Chop Wood, Carry Water

We are SO grateful that the water now comes in through a pipe.  When I was a kid on the farm, we carried it into the house in three-gallon, enameled buckets.  Two of them sat on a cart in the kitchen after they had been filled at the pump.  For many years now (since 1957) faucets, sinks, a toilet, and a shower have been a part of the house.

Three and a half rows of wood for the winter

But when I visit my mother, I get to chop wood.  We left the farm for my mother to take RN training.  I was too young to handle an ax except to make kindling. And when I tried to milk the cow, it just made her cranky.  Small hands are can make a mess of things.

"Small" wood for the stove

All these years later, it is safe to say I grew up, though a child-like glee wells up when the ax falls smartly and the wood splits with a decisive and resounding crack.   I found that I love to chop wood.  I make sure that in all the Things I get to do today, time is left to include a contribution toward keeping the house warm.

Back In Balance

It's nearly seven hours away, that little town that serves as the mailing address for my mother's non-working farm.  From town--I can hear my mother giving directions on how to drive to my childhood home--drive three and half miles north and a mile and a half west.  I just spent five days with her there.

New paint and valence in the old kitchen

But I'm back in the city to my own house and changing gears from painting a kitchen, chopping wood, cleaning house and skiing through the woods that make up most of the 40 acres of my mother's land.

An old-fashioned space.

But the Things I get to do today have their own soothing rhythm of finding balance and perspective. They're simple household tasks that require little deep thought or focused attention and that leave plenty of room for contemplative wandering:  What will the house and buildings be used for and what will they look like when Mother is no longer there?  Wouldn't it be delicious to plants all manner of trees and shrubs for a multitude of various fruits? A new chain saw could create many cords of wood from the timber that is ripe for the stove.  Isn't wood heat comforting as the fire releases the magic of the life of the tree?  What would it be like to ski those north woods everyday?  Wouldn't it be lovely to create better ski trails the could go around the entire property?  There are no immediate answers, nor are any required.  These are seeds for shaping pictures of the future that can begin to draw energy for manifesting the finest of outcomes.