pic­ture this

To think that 72 hours ago, this was my view… of the increas­ing­ly dilap­i­dat­ed nature of our out­build­ings at Red Gate Farm.  We have our sum­mer’s work cut out for us, repair­ing the chick­en house and wood­shed.  We left in a flur­ry of laun­dry, scrub­bing up the house so it will be wel­com­ing to any guests who might want to use it as a retreat over the win­ter and spring.  It always seems so hard to believe sum­mer will ever come, when we leave behind a crunchy lawn, a frozen brook.

Before that brook thaws and fills with its sum­mer fam­i­ly of tad­poles and min­nows, we have six months of life in Lon­don to accom­plish.  We are back “home,” firm­ly ensconced once again in the famil­iar house, sur­round­ed by friend­ly cats who missed us ter­ri­bly.  I am hap­pi­ly again cook­ing with my beloved Aga whose con­stant source of warmth is a mas­sive kit­ty-mag­net this win­ter season.

After two days of Recov­ery By Nap, Avery is back at school, how­ev­er reluc­tant­ly, and I have spent two gru­elling days at Lost Prop­er­ty, deal­ing with the dozen or so bags of girls’ belong­ings that the staff some­how unearthed over the hol­i­days.  Girls streamed in and out, exclaim­ing over beloved objects not seen for months, sigh­ing in dis­ap­point­ment at the sin­gle shoe that has not turned up, the house­keys they are des­per­ate not to con­fess they’ve lost, the Chem­istry notes need “right now for a test!”  They sign out the belong­ings they find, in a mean­ing­less lit­tle fold­er designed to make them take their respon­si­bil­i­ties a bit more seri­ous­ly.  I know I’m not in Con­necti­cut any­more when I read their names: Ara­bel­la, Pop­py, Flo­ra, Astrid, Pip­pa.  I love Eng­land, and I love Lost Property.

The suit­cas­es are unpacked of all their Christ­mas trea­sures, the hol­i­day feel­ing a mil­lion years away, a dream.

Our last days at Red Gate Farm WERE like a dream, filled with vis­its from friends, vis­its to friends, for­ays into puzzle-solving…

John’s mom, back home in Iowa, mir­rored us with her puz­zle, one of my presents to her this Christ­mas, a gift only a grand­moth­er could love.

It is hard to imag­ine our last peace­ful, beau­ti­ful week of hol­i­day with­out pic­tur­ing a cam­era, or two, in Avery’s hands.  John gave her his old Leica for Christ­mas, then togeth­er they bought anoth­er cam­era and a macro lens to go with it.  But since these cam­eras depend on actu­al FILM, I have to wait to show them to you until they are all devel­oped.  Who would have thought the world would go back to film?  Still, I have the results of her exper­i­ments with my cam­era.  She was in heav­en, walk­ing the prop­er­ty with her dad, find­ing mag­ic in the details.

She has such a won­der­ful eye!  Even a hum­ble bro­ken-down ham­mock achieves beauty.

The lit­tle stone pup­py who spends the win­ter on the pic­nic table, with his chick­en friends, has new dignity.

The hydrangea tree, always lus­cious and cel­e­bra­to­ry in sum­mer, and draped in rare Christ­mas light dur­ing the hol­i­day, became a sort of sculp­ture, with the barn as background.

There was one sun­set I will nev­er for­get.  The three of us walked all around the house, look­ing at the pink, vul­ner­a­ble-look­ing sky with wonder.

Nor­mal­ly I race through my day with­out tak­ing the time — at that moment — to appre­ci­ate what I have.  For once, though, that sun­set evening, I looked at my stal­wart, gen­er­ous hus­band teach­ing our beau­ti­ful daugh­ter to share his pas­sion, and felt hap­py.  Right then.  I know I’ll nev­er get enough of them, but that evening, I tried.

