I’m kind of entering a countdown now with the farm. My ability to stay here whenever I want is coming to an end. Consequently, I’m spending as much time here as possible. I came out Tuesday. My cousin Tammy came out yesterday to help me go through my aunt’s things. We bagged up all of her clothes and shoes. The sizes are very small as my aunt was fastidious with her weight. I’ll bet she never varied more than a pound or two save for the “freshman 20” and the wasting of old age. And, for someone as incredibly frugal as she was, there were many designer pieces in her closet. She had grand style.

Tammy was my first best friend, other than my brother. She’s a little younger than me but we share a lot of the same characteristics. She reminds me so much of our grandma. She works hard and loves gently. She has six little grandchildren here and one in Heaven. They are as much the apples of her eye as we were of Laura Belle’s. She’s warm and no nonsense and tells you like it is and is SO funny. I was tickled to pieces to have her all to myself at our grandma’s house for a few hours.

We packed her van so full, I warned her not to slam on the brakes or everything would come crashing down on her. She took an old dresser. Being the oral historian of the family, I shared the history of this particular piece of furniture. Our great grandfather was a wheeler-dealer and dabbled in cattle and auctions and orneriness. He was…let us say…colorful. Big, tall, brawny with a deep timbre to his voice, he would gather us up on his knee and recite “The Village Smithy” to us when we were children. He was a former watchman and worked his way up to the state patrol. At one time, he did his rounds on horseback. He was a bit of a dandy with the ladies, as well. I was both enamored and scared to death of him. He died when I was sixteen.

I do remember a time when I was a child, for some reason Grandpa was staying here at the farm. By this time he had terrible arthritis in his hips and could barely walk. (He had one of the first hip transplants ever done.) Because of this, Grandma and PopPop gave up their bed and let him sleep on the main floor. The only light in this room at the time was the ceiling light and apparently that wasn’t good enough for him. He brought an antique dresser of quarter-sawn oak from Virginia and set it up in the same little tiny bedroom where I am writing this post. He drilled a hole in the top of the mirror frame and installed a light socket so the could have a light that wasn’t right in his face when he read in bed. Of course, that ruined the value of the piece…except, we have the story that goes with it. 

There are some things money can’t buy.

I walked around the farm a little in the afternoon. We had two-and-a-quarter inches of rain in the gauge. The creek is still running muddy and everything was pristine in the late afternoon sunshine. I peeked quietly at the baby robins in the nest in the big rhododendron bush by the old gas light out front. When I looked at the photos later, I thought something was wrong with one of the babies. It’s eye was pale and the surrounding area was stark white. After studying it for a while, I realized…the sun was dappled, shining through the leaves and branches and budding flowers in just the right way to create that illusion.

It is definitely much cooler after the rains of the last couple of days. I had to turn on the furnace and the electric blanket. But the window remains open. The barred owls have been very vocal this trip here and I want to soak up every sight, sound, and smell. I’m counting down the days…dreading when the last one comes.

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“Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches.”

Psalm 104:12 ESV