I can now sleep sitting up

Alternate titles: "You ain't lived 'til you've done some drywallin'," "The hippies and the Norwegian Bachelor farmers are all the same inside," or "Our creek is COLD this time of year!"

At any rate, we had a marvelous, productive spring break out at the farm. The first weekend and into the week, Chris and his wonderful friend Erik wired the bathroom and Chris, Jay and Erik put up the drywall while I primed, patched and painted the stairway to the basement (which looked like it was about to fall down on someone's head) and painted the barn doors a smashing red hue. On Monday night Jay and I went to the Stone's Throw Tavern in Eau Claire for jazz night. The players, who were very young (post college?) invited Jay to sit in with them whenever he wanted, which was very encouraging. After a small hiatus back in the cities for my book group (The Mighty Oaks) on Wednesday, Jay and I were back at it on Thursday, with the bald eagle greeting us from where he sunned himself in the tree in the pasture.

I've been really wanting to cross-fence the pasture so that Colby doesn't continue his journey to obesity on Mistie-sized hay portions. This, as you might be able to imagine, set Jay and me up for another classic bickering session as we tried our best to sledge hammer posts in to a not completely thawed pasture. Oops. After expending wAAAAAy too much effort on the behalf of this project, with six posts in the ground we decided to take a break and get some more - several are stuck haphazardly in the field just outside of the pasture. So back we went, me feeling mighty smug in my tall rubber boots. Within a few minutes, I stepped through some unfortunately positioned weeds and right in to the creek! I was soaked up to my waist, with my toes squishing inside of my boots. Fortunately this gave us something to laugh about and cut the futile fencing session short. It's been pretty beautiful out here, but not swimming weather yet!

Friday I spent mudding and taping the bathroom drywall, which I have to say went much better than the living room now that I know what I'm doing. You'd think an anal retentive like myself would really enjoy this kind of work but I still hate it. Tedious and detail-heavy. Meanwhile, Jay went to a jazz festival put on the the University in Eau Claire. He got to hear some good music and attended a couple of seminars that really inspired him.

Saturday we got to go to a lunch and community meeting for our area - the Grant Township. The lunch consisted of some mystery meat and barbeque sauce on a bun, beans, chips, the ubiquitous cheese plate, and milk. We talked with Buddy - Bill Beyrer's brother - for a while, and met two very polite teenaged boys who told us about making maple syrup. At the meeting they were discussing a land use plan for the township. One of the things that makes the Grant Township special is that they require plots of land to be sold off in a minimum of 35 acre chunks. This is unique to the county, and to many counties in the state, and is one of the things we love about it. The plan also include protections for the Red Cedar river and the prohibition of commercial businesses and corporations. Six council members fielded questions and explained their survey findings. Many had nitpicky comments about the language of the survey and some were unhappy with the findings and want to be able to sell off smaller pieces of the land. This went on for about an hour, until Jay stood up and introduced us and said that this 35 acre rule played a large part in our decision to purchase our farm and that we were glad to be there. This led to other positive comments.

When the meeting was over, we were mobbed like a couple of rock stars! People were very friendly and thanked Jay for his comments. We were lucky to meet many of our "neighbors" - Bruce and Peggy, who live at the corner of 810th and S, Connie and Bob, who have horses and live several acres northwest of us, and especially Ilene (Bill - or Billy to everyone there - Beyrer's aunt), who lived in our house 55 years ago. She has many stories and can't wait to give us a full history over coffee some time (apparently there was a murder on our road - according to Ilene someone "ended up on the wrong side of a pitchfork!). We also met Scott, who introduced himself as an "old hippie" from the commune down the road and who wore an Oregon Ducks hat (!) Scott invited us to be on the community softball team and asked Jay to join him in a jam session at Colfax' Village Inn (not the chain for those of you who pictured Jay playing his sax for little old ladies eating pancakes). Scott was with "The Bachelor Farmer," as people called him, ancient, stoic, wearing a green John Deere hat, and smoking a cig. We met a real character named Grant Cutting when he yelled to Jay: "Are you the goob who bought the Case place?" and then "Is THAT your WIFE? God DAMN she's a looker!" I might be more flattered if Grant wasn't 75. Grant and Norval Beyrer (Billy's dad, for those of you who are counting) gave us accounts of eating squirrel in our house and spending nights there for a variety of reasons. It seems that many folks in the area have spent a night or two in our place. Grant also estimated that our house was built between 1860 and 1880 - an original homestead. Some other tidbits: The Ojibwe tribes used to live on our land before the homesteaders; our soil is known to be some of the best in the region; the Mornings, who had SIX BOYS, lived there before the Cases. We had a wonderful time getting to know these folks, who have been on this land for such a long time. Generations have farmed here, and I love that.

On Saturday afternoon, I took the horse out for a sunny, fast ride down S and to the swollen Red Cedar before taking W back in a loop. That night, we went to see Tryston perform in Cinderella at the high school. The sets, costumes and music (a live band!) were lavish for a high school show - especially in a small town - apparently quite the community effort with lots of support. In fact the show was sold out when we got there but they let us sit in the bleachers.

Sunday, I painted the outside concrete foundation of the house (white) and weeded and mulched the beds while Jay turned under our beautiful rich soil and applied abundant horse manure to our future garden site under the warm spring sunshine. The bathroom is primed and ready, and if all goes well, should be functioning by next weekend.

On the way home in the car, I slept sitting up for the first time ever. Will this be a trend?

I have felt great excitement for the farm part of this adventure for a long time, but after meeting our community and becoming a part of it this weekend, I'm just as excited for the relationships we'll foster there. Coming back to the cities this time, it felt like we were leaving home.

Love and sprouting tulip bulbs to all-

Charis