late november sunrise

anticipating house wiring with snake and conduit 

   Here's a very short blog post I've been wanting to post for a while. It's about a small, personal triumph.
   The weather has finally turned cold. But at this time of year, a remarkable effect warms my heart.
   Seven years ago I took a picture of myself while organizing the wiring of our future kitchen, laundry room, dining room, and living room. The wires would pass through conduits that would be buried in the cement floor. Previously, we had excavated the dirt floor down about a meter, reinforced the wall foundations with steel reinforced concrete, spanned the air space with pre-stressed concrete beams, laid hollow blocks on the beams, provided ventilation ducting to the underfloor space, and cut our steel reinforcing grid for the floor.

burying the waste pipe

   We were ready to pour a concrete floor. Except that once the concrete hardened, we'd be unable to install plumbing or electrics.  In order to finish the floor, we had to design the kitchen. And the living room, dining room and the laundry room. And we had to predict the position of electrical outlets and plumbing points.
     In the years it took to do all this, I lived down there in the cantina through all weather and seasons. I breathed the dust, sweated in the clay, froze with the cement, and got to know the sun, wind and rain. The room layout ideas were batted back and forth between Alex and I. I wanted a garage, a big kitchen, no second door in the pantry. She wanted a "drawing room," a separate dining room, two doors to the pantry, and certainly no garage. She got her way most times. Probably for the better. But one thing I did get was morning sun in the kitchen.

golden cappuccino at 7am

    This morning, like many mornings in the fall and spring, the rising sun penetrates right across the kitchen counter to the back wall lighting my coffee with a light like transparent gold. It's something the architect in me has always wanted. As I've said to many recent visitors, the memories of those difficult days struggling with puny efforts against ridiculous tasks make it difficult to sit back and enjoy. I can still see the filthy rubble behind the plaster, the falling bricks from the smooth arches, the gaping hole of damp clay under the white floor. They are like ghosts laughing at me. The plaster will fall away. the arches will crack and crumble. It's only time and an earthquake away. But getting that morning sun to join me in a little toast and coffee and warm fire. That is something. 

asparagus soup

   Three and a half years ago we decided to push all our chips into photovoltaic panels. The Italian government had encouraged us with a generous incentive program and we now enjoy the benefits of essentially free electricity. However, at the time, it required a serious sacrifice. In order to make room for an ugly steel structure to support all our panels, we had to replant six fruit trees and a promising bed of new asparagus plants. The young trees we moved with the help of a mechanical excavator. Some of them lived. Some didn't. But the asparagus had to be moved by hand, and, with the Italian incentive program for solar power set to expire, we had to move fast. Rain and wet clay didn't matter.

 Today we've got roughly 16 square meters dedicated to asparagus. I'd say all of it survived the backbreaking transplant. Every Spring the mysteriously barren bed sprouts with thick asparagus spears, expensive asparagus spears, sweet asparagus spears: asparagus far too precious to be given away. If you've ever chewed the stalk of freshly pulled meadow grass, you know the difference between that and the sickeningly stinky stuff left in the lawn mower bag from yesterday's cut. When the Spring asparagus shows it's head, I'm inclined to stop what I'm doing, stop listening to my wife, stop helping the children, stop thinking about Spring bike rides, and start thinking about getting up in the morning and heading down to the veg garden.
   It's the perfect garden crop, really. It's harvested during the most beautiful season. It never grows long enough to be attacked by deer, rabbits, wild boar, porcupine, worm, or bug. It's easy to clean and prepare. It cooks in seconds. Lots of starch and it must be good for you since it's so green. Fresh, it tastes great. And when you're bored, it just grows into a durable fern that controls weed growth and takes care of itself for the rest of the summer. In fact, by the time winter comes, it provides a beautifully dry tinder to help start a woodstove.

a "selfie"

   If, during the spring harvest time, you miss a day, or two, or three; then the spears can reach two feet high and threaten to go to seed. The stems turn woody and fibrous and you find yourself wracked with guilt. The rhizomes have stored up a limited amount of energy which is devoted to the sprouts of the Springtime. The trick in harvesting is to take the first, sweet sprouts for as long as the plant has sufficient strength; and then to let it go on to produce it's ferny energy factory.
   Asparagus grows fast in a warm, wet Spring. Today was such a day. Looking down on the asparagus patch after two days of rain, I spotted a forest of tall stalks. Uhhh.
   Ok, that's fine. I'm going to spend a little time snapping off woody stalks, freeze the fresh heads and make a soup of the rest. Easy to say. Jamie Oliver makes it sound so easy. And, actually it is.
   I made the soup. And it was great. And I felt very smug.
   Now, some months later, the asparagus patch has turned into a impenetrable forest. I proudly produced a carefully bagged packet of frozen asparagus spears to take to a neighbor's feast. After thawing and a moment of cooking, the lovely spears had disintegrated into a brown, filthy mess.
   Next spring we're going to eat it all in season. Meanwhile, I've got to clean out the freezer.

