To the trained ear...

To the trained ear, there is much to hear.

When we lived in the city, we were immune to certain sounds like airplanes, buses and barking dogs [though we knew each dog in the neighborhood and if it was a bark to get back inside or to taunt the person walking with a stroller along the sidewalk outside their territory]. We followed the understood protocol to ignore the sounds of neighbors' voices in their yards, over the fence or on decks that overlooked our yard. The 'click-clack click-clack' of the light rail train sounded like a large clock ticking somewhere down the street, magnified in the winter when the leaves had fallen. The elementary school bordered our back property line, and the squeals and voices of kids on the playground, soccer field or bus stop were part of the sweet blur of city sounds. Even our chickens seemed to chatter in more subdued tones and find their place in the tapestry of sound around our little piece of paradise... the two yard fountains served as soothing vehicles to let the surrounding blend of noises just wash over us. It was never a cacophony of unpleasant sound; it was the way you live in a city when you are part of a great community with wonderful neighbors, a hive of active lives.

Moving to the country created a pleasant opportunity to retrain our listening skills. I grew up in the country in South Georgia on a tobacco farm but have been a city dweller for about four decades, so the transition for me was like seeing old friends after a long time and realizing how much you have missed them. I suddenly was able to recall the homecoming sounds of the whippoorwill, the yelping of the coyote [and being able to decipher the leader of the pack's bark from the rest of the pack's affirmation yelps], the owls... oh, the owls! It is a wonder to hear the parent owls teaching a newbie how to hoot the sound of their species... and during mating season it's a marvel to hear the males wooing the ladies with such serenades!

In the city, we could not have birdfeeders because there were too many rodents [think 'rats'] that would hang out under the feeders, smoking discarded cigarette butts, waiting for the seed to fall while taking a break from trying to find a way to the chicken feed! Here, we have bird feeders that attract so many different types of birds, and it is wonderful to sit on the front porch and see how different feathered friends 'negotiate' their way to a feeding station... each with a different sound for friends versus a sound to challenge the glutton who will not let the others take a turn at the feeder.

At the end of the summer, some city friends ventured outside the perimeter for a BBQ and some cool libations at The Plough. As we sat outside in the boxwood garden, one of them asked if we enjoyed 'that deafening chorus' of crickets. Of course, we love the concert. We told them how to differentiate the different songs between the crickets, cicadas and tree frogs. They looked at us as if we had unlocked some mystical portal to becoming 'whisperers' of nature. It's really not a mystical gift at all; it's the simple investment in knowing and listening to your surroundings. With a trained ear, you can learn a lot about the life unfolding and closing all around you, be it early morning when the first birds take flight or at dusk when the bats chase their meals against a backdrop of sounds that rise and fall with the crescendo of noises made by animals that roam their world in the country. It's a great symphony that somehow washes over you... and makes you smile.

Grow Where You're Planted

Inexplicably, I read the Travel section of The New York Times first on Sunday mornings. I like to travel. Or, rather, I like to be somewhere else. It's the preparation that I dislike. Anyway, I sit down with that section before any other.

This morning's paper had an article about Norman Rockwell's New England. I have lived in Atlanta for 42 years. I will never be a native, as the natives remind me, although I have been in Atlanta longer than most anyone I know. My very early years, though, were spent in the Mid-West and North-East. Mom and Dad took us to see Plymouth Rock and Sturbridge Village and every iconic New England site you can imagine. Mom, whose taste I have always considered flawless, instilled in me an interest in Colonial and Early American life and furniture. So much so that I consider myself a closet New Englander despite my locale. I love the architecture, the history, the landscape, the food. Everything except the weather. And even that has grown on me.

The article this morning made me long for Mr. Rockwell's home. I love the thought of a village green, the clapboard siding and covered bridges and Sugar Maples of the North East.

After our breakfast of Dutch baby, K and I took our walk to the park right across the street. Arabia Mountain is a monadnock, a great exposed stone mountain.

