Until Tomorrow, Redbarn

Next week, we sell the farm.  My parents' farm, the worn out dairy and cropland they resurrected and recreated as hayfields and pastures, an orchard and a garden. 

The eclectic and eccentric old house that they made even more rambling and shotgun with the addition of a loft, a greenhouse, a kitchen, bedroom, and the combination mudroom and bath that the kids called their own during holiday visits.  The stained glass windows remain as do the antique light fixtures my dad rewired and hung for the third time.  This time it was for good.  The sheds are as clean as century old sheds can be, ready to hold another farmer's machinery or another family's tools.  

At least a year's worth of good dry oak is stacked and under cover.

The sickle bar mower out back which two generations of kids have posed upon stays, even though Ann and Matt would love to have had it on their new farmstead. Same for the Redbarn paving stone Lee brought them for a present from the garden center in Columbia.  But my dad never put anything in the ground without concrete and these will be remembrances from the past for the future in this place.

It has been a lovely place and will be loved again. There's no doubt it is a more fruitful place than when they bought it; my father believed he was merely a steward of the land he was entrusted with. The new owner is a neighbor; he's someone my folks liked and trusted; his parents and grandparents are people we've all known for decades.  The land will be in good hands and the cows will be happy. That makes letting go much easier.

And it's time to let go.  Even all the happy memories from this house, this farm, this land, cannot make it more than an empty shell without my dad's music coming from the shop or my mom's houseplants hanging in the market.  Her flowerpots will be planted by loving hands this spring and cared for by the host of gardeners in our family.  The signs they made for their orchard have come north: "Merry Christmas", "The Old Home Place" "Temporarily Out", "Back in 40 Minutes"and "See You Next Year".  

But it's the last one, written in black Sharpie, that speaks to my heart....

"Until Tomorrow".

'Til then.....

Goodbye to Redbarn

Sundial Days

Sundial at Monticello

Festina lente. (Make haste, but slowly.)

Once upon a time, not that long ago, there was a little boy who was waiting, waiting, and watching, watching from his bedroom window for something big.  This little boy loves big things...especially those with wheels...school buses, firetrucks, garbage trucks, and such. A little boy like this has no problem with multi syllable words like 'excavator' and 'bulldozer' and asks the whereabouts of every pickup on the farm when he visits as if they were beloved relatives he hadn't heard from in awhile.

Dum tempus habemus operemur bonum. (While we have time, let us do good.)

Finally, after a few false alarms...like the rumbling of the school bus at 4:30, his mommy called him to the front door to see the long awaited arrival of his uncles in the big yellow semi truck growling its way up the hill and, with a hiss of the air brakes, parking right in front of his house.

Amicis qualibet hora. (Any hour for my friends.)

A day of picking up, setting down, lifting, sweating, and probably more than a little shoving, and his house was empty of furniture and boxes, lawnmower and garden tools.  Everything left was stashed somehow into the back of two Subarus.  With a blast or two of the air horn and a little time behind the wheel (not long enough for the little boy, I'll bet!), the uncles pulled away slowly.  Next stop....Missouri.

Lente hora, celeriter anni. (An hour passes slowly, but the years go by quickly.)

2016...it happens this week.  All the days of this year: the jolly birthdays, the family travels, the sports cycle of basketballdancebaseballcountyfairfootballvolleyball, the celebrations with cakes, bbq, fireworks, the graduations, the anniversaries, are memories vividly recorded by multiple digital devices and shared over a web of tightly woven family ties.  Like the garden dial, we have measured our sunny hours.  What is past has passed.  It is time to open the New Year and speak truth to another sundial motto, "Use the Hours, Don't Count Them."

Vita in motu. (Life is in motion.)