blogger's block

   I received an email from a workaway volunteer we hosted several years ago. After leaving us, she began regular posting to a blog describing her experiences buying a wrecked house in rural Spain and fixing it up with her husband. Just like we were doing. Some time ago her blog went stale and finally stopped with no new postings. In her email she said she got tired of writing the same old thing, year after year. The tomatoes are in. Jay did some wiring. I'm painting the bathroom. My Spanish isn't getting much better.
   Yeah, I understand that. It does get a bit repetitive. Boring, in fact. The beautiful summer evenings and the endless slop of cement and plaster. Tomatoes are in and it's garden zucchini and pasta for supper again. Lovely fresh red wine every night amounts to nothing but a fast track to headaches and alcoholism. Repetition takes the novelty out of anything.
    I write this blog as a kind of diary. I find that if I don't keep a diary of some kind, I just forget stuff. I also keep what I call a timeline, which is a google doc of highlights of each year. I visit the timeline occasionally to add a detail or remember a date. It helps me remember when we bought the car, when we went to Portugal, when my brother died. But I began writing the blog a long time ago. I began it when Alex became pregnant and all by itself, it became an illustrated diary of what was an important time of change for all of us. I began taking pictures, too. Digital pictures. I bought an early digital camera to replace the old Nikon so I could upload snapshots to my blog.
  Actually having children at the age of 50 was something of a miracle I thought would never happen. Part of the motivation for writing was to bring the news to my parents. I was so proud that finally they could look forward to grandchildren and that it was their no-hope son who was finally coming good. None of my brothers and sisters were going to have children. In fact, none of my cousins were having children either. We were looking like a dead end, until Jenny began fostering Amanda. Since I lived in California and my parents lived in Santa Fe, I wrote the blog for them. The world-wide-web was new and I wanted email to replace regular mail as a way of bringing our events closer to my parents. But it was also a way to get some news out to other friends and relatives. The motivation grew. We sold the business when Isolde was born. We fixed up the house. Packed up our belongings. Rented, and shoved off to live in Europe. And I tried to keep the blog going so Mom and Dad could keep up with us. At the time, a round trip flight from San Francisco to London cost about $300. With cheap flights and the promise of a world-wide internet, the distance didn't seem to matter. Two weeks after we arrived at Alex's mother's house in England, two airliners flew into the Trade Towers. Distance began to matter.
   I resumed the blog after establishing a reliable connection and google account here in Europe. I really wanted to keep my ageing parents in touch with their grandchildren. They visited twice after we purchased our Italian derelict and I'm sure they must have wondered what we thought we were doing! I tried to keep up the blog for them. So they would have some reassurance that we weren't just being lazy and irresponsible. I wanted to show them we could provide a nice country house for our children just like they did for me. My brother used to enjoy reading the blog. He came to visit and help out lots of times, but my parents grew too old to travel comfortably.
   My brother died four years ago. My father died in January. I've got one aunt left and she's got medical troubles along with her husband who is barely coherent. Now my mother is in hospital with a broken hip. I missed seeing my brother for the last time. I missed seeing my father for the last time. I worry about my mother every day. She had to be moved out of her house after Dad died and although she puts a brave face on everything, I can't help feeling like she thinks it's all over. Jenny is with her and says she can't manage the internet any more.
   When I have a quiet hour or two, I open the laptop and begin a blog post. I've got several started, including one on Mary Dahlmann's visit. Isolde posted a bunch of unedited photos of our bike ride along the River Nera and I thought I'd write the story. But I never finish writing or posting my diary entries. I've got blogger's block. And photographer's block. Without my prime audience, what's the use?
   The tomatoes are about finished for the year. The weather is still beautiful. The girls are growing up and going to high school. The house still isn't finished, and the car is getting older. My Italian isn't getting any better. Nothing seems to change much except my mother is hurting. I've got blogger's block.