We have our own, almost private, entrance to the park. A long gravel path leads through acres of Switch Grass and brambles, sapling pines and towering Tulip Poplars. We nearly always see deer and wild turkeys and Coyote tracks. It's about a mile or so to a beautiful lake at the foot of the mountain. We've even seen Otters playing there.

It's gorgeous, really. And we are almost always alone there, though I can't imagine why. It's a perfectly beautiful wilderness.

And this morning, the Red Maples and Sassafras and every other native tree were ablaze with fall color. As pretty as any imagined New England landscape. The lake reflected the bluest sky and the creeks feeding it were clothed in fallen leaves and pine needles. The air was crisp. A perfect morning.

I'm sure that Mr. Rockwell's backyard is beautiful. No doubt there is somewhere in every state to covet. Our walk reminded me how lucky we are to have such an unspoiled landscape at our doorstep. I have nothing to envy.

Thanks, but I'm happy right here.

My Favorite

Say what you will, my favorite plant may be Boxwood.

Of course, ask me that when Gardenias are in flower. Or Tea Olives. Sasanquas in the fall. Lenten Roses in the early Spring. Hydrangeas in the heart of summer. All pretty, to be sure.

But would any of those be my favorite plant when not in flower? Not a chance. No, none have the presence or the personality, of Buxus sempervirens.

Predictable, you say? What's the problem with something that always looks good? Boring, you suggest? Reliable, I reply. But there's no color! No flower! No interest!

Go find your own favorite plant and leave mine alone.

The first Boxwoods on American soil were planted on Long Island, New York in 1653 at Sylvester Manor. The plants had been shipped from Amsterdam. The house still stands though I'm not sure the Boxwoods remain, never having visited. I have seen a photograph taken of the garden in the late 19th Century. Two enormous Boxwoods flank a white picket gate, each shaped like angry storm clouds, wild and untamable. Cuttings from these first American Boxwoods were spread throughout New England. Perhaps they still live on.

Boxwoods can live 600 years. They are a symbol of immortality, as all evergreen plants seem to be. But 600 years? That's as immortal as I need a garden plant to be.

Some people dislike the smell of Boxwood foliage. To them it smells like cat pee. I rather like the scent, though I dislike cat pee. To me, Boxwood smells like age or history. Like old books or faded cash or forgotten trunks newly opened.

This weekend, K. and I planted thirty American Boxwoods. We had already installed about 40 'Wintergreen' Boxwoods as hedges to define the garden. Those are Korean Boxwoods, though. They are great for hedges but are surely no one's favorite plant. Our American Boxwoods, though, are the punctuation at the ends of the hedges. They anchor our formal beds. To me, they ice the cake.

While they may be only 18" tall tonight, I've found that they grow quickly enough. Before we know it, we will be trimming them into big fluffy balls. I love their Muppet quality. Each seems to have a personality. I love to brush them while walking through the garden. I love the rustling sound of their foliage. I love the dark green color throughout the year. I hope to knock a light snow from their branches this winter.

If asked about my favorite flower or tree or herb or vegetable, I would offer a different answer.

But my favorite plant? Tonight, it's Boxwood.

Ancestors in the Pasture

K., who is part Cherokee, has ancestors that live in our pasture. Well, sort of. The Eastern Red Cedar was, and is, the most sacred of trees to the Cherokees. They have long believed that the Cedar holds the protective spirits of past ancestors. It's interesting that the tree has had holy significance to many people. Quakers marked their gravesites with them and they were also planted, many times, where civil war soldiers fell in battle. I suppose it's their long life and their pungent evergreen foliage that brings immortality to mind. The oldest known Eastern Red Cedar, in Missouri, was estimated to be 795 years old so I can see why they might be so well respected.

