A Little Red Flag on the Fourth

We agreed that it seemed like a good day to put up a new mailbox. The Fourth of July. A country road. A new place we would build together. It's about the farthest thing from a new independence... acres to look after, a ramshackle house to put back together, animals to be tended. But that's what it felt like. A fresh start. And while we are five miles from a shopping mall [what isn't anywhere near Atlanta?], we felt as though we had thrown everything into our wagon and were setting out to a new frontier.

So, although it wouldn't actually be ours for several more weeks, we put in our new mailbox. It may not seem like much to most, but it made us feel, well, planted.

A Fireside Chat

The first kitchen fire

Our farmhouse has two fireplaces. The first, in the 'hall' portion of the house [the living room today], was built of native stone in 1843. The flue is large enough to stand up in, if you want a head full of soot. The second, in the kitchen, was rebuilt at some point, probably in the 1950's, after the original fireplace was damaged. While we believe the interior hearth and surrounding stones were reused from the original, this fireplace is otherwise modern, with firebrick and [badly] veneered stone over cinder block on the exterior. We'll get to that one day.

To be honest, the fireplaces helped sell us the house. When we would spend long hours discussing our imagined future here, roaring fires in these fireplaces and thoughts of fall and winter nights illuminated by the dancing flames were always mentioned. The kitchen fireplace, too, would have been a working one. That is, used for cooking and warming bath water in addition to providing light and heat. It was our great hope that it might function like that again.

Thankfully, the long, hot, sweaty and somewhat dangerous work of two men over two days has restored our beautiful fireplaces to working order and our once-blurry hope for their continued use has focused into a clear reality.

On Saturday, September 1, we had our first fire in the kitchen fireplace after celebrating our 10-year anniversary. It was the only light in the room. And, once again, the flickering light spilled from the windows across the yard. Just as it did in 1843. We installed a crane for cooking over the fire, too.

So y'all stop by, one cool fall night, for some fireside company and some homemade cornbread, 'hear?

The Rest Will Follow

It's not a farm, really, without a fence. There must have been a few here but nearly all evidence is gone now. We still have a rusty, leaning, wire fence that cuts through the pasture but it's not too old. It once supported a grapevine but it was relieved of that job when the privet and hickories and a hundred other volunteers grew large enough to provide a higher, wider perch for it.

We liked how the pasture rolled lazily from the road up to the house and paused, perilously close to slipping down the wooded slope in back. It was so open. But the dogs live here, too, and they are notorious for making bad decisions when squirrels or cats are involved. And then there are our imaginary sheep and donkeys and goats. They will be real enough next year and they'll need all the protection we can offer.

Norman Vincent Peale once said "Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow."

Well, now the dogs have room to roam. Safely. And while the livestock aren't quite secure yet, they aren't actually real yet anyway. So there's time for that. The pasture stops now, just north of the house but there is still a little eddy of it off to the side so it's never too far away. There's a bell to ring by the new farm gate, too, so we'll know when you come by to visit.

So now we have a fence. And we've already thrown our hearts over it. The rest, then, will certainly follow.