Anna Latino's photos

Sometimes volunteer workers can see things around our home that we can't, things that we have become used to and don't see anymore. Thank you Anna Latino for the vision we lack. (Click on her name to see her blog, then the entry The Beginning, where she has posted some photos of our countryside)

some of our books in a house in Santa Fe

   Anyone who doesn't like books would be foolish to admit it. Most people like books. Love books. Ebooks are OK too. But there are lots of books that just don't work as ebooks. For example, there's a favorite bookshelf of mine at my parent's house in Santa Fe that holds a collection of mountaineering books belonging to my grandfather. A Scot living in India, he joined the Himalayan Club and the Himalayan Journal holds a special place on the top shelf. These journals contain maps, pictures, drawings and route sketches that must be folded open on the dining room table and accompanied by descriptions in order to grasp the difficulties and possibilities of the adventure. These books smell of canvas and jute fiber, stove fuel and campfire. If you need to escape into some reading there's nothing that comes close. I don't know, because I haven't looked, but I don't think there is a book in my parent's house that describes man's first step on the moon. If there is, you can be sure it won't smell like rocket fuel or stardust. Neil Armstrong likely didn't smell much of anything beyond his own saliva when he jumped out of his rocket ship onto the foreign lunar soil. Of course I doubt that Tenzing Norgay enjoyed any more pleasant aromas on the summit of Everest, but I bet the approaches served up something far more interesting than anything Neil sniffed in his sterile capsule. And then there's the characters themselves. Compare the personality of Eric Shipton, or H. W. Tilman to Sally Ride or Alan Shepard, to name a couple of our more colorful spacepersons. Let's face it, if anyone needs a whiff of jute fiber about them, it's John Glenn.
   My grandfather was a self-taught man. He read and collected thousands of books. He died many years ago. Some of his books have survived to my mother's bookshelves and others are protected by my mother's sister in New Jersey. They are all stamped with a strange seal: Dare To Be Wise. On this overleaf is written: "G. M. Martin, Bhatpara, Bengal, Page 78, Dare To Be Wise." It's a challenge, a threat. There's something dangerous in wisdom. It's safer to be ignorant, to be told what to do and what to think. It seems solid, substantial, comfortable. It may sound romantic to be informed and intelligent, but actually there's little comfort in it. Only unanswered questions.
    In addition to his collection of Himalayan Journals, there are many original titles of famous expeditions, many mountaineering but also polar and other travels to uncharted lands. Shackelton is represented. And Scott. John Hunt, and Bonnington. There are seven volumes of The principal voyages of the english nation  by Richard Hakluyt. The fourth volume in my hand begins: "A description of a Voiage to Constantinolple and Syria, begun the 21. of March 1593. and ended the 9. of August, 1595. wherein is shewed the order of delivering the second Present by Master Edward Barton her majesties Ambassador, which was sent from her Majestie to Sultan Murad Can, Emperour of Turkie." and ends with: "The valiant fight performed in the Streit of Gilbraltar by the Centurion of London, against five Spanish gallies, An 1591." And not just adventure. Further down the shelves you find T. E. Lawrence, Kipling, Burns, Stevenson, Kafka, Churchill. When's the last time you picked up Danesbury House by Mrs Henry Wood (Ellen Price), 1860? The books are small, delicate and full of worm which was a problem for collections in India at the time. But they are delightful to hold and read. And they do smell, sometimes faintly of bookworm powder. Look up bookworm on Google and you'll go down well beyond five pages until you find any mention of the actual menace. Such is the fate of real books.
  I'm writing this in Santa Fe and I will be leaving here soon. My father has died and the little house he has left contains all these delightful books. He contributed little to the collection beyond a couple of dated editions of the Mechanical Engineers Handbook; but he did much more than that. He provided the shelves themselves, as well as the roof, the dry rooms and the comfortable chairs with which to enjoy this small collection. We have celebrated his life and his passing, and now we are taking my mother away for a few months and leaving this house empty. For me, it's a terrible occasion. I was born into this profusion of good writing and lived most of my life with respect but little regard for it or its shelter. Now I can't bear the thought of disturbing this peaceful place and the possibility that it might not survive the passage of time.

  The house is available for the time being for any friend of ours who has an interest in the area or an interest in spending a few hours with part of a curious man's collection of old books. The house itself, thanks to my father, comes complete with car, electricity, central heating and housekeeping. The kitchen is as complete as the bookshelves. If you'd like to help with a temporary occupation of our house in an authentic, old west town, write me an email.

twenty one guns

On a quiet snowy day in Santa Fe

the ashes of an old soldier are put to rest

more photos of memorial service

   My father was an unusual man. His self confidence and disregard for what others thought of him made him embarrassing for us children. He could be kooky in his manner and dress, yet utterly correct in his practicality. He couldn't care less what others thought of him, and the truth is we thought he was a little weird. In old age, he had a nice way of not imposing his will on us or others; although as a child, I thought him a tyrant. He lived a clean life with impeccable habits. Low fat, lots of fiber, lots of fresh fruit, lots of exercise; and he out-lived every one of his siblings and friends. No one attended his funeral except three of his surviving kids and his wife who was 8 years younger (and in poorer health). He left all bills paid and no medical expenses. He died in his own house, mortgage free, accompanied by his wife and two daughters. He always preached the virtues of his clean life-style, and living to 96 seemed to prove it.
   At 1:30am we received a call from my mother.