It is a noble looking tree. The dark green foliage is evergreen, of course, and to my eyes can look either fresh as the promise of spring or as broody as the bleakest winter day depending on the season, weather or time of day. They volunteer all over in the countryside and don't seem to mind our granite-studded soils. We have many scattered throughout the wooded slope behind the house, including one especially large, dark one that grows despite the shade of it's neighboring Pecan tree. They fare far better in sun. I suppose they come up beneath the branches where birds, who have eaten the berries, roost in the evening. It would seem that no two are identical, a thing that could be said about any tree, naturally. It seems especially true of Cedars. Some are as tall and pointed as a rocket on a Launchpad. Others are as short and contorted as wizened old immigrants made to carry too much for too long.

The Cedar-loving Cherokees were once plentiful here in Georgia. We live in the band of territory that acted as a buffer between them, in the north, and the Creeks who lived, mostly, south of us. This was their land for eons, really, and the expulsion of the Cherokees and the subsequent Trail of Tears, when they were herded west to Oklahoma, is a particularly shameful part of Georgia's, and America's, past. I prefer to think of their time here before they were disturbed by the unstoppable wave of frontiersmen and women.

As I understand the legend of the Cedar in Native American folklore, when the Cherokees were new upon the earth they decided that things would be better if the day wasn't divided into light and dark. They approached the Ouga, their Creator, to banish night and always allow them to live in light. The Ouga granted their request.

Soon, the woodlands grew thick in the luxuriant daylight, so thick that travel became troublesome and paths were obscured by their growth. The unending day became intolerably hot and sleep became impossible. The ancient Cherokees were soon divided by quarrels and fights and life became unbearable.

The ancestors went back before their Ouga and begged that daylight be ended so that they might live always in the coolness of night. And their wish was, again, granted.

The crops failed in the constant darkness. It was impossible to hunt for game in the night. Time was spent in a constant search for firewood. The people were always cold and they grew weak and sick without food and light. Many died.

Those who lived went back once more and begged their Ouga to restore the original order of things, seeing then that it was good. And it was made so. Once again, balance was restored. Crops grew in the light and night provided rest and the survivors grew strong. They were grateful for the Creator and the wisdom of the balance.

The Creator accepted their abundant gratitude but was made sad by so many of the people who had died in the hard times. The Ouga created a new tree, the a-tsi-na tlu-gv, the great Cedar, and in it's evergreen boughs the Creator placed the spirits of all of the ancestors who had perished. Now the Cedar is seen as their very embodiment. The tree is sacred above all others. Some Cherokees still carry a small piece of Cedar in their pocket for protection. A piece of it placed over a doorway ensures that evil spirits do not enter. I understand that pieces of the foliage were scattered in fires burned during sacred times. Although the wood was never used as a fuel, it was used for some ceremonial objects such as drums and also for canoes.

In the front pasture, we have a particularly pretty Eastern Red Cedar. It has been growing in morning and mid-day sun for, probably, twenty years. I have read that twenty or thirty year-old trees are suitable for fenceposts. Sixty to eighty year-old trees may be large enough for building timbers or lumber. Ours is well-shaped and symmetrical, like a huge Christmas tree. Noble, indeed, and beautiful in every season.

It's a fitting home for anyone's ancestors and I hope that K.'s are happy in it. I have a new-found appreciation for it and it's long history. And I just might hide a sprig above the front door. You can never be too sure.

... A Field Well Tilled.

I think the worst of our farm-building chores has been the vegetable garden. Perhaps the other Ploughman would answer differently.

The south-east corner of our farmyard was not my favorite. It sloped awkwardly and a large, old Walnut tree leaned precariously over it. The privet leaned over our new fence, dripping, it seemed, ticks. We have Housworth family pictures that show the area more open, sloping gently up to the old carriage barn. Evidently, Ed Housworth had several large bales of cotton that were stored in the barn for decades, he being too stubborn to sell it at the market price. The children would play on them and, I like to think, might have used them as stages for plays or as imagined Western boulders hiding little Indians from little cowboys.

