Busy Hands Homestead

I arrive home, late at night, after having spent almost a week in the city of bridges. Pittsburgh is beautiful. Excitedly, Adam walks me through the house. While I was gone, he insulated interior walls (for sound reduction), HVAC ducting was installed, and the walls were sheetrocked. Instead of being excited, I panic,walking through the house noticing all the things that are wrong. - Framing is still missing here. - And here. - This doorway is too tall, too wide. - We forgot a dryer vent!! - THAT HOLE IN THE FLOOR IS IN THE WRONG SPOT. I lay awake too long and worry. Gorgeous reclaimed 10 inch wide fir planks from the now deconstructed Salvation Army, formerly located in downtown Missoula, are delivered by WasteLessWorks and Adam fastens them to the decks and porches. There are three!!  We deliberate on how to finish them and then decided to just use them the way they are: square bolt marks, paint stripes, burn mark and all. The view of the "Gre...

Tired is lodged between my shoulder blades.   I pick a shovel and one scoop   at a time close up the trench connecting the power from the shop to the shell of our house. Seven hours later I shower and drive Adam to the airport.  He is mostly out of town for two weeks and I have no option but to keep moving.  Every day starts and ends with an impossibly long to do list.    I am woken up Tuesday morning a semi load of insulation being dropped off at my curb.  After work an (unbelievably kind) neighbor and I lug each giant bag of rock wool into the house and pile some in every room - down stairs and up the stairs – until my arms no longer can hug the bags to my chest.   Wednesday night we do the same, but when I try to bear hug the first bag insulation to me I find I can’t carry a single one on my own.   As we round up the corner of the stairs the first time a flutter catches my eye.   An owl is trapped against ...

I climb up and down a ladder moving it across the room as I place lights,  connect and then secure wires.  The smell of paint wafts up the stair case from below, where Adam is staining pine tongue and groove boards for the soffit. The roof is dried in, but not yet roofed. The windows and doors are in.  In spite of reservations and the looming lists of things yet to be done, we commit to our annual river trip. "The kids would never forgive us", we say to each other after bed time. Sylvan paddles his kayak,  Ivory rides with a friend, Adam pushes a canoe with all our gear and I stand a top my new paddle board as we move down river to our over night camping spot.  photo credit:  Joe Nickell I leave my phone in the car. I allow myself the space to not think about anything at all.  I still need to wash towels, and pack away our life jackets and camping things.  The plumbing and wiring is almost complete.  I am waiting on the pho...

The bright light creeps into the ceiling vent in the back end of the bus. We heat water for coffee on the picnic table.  I sheepishly greet the crew of workers that show up as I shuffle through the yard in my slippers and pajamas to grab half and half from the fridge in the garage. The summer work weeks are broken up by a weekend trip down the Bitterroot Valley. Logger Days in Darby Montana Jumping High at Logger Days Jump Jump Jump No Hands Water Melon Eating Contest Cooking Dinner under the Big Sky The days are marked by stops at the river, impromptu back yard slumber parties, movie marathons and games of hide and seek have expand to cover the whole block.  We pick huckleberries, cherries show up in our CSA delivery, the apricots on our tree are sweet and juicy,  the plums are turning red but still hold firmy to the tree. It is the first time this tree has fruit.  Red Plum Surprise!! I am reading our way through the stack of...

I brush a cobweb from my hair and bag up remnants of old insulation bats.  They are damp from a week of rain and no roof.  I pull the trash bag behind me, through the shallow space, under what is left of the original house.  A giant spider scurries up a wooden post.  I pause to watch. Last Picture of the Old House!  After the frantic final boxing up of everything we own, the roof came off and the walls came down (courtesy of Heritage Timber ), and we relocated into 200 square feet (?) of a school bus.  It seems sudden, but years of planning and saving might just be reality. Decon in Process There is no going back now. We are a month and a half into our remodel/rebuild and the walls are going back up.  I dance around the a space that looked good on paper, and feels even better. The walls of the Laundry Room, open space of the dining room, viewed from the kitchen.   I'm wishing I had remembered to put on sunscreen. The t...

I braid one thin braid after the other and secure the ends in a rainbow of hair bands carefully selected and organized. The motions seem like right of passage and it is officially summer break. We are on the tail end of a whirlwind road trip, moving down the highway at moderate speed.  We took the converted school bus we are currently living all the way to Niagra-on-the-Lake and back.We are rolling along, somewhere between the east and west boundaries of South Dakota. We cooked dinner while the day darkened and the stars emerged in the sky. We drove and drove and drove as we put the jagged peaks of the rocky mountains behind us and the landscape became flat then then the plains grew to hills and mountains and water.  The lush green of a deciduous forest, ferns and flowers all around us.  Somewhere along the way our bus gained a name - meet Alice. The dense vegetation broken by ponds dotting the landscape, the intermittent water become vast a...