Negotiation With a Local

It’s early in the morning and early in April. At 7:20, the sun has just cleared Tunbridge Hill and flooded the house with long shafts of light. These mornings, the valley trees present tiny lines of light spilling in all directions: each twig is covered in rime and lit by the new sun. Though the fields are still socked in with snow, and the isolated living room I don’t heat is only 56 degrees, I nestle comfortably in here because of the sun’s strong warmth. Beauty is more than what the eye beholds.

We bought a farm trailer this past week, one to pull behind the tractor for manure and such. Here is how it happened:

Brookfield is the next town north, an idyllic dirt-road village with a floating bridge and a great restaurant. A mill pond and its waterfalls and streams flow right through the village. Funky old Vermonters’ crumbling houses sit across the road from new-comers’ revitalizations such as ours. Driving through a month ago, I spotted a rusty old trailer with “for sale” on it buried in the snowpack. Saw another one, too, still mostly submerged. So I approached the house, an enchanting cottage, picket-fence surround, sitting by a stream, little footbridges and all—and stepped onto a rotting porch with two grimy doors. I peered in one and saw jumbles of junk, and chickens milling. I boldly knocked on the other. An old woman shuffled across a wooden floor that had not seen a wash or polish in decades, and opened the door, vacant-faced. I asked about the trailer and she still stood there. “Leonard!” she called weakly, then stepped aside. I saw a brown, gray interior, a round old table heaped with newspapers. On dingy floral wallpaper hung a print of Old Dog Tray, and the obligatory picture of a country lane tilted on its nail. A tabby cat made for my ankles, purring importunately. A tall old man, somewhat toothless, appeared. “$400,” he told me, and “t’other is $600.” He said there’d been a man lookin’ at it t’other day, a rich guy, liked to throw his weight around, and—well I could see he didn’t want that guy to get it. I said we’d come back when the snow had melted off them some more.

Last week we drove up to Brookfield again. We were able to tromp right around the trailers. Mark bent down to peer under the better one and suddenly righted himself, saying, “I’m done.” He was excited—he saw hydraulics. It was a dump-trailer. You know, the little boy’s dream. Bbbbb---dump! And out falls the cargo. We seek out Leonard, who emerges from a horrific barn. Mark tried to talk him down from $600 and Leonard said, “That was Mom’s husband’s. Was the trash man, y’know, took people’s trash to the dump. It’s a good one. I offered the two trailers to t’other guy yesterday for $1500.” Then he looked at us silently. The math didn’t add up. It was drastically in our favor. I said I’d be back with a $100 deposit. We scuttled away feeling guilty. What would happen when I came back with the check? Would he have realized his error? Should I point it out?

When I returned, it was 8:00 at night. The old woman, long white hair falling, answered the door and stood silently. “I’m here for Leonard,” I said. Once again she stepped back and this time she smiled very sentiently. “Leonard’s got to get up for work now anyway, I’ll wake him up.” Leonard emerged in the clothes he’d slept in and coughed, a deep, alarming cough. He spluttered, “Yep. Gotta go to Castings [Vermont Castings wood stove factory]—night shift-- Mom here always gets to stay home.” He cast a little grin at the old woman and I was shocked. The poor man was son, not husband. But he looked so old! Anyway, he gave me a friendly smile and took my check with an air of contentment, saying he could deliver the thing in a week. I can only conclude that he never wanted that rich guy to get the trailer, and wonder what the rich guy did to lose such a good deal.

Note: It’s been a couple of weeks, and Leonard still hasn’t delivered the trailer. Are we really the elect who got the good deal? Stay tuned.

Shab-busters get started

Hello, friends,

Once again I want to thank you for your interest. When anything takes this much of some people's resources of time, money and soul, it's pleasant to know that, on some level, other people think it might be worthwhile.

You have seen the shabbiness, and now things are going to get better. The River House renovation is what we call a gut-rehab--isn't that an ugly phrase? Evocative, though, of what the old place is going through...
Photo #1: we're just getting started. It's July 7th and this is the south side. Can you see the stone wall in front? That was the foundation on that side! Shaky to say the least. You see the lower south wall is ripped out; the upper part will be torn off, too, after a while. The south wall is where the radical changes will take place.