After many plans, we settled on a terraced vegetable gardens with raised beds and stacked stone walls. Easier planning than realizing, as always. With help, soil was pushed and sculpted and removed. The low stone walls were installed. And we were left with a mess of slick mud in the middle of the wettest summers in history. The dogs were dyed the red of Georgia clay. Our beautiful wood floors were a matching hue.

A space can look quite level and be anything but level. Installing the beds and trying to keep them fairly even seemed impossible. We ended up using all of the rag-tag brick and stone left over from excavations and piles of forgotten foundations and pathways. It felt good to find a use for all of it and I feel certain that the Housworths would have done the same, though they may have been slightly less concerned with making anything level.

After several weekends spent on hands and knees, having consumed many bottles of pain relievers and reward-bottles of alcohol, we have our vegetable garden. There are a few nut trees to remove this fall or winter, shading the beds a bit too much for their needs. We'll get to that. The raised beds are full now of fluffy, good soil, awaiting their first cool-season vegetables.

We'll have room for our garlic, brought from Ossabaw Island off Georgia's coast. There is a bed for Asparagus roots, though not the delicious white German Asparagus that our friends, B & M crave. Strawberries will fill one bed. And there are already six Blueberries settling in. Fall vegetables will be arriving at work any day now. With a glass of wine in hand, I can already imagine them in neat rows, ready for cool nights and warm days.

Day by day, we are realizing our dreams for a gentlemen's farm. As with all of our projects so far, the trials and pains seem to dissolve when we stand back and look at what we've built together. Here, at last, is our 'field' well-tilled.

A House Well Filled...

We moved in to our little farmhouse in the third week of February, a year to the day when we nervously dropped off our carefully crafted offer for the place. Now, I'm sure that the staff of The Georgia Trust were giddy that someone had finally taken some interest in the dilapidated farm. It had been for sale for many years. I was sick with worry that our very low offer would be summarily dismissed. What if there were multiple offers? What if they did not like our restoration plans? So much fretting and so much worry. In another four months, after appallingly low appraisals and impossible bank negotiations, it was ours. I'd like to say they handed us the keys at closing but there was just an old combination padlock on the door. If you were too lazy to take the time to unlock it, you could always climb in through a broken window. I'm not sure that the side door even closed all of the way.

Then followed the seven long and trying months of contractors and additional expenses and missed deadlines. We've let all of that go now. A wound well-healed at last.

In the six or seven months we have lived on the farm, I think we've feathered it pretty well. We had been collecting furniture, quilts, oil lamps- well, you name it- since our offer was accepted. And somehow it all fit. The samplers hang next to 'Alma's' chair. The little rocker warms itself by the fireplace. The plantation desks await their next tasks. To us, it looks like we had imagined. It's how we thought it deserved to look, having offered shelter to a family for 170 years.

It's September. And now that the Walnut and Mulberry trees are fading to yellow, now that the sun is traveling lower through the sky and is rising later and setting sooner, now that Summer is waning and Autumn is waxing, there seems to be a bit more time to sit on the porch and recollect all we have been through. The last rays of sunshine get caught in the neighbor's Oak tree each evening. K. likes to sit on the front steps for the show. I light the oil lamps as the day dissolves completely to blue-gray dusk. The birds head to the treetops, the rabbits make blurred circles as they chase one another through the pasture, the deer graze contentedly across the road. The whole place seems to stretch and issue a contented sigh.

This well-filled house is a home again.



Our Walnuts Are Witch-free!

I have heard that in the town of Benevento, Italian witches once danced beneath old Walnut trees with abandon.

Black Walnuts, Juglans nigra, are named after Jupiter, the most powerful of Roman gods. They were also associated with Jupiter's wife, Juno, the goddess of marriage and childbirth. Walnuts were thrown at weddings in ancient Rome. The Roman gods ate Walnuts with gusto while mere mortals were expected to live off acorns and Chestnuts. Oddly, in Romania, a bride would tuck one walnut into her bodice for each year she wished to remain childless. Juno, evidently, was a pretty wise and accommodating goddess.

