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| the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler |
As any seasoned world traveler knows that when you are done with your trip, you must have a place to come home to. You need a place to de-compress from the rigors of dining in fancy restaurants and staying in five star hotels on someone else’s dime. For me, that place to de-compress is the old family “farm” in Texas.
I put “farm” in “quotation marks” because a “farm” would indicate a place where vegetables and
animals were purposefully grown for consumption. There is nothing at our farm that is successfully produced like that. The only consuming going on is being done by the scrawny red foxes that have been consuming our chickens, or the cows that have been consuming our newly planted fruit trees and flowers.
Most of my effort goes into just making the property livable by modern standards. The house was originally built as just a weekend place. The floors all sag. Many of the old aluminum windows would not open, or close fully, and the outside siding was rotting at the ground level. There is no heat and the A/C is just noisy window units. But we call it home.
We have spent two years getting the place put in decent condition. I am very near to finishing a complete re-do of the kitchen and breakfast room. Re-do seems a bit understated. There was no kitchen in the space we put it in….just a large open room a ping pong table and a few folding chairs. This room used to be an open porch on the ground floor. Some time in the 80’s my Dad closed it in. We added a wall, new wiring, lights, plumbing, kitchen cabinets, crown molding and new windows and doors.
We tore out the “temporary” stairway to the second floor and had a real one built in its place. And I have installed all new kitchen appliances. Every weekend I think I can finish this job. But there is always more to do. I guess we will never really be done, so I might as well get used to the pile of tools, paint cans and brushes and are a permanent part of our décor.
My lovely wife is very patient with the slow pace of the fix up. She could demand we hire the work done and get it fixed quickly. Or she could have insisted we not leave our comfortable home in the suburbs for this dusty, bug infested, place. But she loves living here.
When I am slaving away on a ladder or under a sink for 12 hour stretches, my mind drifts off to another place where sawdust, sweat, and swearing are not a part of life. I imagine myself as a rich and famous song writer. In my fantasy world I am someone who can sit down and write a simple ditty, and sell it for a million bucks. But then, I read what I wrote and realize I better finish the kitchen because no one will ever pay me a dime for the crap I come up with.
For example: (with apologies to Kenny Chesney for using his tune for “She thinks my tractors sexy”)
She thinks dried paint is sexy
On my face and arms
No projects are ever finished
Anywhere on this farm.
I can’t believe she tolerates the undone mess
She has no place to hang a single shirt or dress
She’s even kind of crazy ‘bout this poor dirt farm
Cause she can raise her chickens in the old tin barn
I open up a bucketful of indoor paint
I brush it on until my arms just cain’t
There’s more to do than one man can ever finish
The repair list doesn’t ever seem to diminish
Thank gawd she thinks dried paint is sexy
On my face and arms
As I stumble thru the clutter
Piled up in both the barns
You’d never know that we were once city sophisticates
When you see that we have to go thru two cattle gates
The cows get in anyway and eat our plants
And now it looks like we can’t grow anything but ants
I’m sure I’ll get it organized one day soon
And when she sees it she will probably swoon.
I wish I shared her rosy view of the country life
I’d never work this hard for anyone but my wife
But she thinks dried paint is sexy
And the work to her is fun
She’s optimistic that
One day we will be done.
I put “farm” in “quotation marks” because a “farm” would indicate a place where vegetables and
animals were purposefully grown for consumption. There is nothing at our farm that is successfully produced like that. The only consuming going on is being done by the scrawny red foxes that have been consuming our chickens, or the cows that have been consuming our newly planted fruit trees and flowers.
Most of my effort goes into just making the property livable by modern standards. The house was originally built as just a weekend place. The floors all sag. Many of the old aluminum windows would not open, or close fully, and the outside siding was rotting at the ground level. There is no heat and the A/C is just noisy window units. But we call it home.
We have spent two years getting the place put in decent condition. I am very near to finishing a complete re-do of the kitchen and breakfast room. Re-do seems a bit understated. There was no kitchen in the space we put it in….just a large open room a ping pong table and a few folding chairs. This room used to be an open porch on the ground floor. Some time in the 80’s my Dad closed it in. We added a wall, new wiring, lights, plumbing, kitchen cabinets, crown molding and new windows and doors.
We tore out the “temporary” stairway to the second floor and had a real one built in its place. And I have installed all new kitchen appliances. Every weekend I think I can finish this job. But there is always more to do. I guess we will never really be done, so I might as well get used to the pile of tools, paint cans and brushes and are a permanent part of our décor.
My lovely wife is very patient with the slow pace of the fix up. She could demand we hire the work done and get it fixed quickly. Or she could have insisted we not leave our comfortable home in the suburbs for this dusty, bug infested, place. But she loves living here.
When I am slaving away on a ladder or under a sink for 12 hour stretches, my mind drifts off to another place where sawdust, sweat, and swearing are not a part of life. I imagine myself as a rich and famous song writer. In my fantasy world I am someone who can sit down and write a simple ditty, and sell it for a million bucks. But then, I read what I wrote and realize I better finish the kitchen because no one will ever pay me a dime for the crap I come up with.
For example: (with apologies to Kenny Chesney for using his tune for “She thinks my tractors sexy”)
She thinks dried paint is sexy
On my face and arms
No projects are ever finished
Anywhere on this farm.
I can’t believe she tolerates the undone mess
She has no place to hang a single shirt or dress
She’s even kind of crazy ‘bout this poor dirt farm
Cause she can raise her chickens in the old tin barn
I open up a bucketful of indoor paint
I brush it on until my arms just cain’t
There’s more to do than one man can ever finish
The repair list doesn’t ever seem to diminish
Thank gawd she thinks dried paint is sexy
On my face and arms
As I stumble thru the clutter
Piled up in both the barns
You’d never know that we were once city sophisticates
When you see that we have to go thru two cattle gates
The cows get in anyway and eat our plants
And now it looks like we can’t grow anything but ants
I’m sure I’ll get it organized one day soon
And when she sees it she will probably swoon.
I wish I shared her rosy view of the country life
I’d never work this hard for anyone but my wife
But she thinks dried paint is sexy
And the work to her is fun
She’s optimistic that
One day we will be done.
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