was right. He said he'd never met anyone like that before. I just thought about different groups of friends, and smiled to myself. It's all happening.