Next one shows more guts spilling, that old stone wall strewn--good flat stones, though, wealth of a sort: we'll use them for garden paths. And, see, the house now is supported by a big steel beam, and the big gap that will become our basement yawns below it--I can imagine a fair amount of nervousness on the house's part. Unlike at Dragonback, the digging was a breeze, no rocks and soft, pliable dirt. Service with a smile from the Ice Age, which left those soft deposits in mounds dotting the valley.

#3 Here is the kitchen screen door, overlooking another chasm where the east porch once was. The shab-busters (that's us) called for the elimination of that porch, too, except for its salvageable roof. Porch'll get rebuilt. It was where we ate, on weekends all May and June, while reclaiming the farmland. (That one word, reclaiming, encapsulates a world of sweat and flowers and excitement.) It was strange to find our outdoor kitchen/dining room reduced to a six-foot pit. This was the period when you couldn't actually get into the house using any door. Board-ramps over chasms were the rule.


#4: The view south, looking out from about where the kitchen island will be, through what will be the sunspace. What's left of the old house? Not much at this end. This end didn't deserve preservation. Good riddance. How satisfying to see, instead, the wide opening to the sun and the land beyond. The builders got to this point in about a week, amazingly quickly.Since this blog allows only four pictures here, I have created a little album for you to see....And will write again pretty soon. Now I have momentum.

Love, Josie

What Were We Working With?

November 11, 2009

Hello, friends!

What were we working with? This entry from June reminds me:

“So we flung out a net and captured a house, last remnant of a large dairy farm in the valley. No barn, but some interesting ruins. Now we have to tame it, overgrown mess that it is—not unruly, rather it just sits there inert, gently crumbling, passively resisting self-preservation, consorting with leaks and rot and the forces that cause them. Mark and I were intensely active all winter and spring, learning about old houses, designing, probing, deciding—Mark engineering like mad. The photos I hope will accompany this posting should give you an idea of the challenge.

First, we drove up there repeatedly all the cold winter, clambering over a wall of snow and ice that consistently fell off the roof in front of the door (example of need for engineering solution). Walked through gloomy rooms trying to figure out what we had bought. The house kept getting bigger to me. The sun of early spring melted feet of snow off the foundation and roof revealing resplendent shabbiness pretty much everywhere. In April, we brought in four builder finalists (result of extensive search and network effort on my part, looking for green builders). They were remarkably consistent in their reaction. “Yup,” they’d say grimly, tramping through the upstairs after taking in the first floor, “Yup. Lotta work.” We still say that. We chose George White of Tunbridge, the next town. A gentle man in his early 40’s, he’s a musician and a reader and grew up on Cape Cod with the children of John Todd, found of the New Alchemy Institute and one of the cradles of sustainability. He loves and understands old houses.

The house is plain white, with a sturdy, well-built original rectangle facing east/west, built around 1850 for someone named Z. Sprague. About 1880, a trendy new addition (an “ell”) was added, pointing south. They threw it up on a ramshackle row of rocks. It gives us the steep gable and porches east (to the river) and west (to the hills). The old part has a cellar that Mark can almost stand up in (not that useful); its floor is damp but it has no sump pump, a good sign. Also good: a cistern gravity-fed from a spring high on the western ridge, so we will have water even when the power goes out. Under the ell lies one of those unpleasant spots called a crawl space.

The kitchen is big and hilarious. Two grimy sinks, one in an island to which pipes funnel hot water, said pipes crossing the floor between sink and stove at an altitude of 14 inches! Both Mark and I have tripped spectacularly over them. Why would anyone do that?

The kitchen boasts a 20-foot wall due south with zero windows in it, just a discouraged laundry area and a rank woodshed.

The previous owners used the dining room as their bedroom. I guess they weren’t afraid of the stuffed animal heads bedecking the living room. Now the rooms are empty and the river shows prettily through the windows. The floors are striped dark and light birch—clearly an 1880 gentrification. One more small room that has the 1850 flooring that I love, 7’ spruce boards, will become the library, a dream coming true. Last and definitely least is one of the rattiest little bathrooms you ever could see. Mark loves to point out the zaniness of the toilet’s location, right in the middle of the floor. Why would anyone do that?

