A Homestead Birthday, Part 1 of 2

It was a long week.  I had my final birthday containing a thirty in the name.  Work was work, complete with an 11th hour 3rd party licensing mix up that put a gaggle of end users out of commission for 25 minutes but, apparently in end user terms, was similar to killing all of their puppies and kittens as once, by hand.  With their weeping and gnashing of teeth droning on with each phone call I gladly stepped out of the office for a 3 day weekend.  I spent a few hours with some men from our church and then headed to the homestead Thursday night.  I pulled onto my land just a few minutes after midnight to a concert of coyotes and under a blazing white moon.  By that time, all traces of the week had faded away into peace.  I lit the fire with my flint and steel.  I rolled out my sleeping bag under the stars.  As 1 am approached I drifted to sleep by the flickering fire.  All was well once again.

About 715 I rolled out of my bag to a bank of coals that gladly accepted fresh wood and turned it to fire once again.  By 9:30 am I was finishing the last sheet of decking that had gone 2 weeks with just a hand full of screws.  With the decking complete I turned my attention to that tree from back in the fall.  You may recall that I had dreamed of converting it to lumber for my counter tops.  Further review of it's massive size and foreboding weight coupled with a realistic assessment of my chainsaw skills led me to determine that it would make lovely firewood too.  So I set about bucking it into manageable pieces for drying and splitting.  I kept an 8 foot section of stump that may become a bench.  It has all the mass of a 72 Oldsmobile and, as such, will spend the rest of it's life in close proximity to where it sits now.  I suspect that after I cut it down to a bench it can be moved 20 feet or so by me and 7 or 8 of my buddies.

By now it was 1130.  I was exhausted and looking over at the trees I had previously cut for raised bed gardens.  I tried to move a few of them alone and, given their refusal to cooperate, was beginning to think that perhaps the working portion of the day was about to yield to the napping portion when I heard a vehicle approaching down my road.  Now keep in mind, in the year and a half that we've owned this land I have had 1 uninvited visitor when a local on his 4 wheeler wanted to introduce himself.  It's that remote.  So when I looked up and saw my buddy waving from the cab of his truck it was a double surprise.  He drove 3 hours, one way, just to say 'happy birthday' and because he remembered I wanted to build raised beds.  That, my friends, is amazing.  Armed with his chainsaw and enthusiasm we set about clearing some downed timber and blocked out 3 raised bed gardens.  I know I've said it before but it bears repeating because each time I think about it I feel wealthy.

As I get older I am taking delight in relationships over things, time over money and the building of deep friendships with men I respect above all other things.  Time spent in the woods with a buddy running chainsaws and throwing trees is rewarding and fulfilling like few other things can be.  It's even more valuable when I know that he drove nearly 6 hours round trip just to work for 5 hours.  As the sun began to set he headed home to be a dad and husband again and I was richer for the time we had spent.

Now, this story could easily end here.  I had worked on the cabin floor, cut trees, stacked wood, cleared brush and blocked out gardens.  That was quite a day of work but it was just Friday.  But, as good fortune would have it, we had a camp out planned Friday night with some friends and their families.  This would be the largest gathering at our land and was something I had dreamed about ever since we bought it.  The weekend was just beginning.

But that, my friends, sounds like a blog for another day;)