Good Weather?

Here's to hoping for good weather next week! Our excavator is planning to start on the driveway and dirt-work, and we are anxious for a good start. The last two days this week have been great-- Sunny days in the 50's, although cold at night. Right now, the weather reports look good for Monday, but the rest of the week may not be so good. We'll see.

I had lunch with David Van Houten yesterday. He and his wife Margaret build nearly the same Old School Saltbox last summer, and had a very good experience with the builders. David and I have been meeting every few weeks, and he is a great resource. He just gave us a pile of lighting and bathroom fixture catalogues for us to persuse. Believe me, I think that is the most overwhelming part of the process right now. There are literally THOUSANDS of choices. We are looking for very good quality but lower priced solutions, but it is very hard to decide which choices are right.

I've posted here a photo of the view from our homesite. This view is to the north, overlooking Willoughby Gap (A glacial lake in the Northeast Kingdom). We own 15 acres, purchased from my Grandmother, which is adjacent to her farm. This land was not part of the original Wall farm, but part of the old Jones farm. It was purchased by my family in the late 90's when Alma Jones moved into a nursing home.

The roof of the old Jones homestead can be seen in this photo. It, along with 200 acres, was originally known as the "Butternut Farm" in the early 1900's, and is currently owned by Chuck Fergus and Nancy Brown, two writers from Pennsylvania.

To Loralee and I, the homesite is a very special place, old hayfields bisected by a spring-fed stream. The northern half is still hayed by a local farmer, while the southern half, reached via an old fieldstone bridge, is slowly regrowing into hardwoods. 3 sides of the property have remanants of stone walls, those bones that were once painstakingly hand-cleared and are now sinking back into the earth. Cat-tails and moose-wood grow in the swampy southeast corner, which is criss-crossed by game trails. The peaceful, soul-soothing character of the land enables me to embrace the term 'sacred space' when describing it.