The second floor has two north bedrooms, slant-ceilinged with the good old floors and doors, one for each daughter or for lots of guests. Another bedroom with a river view will be Mark’s office. An odd, large spot at the top of the rank, narrow stairway (that we will get rid of) will become the bathroom and laundry. Moving south, a fourth, pretty little bedroom leads to an unfinished ramshackle room, with holes in the floor covered by old doors. The due-south wall has one small window. Those two rooms will be thrown together to become our bedroom.”

November: I took glee in posting the ugliest pictures I could find, mostly, because the ugliness is all gone and we are feeling good about it all. It’s been intense, as you will see.

Josie

Next post: What will we do with this mess?

 
 
 
 

The Honeymoon is Over, but We're Still in Love

The white of cascading apple blossoms has replaced the feet of snow at the River House present at my last writing. The demands of the house grabbed me and the month of March and threw me into 10-hour workdays once again (thought those were over); April was financial aid applications, more house and a trip to Italy to see Minnow; May was a labor-intensive talk on our Walkabout last year and a big party here for a host of elegant and charming Kenyans, and now I am free to begin again on the house, but before I do…pleasure time to write about it.

Turns out in order to move ahead on a building project you have to configure the project: write the spec, the specifications, that builders can bid from. That means about 100 heavy decisions, from the insulation materials and wall structure to receive it, to where the stairs will descend to, to good God, the bathtub blocks the window if we put it into that perfect spot if we put the washer/dryer on the south wall and sink on the east...and I can't change those! How many kitchen cupboards will we need? Where will the refrigerator go? And Mark slaving away on the permutations and costs of too many energy possibilities...And a thousand lighter decisions such as what material will surface the kitchen counters.

We relish a saying from our friend Jake Jagel: five will get you one. It means, to get one thing done, you’ve got to do five others to get things organized enough to go at your designated task. Whew. Is that ever true! To tackle how many kitchen cupboards: I measured all the linear storage space we have here at Dragonback and made a chart with what goes on each, what needs to be close to hand, what can be less accessible, and so on. Then I went to the River House and measured all the shelves in the wonderful pantry and where new ones should go. After that, I went to the plans and calculated the space we will have in different kitchen configurations, including a large center island that must still allow space for the sitting area portion of the kitchen and foot traffic throughout. Don’t forget the patterns of cooking—where you stand, how many people will cook at the same time, where you want to face when you do what, and all that work-triangle stuff. I read a whole book about kitchens. Then I took my ideas to Bruce, our architect, who is a volunteer, after all, and not to receive too many demands, and to my enormous relief, he said, “Good!” That was in March, and we got far enough to send out the specification to four builders for bids. I don’t even remember how many kitchen cupboards we said! Starting tomorrow comes the time of REAL decision. And I have rejected Formica countertops, I think, but will the budget allow Vermont slate?

Okay, so we’ve got an increasingly-ramshackle house to transform—beware of “home inspectors”, those creeps you hire to assess the soundness of the construction before you buy. They work for the realtors. (Get one from out of state!) Some key sills and beams and such are kaput. The foundation on the south side, while steady enough to hold up a cute 1880 addition, is not stable enough for a two-story wall of windows. Bring in the jacks and the excavators. And while you’re at it, demolish the kitchen floor down to the dirt. I never liked that mend of a rat-chewed hole anyway (at least that’s what it looked like to me). Tear down all the walls and ceilings on the inside. Get the wiring out, the plumbing out, of course. We are way over our hoped-for budget, and that's when I said "the honeymoon is over."