In the Middle Ages, Walnuts were thought to have even stronger powers. Fevers? Evil eye? Epileptic fits? No problem for Walnuts.

Walnuts hanging in the kitchen bring abundance. In China, good-luck crickets were carried in carved Walnut shells.

Care to dream of a future spouse? Sleep beneath a Walnut tree. Take care, though, Walnuts took a dangerous turn when their habit of staining things a indelible black and their bitter qualities were noted. The same tree that would grant your future-beloved dreams now threatened to kill you in your sleep should you dare drowse beneath it.

Walnut trees were said to draw lightning. A branch could protect you and a tree in the yard would guarantee that a bolt wouldn't toast your homestead.

Walnut trees release a substance, Juglone, that inhibits other plants from growing in their spread. Evidently, Privet is immune. We carried truck loads from beneath our Black Walnuts when we finally laid waste to it before we moved to the farm.

We have many Black Walnuts doting our pasture and skirting our woodland. They seem pretty accommodating. They are happy to hold up our birdfeeders and shelter scores of birds waiting their turn for a sunflower seed snack. They throw a few nuts to the one squirrel we seem to have in the pasture. He carries them to a fencepost to gnaw on until his chin and chest are black with the juice from the hulls.

Last year I spent a long day cleaning the nuts from their awful, bitter, tough hull. For all my work I had about 50 black nuts and was honestly so fed up with the process that I didn't even bother cracking the nuts and picking out the meager meat. K's Dad loves Walnut ice cream. Luckily, he can buy it at the grocer's. Have you tried a Black Walnut? After all of the work, you're left with an almost inedible crumble of dry bitterness.

In any case, our leafy Walnuts shade a corner of our pasture. In Winter, they form a line of dark scribbles, like Japanese calligraphy across a gray sky. They leaf out late. I scratch their bark obsessively, making sure they made it through the winter. In late Spring, they send out tentative leaflets. In Summer, they are cloaked in droopy, green glory. In the evening, after the sun has set, the trees exude a strange perfume. Woody, green, pleasantly bitter. And then, in late Summer, they yellow and drop leaflets one by one. We will soon miss them outside our wavy glass window, their nude, darkly furrowed bark scowling through Autumn's first cool nights.

No, our Walnuts know no witches. That we know of, at least. And our farmhouse still stands, after 170 years of lightning storms, protected by their curving limbs. And we sleep pretty well beneath them. With or without our nightly Walnut snack.

Mary Jane Gets Gypped

Of all of the Housworth family history, this portrait haunts me the most.

Mary Jane Prather, a local girl from a large, prominent family in the Klondike area, married John Milton Housworth in 1861. They moved into our farmhouse which was a gift from John's father and mother, Michael and Lucy.

I spend a lot of time imaging their life here. It was not an easy but it must have been a rewarding one for so young a couple. John would have spent his days tilling the fields and tending crops if he wasn't working a "public job" at the quarry across the road. Mary Jane would have carried water or tended the cows and pigs and chickens. Long evenings would find her sewing and mending. Certainly, she cooked over the embers in the kitchen fireplace for every meal.

They must have been so happy in their new home, just down the dirt and gravel road from their parents' homes. A newly married couple in their own farmhouse.

Shortly. they found they were pregnant. That news would have been both welcomed and feared. Childbirth was a dangerous time for both mother and baby. And when she realized she was carrying twins, she must have felt both panic and pride.

Only one child would survive. A girl. Alma. The very picture of her mother. Striking and square-faced with a determined gaze. Apparently she had her father's blue eyes. She must have been the light in this old farmhouse.

As we understand, the other twin was a boy. And while the story is that the child was buried in a nearby slave cemetery, unnamed, I feel certain that Mary Jane must have whispered his name and kissed his small forehead before he was taken from her.