Not every New Year holds such a new beginning.  Not every family celebrates with a housewarming.  Just a day or two after the parades are over, Levi's favorite semi will hit the road again, pulling out from Hurst Greenery on its way to Kansas City and followed by a caravan of cars loaded to the gills with helpful family members and luggage.  We can't wait to welcome these Hursts back to Missouri, to reduce the hours of "FaceTime" and increase the amount of "face time" at ballgames or birthday parties or cookouts.  Josh tells me he is going to spend the night with Levi, go bowling and play miniature golf...well, maybe not in January!

Altera pars otio, pars ista labori. (Devote this hour to work, another to leisure.)

While Ben and Kenzie put their house in order, the rest of us will celebrate this year ending in six with a long anticipated pilgrimage to Disney World...even Blake!

 Abbie used her most irresistible smile and pleading puppy dog eyes to cajole her grandfather into accompanying her despite his deeply rooted antipathy to theme parks of all stripes.  Never fear, Grandpa!  There is a Florida room facing south with patio chairs and a heated pool in your future...a cup of coffee in the morning...a glass of wine in the evening...and the splashing of your happy kids?  That should compensate for any amount of Disney....

Vivere memento. (Remember to live.)

Who knows what this new year will bring?  No, I'm not going to hazard a guess on the 2016 elections.  I don't believe the National Weather Service has a clue either. Crop prices? Forget it! Not my strong suit. But I'll bet there will be celebrations........and hard work.........thanksgiving and heartfelt prayer........that we will both cheer.... and cuss the Cardinals .....and record every moment of it to hold close to our hearts when the calendar page turns again.

Restore and Renew...

"Every work of art starts out on the progressive path to destruction from the moment it is created. The artist can only hope to delay this time for as long as possible by the judicious choice of materials and their application with a sound technique. When the object passes from the artist's hands he can but pray it will be well looked after." Francis Kelly – 20th century restorer.

a restorer, courtesy Wall Street Journal

 It's that time of year again...time to celebrate ...but time to reflect.  Inexorable time leads me to another birthday and the inclination to hang blessings and losses in the galleries of memory...and the disinclination to do the math. 

 Inexorable: relentless, unstoppable, unavoidable, inescapable.

Young Woman in Blue Reading a Letter by Johannes Vermeer

I always visit the National Gallery of Art while in Washington, DC.  Strolling through the galleries is one way to restore balance, perspective.  Man has been creating art...objects of beauty, reverence, imagination...before time was measured.  And why?  What impulse informs the need to create beauty in whatever medium...glass or marble, paint, wood, ink, or flowers?  I'm no evolutionary biologist, so my answer is simple and worshipful:  our Creator put beauty in man's makeup because He wanted to us to notice this completely-non-bread-and-butter, non-essential-to-survival trait  and recognize it as a clue to His continuing presence and loving-kindness.

Niagra Falls by Frederic Church

In our fallen world, even perfect beauty decays. Our energy and the spark of creative fire can dim from birthday to birthday.  Walking back in time through the galleries from 20th century realists to pre-Renaissance and ancient art is an exercise not just in finding common humanity between centuries, continents, and cultures, but a reminder of how very fragile the thread is that maintains these ancient communications.

St. Paul by Rembrandt

I'm not as old as anything in the West Gallery (modern art is in the East Wing), but having another birthday is a good reason for restoration.  The first quote is as true of the human condition as of artworks: as perfect as we may have appeared to our excited parents, we were on the downhill course when we drew our first breath.  We can eat well, work hard, be loved and be happy, but even these "sound techniques"will but delay and never defeat the decay of time, hurt, and all the other burdens of our fallen lives.

Restored...

But the Psalmist offers another take on restoration and renewal.  And a birthday is the perfect time to sing that song to myself.  I don't expect to be better than new...I don't hope for a fountain of youth. Cleaning a painting makes it brighter, more vivid, and reveals hidden details invisible behind aged grime or botched rehabs.  Restoring an antique makes it whole again...but not new.  We won't regain our original shine...but an inward renewal is rewarded with a right spirit  and an increased appreciation for our day to day walk in our day by day world.