The big expenses are in what we won't be able to see. What we will see and love are as follows: A two-story isolated-gain sunspace on the south side, with little bistro table for morning coffee, and French doors opening into the kitchen. Kitchen will have a large island with the cooktop on it which will face the sitting area that has two windows toward the river, windows surrounded by shelves for pottery and books. Kitchen also will have a large and legendary Russian stove to cozy up to-- main non-solar heat source for the house.
Dining room will have our current dining room table in a side of the room with three windows toward the river and morning sun and wall space for art. Living room similar. Interesting architectural details will separate the two rooms--designed but not finalized. We'll have a root cellar off the kitchen. The downstairs bathroom will have a tiled steam shower, hopefully as nice as the one we have at Dragonback.
Upstairs we are building a lovely steep dormer on the west side, like the one on the east. It opens up the view to the west from the master bedroom. We are throwing two rooms together to make the master bedroom, which will have both dormers in it plus a not-too-high cathedral ceiling and a glass south wall with a balcony over the sunspace below. A new stairway off the bedroom will go up to a capacious attic for storage. Mark gets an office on the second floor, off of a new hallway with a fine linen closet near the new stairs. Mike's old gunroom becomes a spacious bathroom/laundry with a beautiful heavy fabric curtain in front of the washer/dryer. I'll have a freestanding bathtub. The daughters, to the extent that they are there, will each have a room which will also be guestrooms. Those two rooms have the wonderful, original 7" board floors which will be painted.

I'll write more often now, if I have anything good to share. Demolition scheduled for beginning of June. The photographs for this blog were taken May 19th. If you have read this far, your interest is very touching. I appreciate it!
Josie

The Age of Aquarius

The dawning of the actual Age of Aquarius happened early Valentine’s morning when Mark and I were driving up to Randolph Center for the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Winter Conference, already a happy thing to be doing. I heard the big news on a dance floor on Saturday night--that astronomy had in fact duplicated the calculations of astrology that very day. Naturally we burst into song. “When the moon is in the seventh house….”

We were feeling good, the kind of good that I feel among thinking people with their feet on the ground and their hands in the dirt. Over a thousand people attended the conference. I felt a high to be in such a group, self-selected for character, vision, perseverance, and, thank God, a sense of humor. And a fair-minded sort of humility, too, that underlies the humor. Farming gives rise to so many mistakes and failed experiments that the most capable farmers have, in their time, run the gauntlet of bizarre outcomes enough to dim the brightest pride. But the call of the life on the soil persists. Many of these people have been at it for decades, and now they are masters leading the workshops. Many others, all ages, all hopeful, with the whole gamut of experience, packed the workshops, asking great questions and offering wisdom of their own. I observed an almost- required sense of egalitarianism: rural Vermont culture has matured beyond the strutting, long-haired country studs of the sixties and seems to have succeeded in internalizing the calls for social justice that have permeated the organic farming movement from the early days. And remember, it's all leavened by humor.

I guess what I liked best, beside the humor and friendliness, was the sense of goals being met, of possibilities envisioned years ago, pursued with discipline, and bearing fruit now like the trees they planted. So there we were, surrounded by some of my favorite forms of beauty: in the landscape all around, the handcrafted food for free, the multi-generational gathering, and the keen exchange of ideas. A conference can be a big party standing on the shoulders of substantial ideas-exchange, and that’s what this was. The old solar conferences were like this, too. Both groups have given me a sense of home, of being in the right place: a values-rich environment of capable people to inspire me.

Another reason for my satisfaction was the validation I felt for seeking out Vermont as a place to finish fulfilling my dreams. As someone in the NOFA newsletter said, summing up nicely my motivation for placing myself in the heart of that state:

“Vermont is now a leader in the localizing movement, which is the antithesis to corporate capitalism that subsumes entrepreneurial small business. Vermont is now a leader in educational programs that directly engage children in eating organic local food at lunch and connecting with local farmers. Vermont is a haven for people who seek to live closely with the land, in large part because there is now a firmly established culture and infrastructure that nurtures such individual efforts, both in markets and in personal lifestyle choices.

Today, in the midst of an awaited meltdown of the consumer-driven economic model, I am not anxious. I am living connected with people who understand the value of direct hands-on self-reliance while sustaining community interdependence. Instead of worrying, I am fascinated to participate in the evolution of humans, because the needed change has been long underway here and the future is hopeful.”

Sounds a little like the Age of Aquarius, doesn't it? Mark and I say, "We'll take it."

Love, Josie