Notes from Three of Earth Farm

It was on my list; has been for a year at least. Just not for today. Today was trail clean out day. But all of sudden, there it was, calling to be done. I dropped my sickle and loppers and got the ladder and the wire cutter.

We didn’t have a television until I was in junior high. Well, for a while in fourth grade we had my grandmother’s black and white, I don’t know why. Then we got our own TV when I was in seventh grade and went back to watching Lawrence Welk and the Lennon Sisters when we visited our granny.

I suppose we had rabbit ears back then. I don’t think the antennae showed up until I had left home and my parents went high tech. It was mounted on a tower at the highest place on the property, some distance from the house, in what was then the edge of the horse pasture. Now it’s a grove of trees and there is a satellite dish below the house, but mostly I watch Netflix.

Pieces of the aluminum antennae blew down over the years, bits every winter I suppose. I collected them a couple years ago, from where they’d lain dormant in the underbrush, spray painted them, and put them in the garden. They are practically buried now because I haven’t cleaned out the bed this year. Yeah, it’s on my list too. The sweet peas are in takeover mode.

When I had 40 dead trees cut in the grove that used to be a pasture a few years back, I had the woodsmen take down the precipitously leaning tower too. But the cable remained tacked, disconnected and useless, onto the side of house, stretched across the yard, up over the trail to the meadow, threaded through trees, tacked high on a pole midway through (it’s still tacked to the pole; I didn’t want to drag the ladder up there). Yards more lay on the ground after the antennae was removed.

Today I hauled out the ladder, leaned it up, and cut ‘er down. Another vestige of my past, gone. How is it that the removal of such a slender thread seems to have opened up the sky?

Meanwhile, the rhodies continue their best of show performance. I cleaned out the gravel path by the front door—another task not on the list—after deciding not to prune the ancient rhododendron overgrowth, the blooms are too pretty and still coming. I hope they last until my mother’s service in two weeks.

The bathroom floor got redone last week—it’s beautiful—and the 1960 chrome towel rods have been replaced with polished nickel. Best of all, when I took out the horrid towel tree by the tub in preparation for the work, I realized I didn’t have to put it back! Now there’s a nice nickel rod in its place.

And this week the sagging corner of the deck got a new beam and an additional post, replacing the rotten beam. I can have a dance party on the deck now. And have added painting to my to do list.

I’m following in my mother’s footsteps, getting stuff done; but only one path got cleared today, the one that goes through the woods that didn’t used to be woods. Only one of my mother’s beloved wild tiger lilies lost its life in the process. I’m mourning that one though.

I did finish up the service guide for my mother’s memorial service, and cut a few words from my eulogy. So there’s that. As my sisters and I plan for the last hurrah, life goes on here on the hill. This blog post wasn’t on my list either.