In January 2024, it seems all of our talk centers around weather, especially temperatures. We received an Alexa device for Christmas from one of our sons a few years ago and one of the few functions we use is asking about the upcoming week’s weather… and how to spell things. Early January was characteristically blustery and cold, this week we have had temps back into the low thirties during the day. Snow becomes rain and vice versa. The temperature inversion creates fog as thick as pea soup making night driving difficult.
The warmer weather gives us a chance to check our bee hives, so we tromp through the snow down to the pasture where the bees are housed. As this is our first wintering of the hives, expectations are low. Fall had us wrapping our basil-green hives in black tar paper, insulating the top with foam board and praying. Early winter we arrived at the hives with a white plastic bucket of, essentially, sugar. We left all of our honey in the hive for the bees to eat during the winter but sometimes that isn’t quite enough for that first foray into sub zero temperatures, so we add bonus sugar. Today we felt it was warm enough to lift the tops again and see how the winter-feasts were going. As we step over the electric fence and up to the hives I notice a lot of dead bees in the entrance. I’d read about this and talked with my bee mentor but I was quite surprised by the sheer number of dead soldiers. Paul lifts the mouse guards and we sweep out the dead bees leaving them like sprinkles on top of the snow. I begin working to open the hive when Paul calls out, “They’re flying!” I turn around to see what look like pretty drunk bees lifting out of the entrance of the hive. It is as if the dead bodies were blocking them from getting out so once that mission is accomplished- they decide that it is, indeed, warm enough for a winter spin.
I lift the top carefully and peer over the edge of the hive. More dead bees. I use Paul’s screw driver to dislodge the sugar from the bucket and begin patting it around the top of the frames. There was sugar there but, as with all sugar, there is never enough. I squint one eye, pirate-style, [and] peer through the frames and see bees moving up to the sugar. I almost fall over backward into the snow. Our hive is alive.
It has been about nine months since Josh and Al bought their new/old home. Post-Covid, housing prices were through the roof so it took some creative finagling to purchase it. As it sits at the end of the class four road that begins just beyond our farm, we have been able to be part of things and watch as they bring a long-abandoned house, built in the early 1800s, back to life.
The red house with the big porch was familiar to us. We would walk or ride the ATV up the dirt road to the farm, passing the abandoned property for many years. When Josh was just a kid, he and I would walk up the tilted floor of the porch, cup our hands around our eyes and peer into the old house. Wires hung from the ceiling and the dust on the windows was so thick we could write our names in it with pointed fingers.
During Covid Josh finished his masters degree in wildlife biology here at the house. We’d have long conversations over dinner about his longing to own land, to find an old homestead. We’d walk past his house many times, unable to see the future.
The four of us stood just inside the front door and marveled at the dark staircase, split in the middle, one side going up to the left, the other to the right. Later, when pulling an old door off, they would find, in pencil, a date (1825) and scratchings about “Hostesses” Miss Sue and Miss Peggy among others. Suddenly the split staircase to the upper rooms in the building that had housed a tavern and post office made sense.
The work looked impossible, just not to them.
They began immediately; they were able to purchase a wood stove for their front room. The double staircases would now guide heat to the upstairs rooms. They had a huge piece of stone that sat, as if waiting for them to find it, next to their porch. Ninety-four year-old neighbor, Donald, drove his tractor down and hoisted the now split stone with chains far enough onto the porch that Josh, Al, Paul and a crew of neighbors could carry it in and place it on their floor for the stove to reside on. It fit perfectly. It, too, had found its home.
I arrived at lunchtime with sandwiches, chips and drinks. I stood, tilting my neck back to watch Al and her father replace the leaking roof with all new shingles: Al in her baseball cap next to her father, just like when she learned from him to do it as a teen. Dean had driven, in one shot, all the way from Kansas to see and celebrate the new house and roof it with his daughter.
Hours were spent digging under that porch, stabilizing its gravitational pull on the house. We’d stop by, lean down and holler in to them both as they worked, alongside the spiders, in the dark earth. Josh would stumble out from beneath the house to say hello and, as he would hug me, I’d hang on to his tired frame for an extra minute or two hoping to transfer some energy. To save money they mixed countless bags of concrete by hand in one of our old wheelbarrows. So tired at the end of the day the lights would be out by early evening.
The wind hummed through their old windows and our neighbor, contractor and friend, Jason helped them replace them all. Like circus acrobats, they would hoist the windows up to the roof to install them, Al taking the lead on the high stuff as Josh shares Paul’s dislike of heights.
Our son Michael arrived for a summer visit and happily spent time stacking wood and helping make partitions in the wood shed and drinking beer while chatting with his youngest brother.
Josh and Al hand sanded every room in the house. Years of grime fell away revealing gleaming wood walls, speaking to a time before dry-wall. We offered them the chance to stay at our house while working, making life a bit more comfortable, but they would not leave the side of their new place, each becoming part of the other.
Paul, who has built a house from the ground up, helped untangle the puzzle of wiring and plumbing while they watched, tried, failed and learned.
When I am teaching, I tell students that before I hand them an answer, I would like them to try to solve the puzzle themselves. I remind them it might not happen the first, third or, even tenth time, but maybe the eleventh time holds the answer. If I give them the solution, they will take it, even gratefully, but not learn it. If they wrestle with the problem and solve it, they will never forget.
Weekends are no longer for sharing coffee at a cafe and wandering the city walking the dog: they are precious hours to work on their house, split wood for the fire and grow corn, tomatoes and beans for your supper.
The glowing walls now reflect the fire in the wood stove. Their dog, Ruffio snoozes deep in the couch cushions in front of that fire. Good smells greet you as you walk in as they cook together in their small kitchen. Plants and people thrive here. When we happily arrive for dinner, we get a tour of all that has transpired since our last visit and within that tour we hear dreams and plans for what will happen next. Under their hands and care, this house has come back to life and, as we stand holding glasses of deep red wine, we feel its gratitude.