So John and Mary Jane and Alma would share the peace and quiet of the farm. All the while in the shadow of the Civil War. John enlisted in 1862. He joined Philip's Legion. A cavalryman in Troop F. The years away from the family and his farm would have seemed unbearable at times. For everyone.

His travels must have brought him through Lithonia in the fall of 1863. In the very early spring, Mary Jane found she was pregnant. Twins again. Her husband away and Union troops moving towards Atlanta like an wildfire, huge and unstoppable.

At least the family was close by, to help with the farm and with Alma. Pregnant with twins in the long, hot summer of 1864. The battles of Atlanta began in July and the month of August brought constant bombardment of the city. Even here, 18 miles away, the unending thump and boom of so many cannonballs and so much gunfire would have been unsettling. And then the blue wave of so many foraging Union soldiers ransacking, looting and pillaging. Confederate soldiers anxiously gathering anything and everything, either for their use or to keep from Yankee hands. Often both troops in a single day.

It would have been perfect terror. Pandemonium. A constant parade of soldiers. Conflicting messages about the movement of Yankee forces. Families fleeing. Barns burned. Animals slaughtered or stolen. At some point, bushels of dried corn on our farm were carried into the attic and poured between the wallboards for safekeeping. Valuables were hidden in mattresses. Surely the family would have huddled here, peering from our front window for soldiers. Yankee and Rebel officers would have knocked on our 2-paneled front door, demanding food or shelter or to look for contraband or to gather up family belongings and cart them away. Because they could.

Imagine being in a warzone. Perhaps it's brought to mind from foreign news stories in the paper or on-line. Now picture your very home in the center of it. Terrifying.

On August 4, 1864, with the constant circus of War around her, Mary Jane gave birth to twins. Again, a boy and girl. Again, a child lost. The boy, John James William Housworth, was named for his father and for Mary Jane's two brothers who were lost to the War. There are conflicting stories regarding the baby that died, perhaps she was buried next to Alma's twin in the slave cemetery.

And having suffered through the tumultuous War around her, after maintaining the farm without her beloved, after suffering the loss of her brothers and the tremendous weight of all of the impending change that the War promised, after birthing a son and losing a daughter, Mary Jane died on the same day her surviving son was born.

We have been told by the Housworths that Mary Jane's father built her casket. It would have been loaded in an open wagon. They took her to a beautiful church over in Covington. Her family had belonged there years before. While they passed many other suitable burial sites to get there, we wonder if they weren't looking for someplace away from the marauding troops and constant thumping of the War. The other story of the small newborn? She was placed in her mother's arms in the casket for burial.

In any case, the funeral wagon was stopped by Union forces. Many locals buried their valuables wherever they could so it is not surprising that the troops stopped the family and opened the coffin to look for contraband. Perhaps the family took one last glimpse of the dark-haired Mary Jane and, perhaps, her little baby before the lid was sealed again forever. As a final insult, the troops took the good horse hauling the wagon and traded it for their own battle-weary one before freeing them to the sad task of burying poor Mary Jane in her quiet resting place.

Atlanta would surrender to the constant harassment of Union bombardment in just three more weeks. And Sherman would leave the city on his March to the Sea in early November, passing our farmhouse, now occupied by Mary Jane's stunned and suffering sister, Lou, whose own fiancé had already been killed. Lou's brother, Sam, along with Alma and John J. W. "Buddy", the new baby, remained with her on the farm with, probably, a rag-tag group of displaced siblings.

Mary Jane's childhood and early adulthood were spent within a few miles of our house. Her early married life must have disappeared as quickly as morning fog. The last few months of her life were spent in an uncomfortable pregnancy and the constant fear for her husband serving so far away. And without her husband, she would both give birth and lose another baby before dying just a short time following. I can't help but wonder how things might have changed if she had lived to enjoy her children and the farm as long as she deserved to enjoy them.

Instead, Mary Jane was another casualty of a terrible time. John Milton would return to a changed South, a changed family and a changed history. Changes that were inevitable and, in many cases were long overdue. I can't help but feel that Mary Jane was gypped of so much love and the promise of a quiet life of tender happiness in our little farmhouse.