The most won­der­ful part of the over­whelm­ing, exhaust­ing, exhil­a­rat­ing hol­i­day was hav­ing so much time with Avery.  I know the clock is tick­ing on her time in our house — we spend a lot of time talk­ing about uni­ver­si­ty these days — so it was a lux­u­ry like foie gras or a beach vaca­tion, to have her around all the time.

We had one last lunch with dear Jill, Joel and the girls at their local din­er (where the wait­ress says, “Hey, Jane and Mol­ly!  Hap­py New Year!”), and luck­i­ly Avery had her super cam­era with her.

It is impos­si­ble to believe that we will miss six months of my nieces’ lives before July rolls around.  How they will have changed and grown!  Jane will be the age Avery was when we bought Red Gate Farm.

Life goes by so quick­ly that I real­ly can’t think about miss­ing so much of Jane’s and Mol­ly’s.  Where did this lit­tle Avery go, anyway?

Nor can I think too much about leav­ing Red Gate Farm behind.  Will we ever see it in the spring or fall again, or only in the intense months of sum­mer and winter?

Anne, David and Kate came along for a bril­liant bagel brunch — Kate’s first bagel! — and a nice long chat, for the first time dur­ing the hol­i­days.  Some­times I think we are too ready to let our inter­ac­tions with our beloved neigh­bors to be short and sweet, with the lux­u­ry of hav­ing them across the road.

It’s a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent mood to sit in the sun­shine — with dusty motes show­ing just how hard it is to keep that house clean! — and real­ly dis­cuss pol­i­tics, life, Avery’s upcom­ing sum­mer pho­tog­ra­phy camp, child-rais­ing, how much screen-time is too much for a three-year-old.  No one has ever tak­en Avery more seri­ous­ly as a real per­son, since she was sev­en years old, as Anne and David.  Their spe­cial brand of respect for her is irre­place­able, and Kate’s total devo­tion not to be for­got­ten.  We were hav­ing too much fun even to take a picture.

By this point, the last day of our hol­i­days, I was in such a state of hap­py exhaus­tion that I almost skipped my last bell­ring­ing out­ing.  “Don’t do it just to prove it can’t defeat you,” Avery advised, but I could­n’t help it.  So often I do not want to go — it’s hard and scary and intim­i­dat­ing — but I am nev­er sor­ry when I do.  It was a bril­liant after­noon of bell­ring­ing in Brew­ster, against the back­drop of anoth­er beau­ti­ful sunset.

That place has giv­en me a great deal of hap­pi­ness, as have the peo­ple with­in it.  Are all bell­ring­ing enthu­si­asts as sim­ply wel­com­ing as I have found?  Watch­ing the real­ly good ringers try a “Lon­don Minor” was com­plete­ly intim­i­dat­ing. Never!

One last sup­per in my farm­house kitchen

The Ulti­mate Burger

(makes three)

1 lb bison mince

sprin­kle of Fox Point Seasoning

ripe toma­toes, sliced

red onions, sliced

avo­ca­dos, sliced

dol­lops of blue or goats cheese

dol­lops of cre­ma di car­ciofi e aglio (creamy arti­choke and gar­lic dip)

hand­ful rocket/arugula leaves

3 eggs

toast­ed whole wheat rolls

In a very hot skil­let, fry the burg­ers to your desired lev­el of done­ness.  At the end of cook­ing, place cheese on top of burg­ers.  Pile every­thing onto the wheat roll, then fry eggs (again, to desired lev­el of done­ness) and top burg­ers with eggs.  Sup­ply vast num­bers of napkins.

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 Of course this burg­er will ben­e­fit from the egg’s being plucked, as ours were, warm from under the hen owned by the cou­ple who adopt­ed lit­tle Jes­si­ca the kit­ten two sum­mers ago and giv­en to us with love.  I can’t promise any oth­er egg will taste the same.

Now it is time for me to con­coct an Avery-less sup­per as she spends the evening with friends, this cold, grey Jan­u­ary Lon­don night.  Hap­py Fri­day the 13th!