First week
We’re here!The ecstasy is setting in. We deliberately planned to spend several days NOT zeroing in on any projects (very tough to do-required a strong intention), just arriving, adjusting, recalibrating, and observing. We didn’t want to barge in with ideas and impose them on the property, but to plan with and around what presented itself here. So we walk around looking at stuff and talking about it, and making many lists.The place is crowded with life of all kinds- birds and rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks and porcupines and owls and hawks and snakes and coyotes and bald eagles and maybe a lost or feral tabby cat. It’s a little awing. Everywhere one steps or moves someone might already live there or be using the territory. I feel awkward moving in, like excuse me, mind if we just budge in here?Besides the tumbledown structures, everywhere there’s work to be done, work to balance and assist and improve the ecology. Lots of areas in the forest are choked with one type of tree, the fruit trees are struggling in overgrowth, and piles of debris are cluttering up corridors. There’s a ton of work.
H.W. can’t resist some manual labour, so he’s started to take apart the collapsed barn and also haul rock in the wheelbarrow from the nearby mine site gravel pile to reinforce our access road/“driveway”. I dug out a rotten culvert and built it up and “bridged” it with big stones so it will endure being driven over without further collapse.Also he’s been exploring on bicycle in all directions from the former rail trail and unmaintained road that form two of our boundaries. He’s over the moon-ecstatic about the possibilities, and the wildlife. In all directions, woods and wetlands and animals, and adventures. So he’s off on his bike every evening, happier than I’ve ever seen him.The air is incredible -truly fresh (as H.W. says, “the tress just made this oxygen”), and . The weather has been lovely- the beginning of summer, with days full of warm sun, smatterings of rain. Some days clouds are constantly coming and going overhead, but they keep it moving. The trees are just popping leaves and buds.
Our sleep pattern has adjusted so quickly. Seems instant. Asleep at dark, awake at light. Amazing how fast it happens without artificial light.The change in me has come on fast! I feel relaxed, I feel safe, my energy is returning, and that knowing that everything is working out the way it should and is right and whatever happens is right and ok - that’s back. It’s been gone for so long. My headaches are decreasing and my skin’s improved- everything feels better. Like plants. Slow if you sit to watch them grow, miraculous if you watch them over a few days.We’re home.