Lucky dog[s]!

Farm dogs like:

Grass grazing
Stick eating
Frog sniffing
Bird chasing
House wrestling
Dirt snuffling
Chicken following
Hair shedding
Ball catching
Bed napping
Alarm barking
Rabbit pursuing
Caretaker ignoring
Fence patrolling
Grounds exploring
Treat snacking
Guest licking
Rope tugging
Rain absorbing
Country loving
Fireside gazing
Food begging
Sun bathing
Supper inhaling
Nighttime snuggling

A Mighty Small Nest for an Awful Lot of Birds!

Think your house is too small? We have little idea how families used to live.

The house we left behind was under 1,000 square feet. The closets were nearly impossible. Originally a one bathroom with two bedrooms [three if you counted the make-shift, converted-closet that 3 or 4 boys shared], we wondered how on earth a family of nine managed to live in our Decatur bungalow.

True, we have a bit more elbow room out here in the country. The rooms are large. And our new closet? Heaven! But it wasn't always to spacious.

Our little farmhouse [a cabin, really] housed several generations of the Housworth family. But families were, for many, far different than our modern-day experience of what a nuclear family is today. Aunts, uncles, in-laws, nieces or nephews moved around according to who might have room or food or any other resource that afforded some measure of comfort.

The second generation of Housworths that occupied our home consisted of Ed, son of John Milton and Lou Housworth, and his wife, Lula, who lived here with their seven children. Ed's older sister, Alma, lived here for most of her life. Maude, a niece, also lived here as did Barbara, a relative or friend [I'm unsure which... time to call our Housworths-on-retainer, Marvin and Alton. for some clarification]. There were others, too. Family members were passed around like borrowed lawn mowers.

So our 1,200 square foot farmhouse sheltered eleven people for most of it's middle history. Keep in mind, there was no indoor bath or water until 1988. People slept everywhere! The living room housed two beds. Our bedroom would have slept three or more. The guestroom was home to four boys. And Ed and Lula shared a bed in what is now our bathroom. No doubt they slept well when they could! The other room was the kitchen. It would have acted as the only real "family room" and I wish we could walk in to find them all squeezed in there around a farm table near the wood-burning stove, laughing and sharing stories. The back porch, now enclosed and acting as our pantry and "dog room", held buckets of spring water where all would bathe. Imagine!

And no closets. None.

So we wouldn't complain about space now, even if we needed to. The house would have seemed empty to them. And while we appreciate the space, the peace and quiet that it affords us in embarrassing luxury, what I wouldn't give to share that table until we were tired of stories and retired to our own corner of a crowded room, no doubt laughing and giggling and talking long after we should have fallen asleep in the dark country evening. Each room full-to-bursting with family. And a love and familial intimacy that few of us will know and even fewer would want to know because we have come to expect and appreciate and need our space.

I wouldn't trade it for the biggest house in Atlanta.

Finely-feathered now but a bedroom in the past!

Rearranging Things

Armed with some historical information and a bucket of romantic ideas, I thought I had the fabric of this old place all figured out. The documentation said Abraham Housworth built our house in 1843. And, apparently, that's true enough. But using my imaginary moving wagon to arrange their furniture for them, well, that's jumping the gun. We'll never know if he and his family even lived here.

And, sure, his brother Michael bought it from him in 1852. But Michael and his family lived up the road. Did a hired hand live here? A few of his father's slaves? Again, a mystery. So deciding for him which room the kids slept in? A little presumptuous on my part.

I suppose that in-filling these historical facts with my own stuffing hasn't hurt a thing. It hardly matters now to anyone but us and a handful of Housworth families members who might like to keep things straight. Sometimes the cold, hard truths can be even better than my sandcastles, though. Or at least more interesting.

We've been so lucky to have the best encyclopedias about our house that anyone could hope to have. The Housworths have been so kind and generous with ancestry information, family photos, and, unbelievably, recordings of family members recollecting their own lives in the house and in the area. Really fascinating stuff. It's like opening a trunk in the attic and finding a glowing stash of golden coins.

Listening to these people, with their own voices, telling us how it really was [or at least how they remembered it to be] has shaken the little snowglobe I had filled so carefully.

This was a happy home, excepting all of that death and destruction during the War. Overlooking the losses of babies and spouses. Forgetting about hard economic times and failed crops. I mean fundamentally this was a happy family. A family that held itself together through love and necessity through all of those messy things I just glossed over. And I suppose that's what a neatly summed-up history is -  a neat, shiny coat of gloss that hides the real depth beneath it.

The fact that the house was never painted had less to do with my own story, that they had steadfastly refused to change the character of the place, and more to do, probably, with the fact that this was a hard-scrabble life and there was no money to fancy the place up. Things stayed the same because they had to. Seven children and no running water? That's not a choice anyone makes. That's a choice that's been thrust upon you.

It's not to say that they didn't grow up around inconveniences and hard times, like a tree grows up around a stone. They did. And probably enjoyed it a great deal of the time. It's that you really can't make things up because that's how you wanted things to be.

So armed now with a lot more information, I'll try to find some room for a few more of these awesome family pictures. And, while I'm at it, I'll rearrange a few of my preconceived notions.

2013 Bricks...to be continued

The adventure of restoring a 170-year old home is full of challenges, frustrations, surprises and humbling presentations.

There are crooked walls, floors, ceilings and leaning windows that now slant into the wind. There are drafts where the wind will challenge a burning candle, and the source of the draft lies hidden in the wall, floors and ceilings that will never reveal their secrets. Upon close inspection during the cleaning of board by board, one finds a scratch, a carving that spells the name of a little girl that lived in the house over a hundred years ago and a rusted tin flap in the kitchen floor that provided a point of entry and exit for the house cat that kept mice, or worse, out of the precious grains that helped the family live through a cold winter during the Civil War...you close your eyes for a moment to think of that time and wish you had a looking glass into that world, if only for a moment...and realize you live in the looking glass.

The challenges are often in the obvious, a leaking roof, the rotted floor, or the infrastructure things that never had to worry about 'meeting code' decades and decades ago. The frustrations surface when you pull away an floor plank from 1843 or a heart pine board from 1870, only to find dry rot or skeletons of animals that found their final resting place in a warm wall behind the wood burning stove, Better yet, you realize that floors 170 years ago never needed to worry about the weight of a refrigerator, gas range, dishwasher, or refurbished cast iron tub with beautiful claw feet...forget about a washer and dryer. So you must strategically reinforce the floor to support the things that will carefully be integrated (or hidden) into this perfect place that you now call your home.

What you learn through this process is that each setback, each challenge becomes a new layer in the foundation you are building for the future, your future and the future of the home that will also outlive this generation. You know you need to work through the challenges and, just when you get discouraged, you realize that you have just laid another brick in that foundation. The stress makes way for a sense of accomplishment or a feeling that you are one step closer to breathing new life into a wonderful piece of history...a history in which you are now part of the story. That's why we do this; that's why we keep solving the next problem and trying to laugh as we work through the next restoration surprise. The other Ploughman and I now refer to these 'speed bumps' as 'bricks.' We've recently completed the installation of a shake roof like the one that would have graced the house in 1843; it's a fine hat. And the new restoration windows with 9 over 9 lights have been installed to mimic the one remaining window of the original 1843 construction. Through the windows the golden light shines outward to the pasture at dusk, but it looks much like brand new pair of 19th century spectacles through which the house sees the world around it.

As we fix or solve another surprise, we realize we are one step (brick) closer to bringing the 'old girl' back to her glory. It's really an adventure and a love story...one that we stumbled upon on an unintentional drive through the country. Remember: a curving gravel driveway can be a seductive thing...for sure. 

Ploughman 2