This post is long overdue. I started a draft many weeks ago titled “Countdown to Kentucky,” but gave up on finishing it when I had to throw my countdown calendar out the window and resign myself to being here in suburbia much longer than I’d planned, when it became apparent the final projects were progressing more s-l-o-w-l-y than originally allowed for. As usual, I underestimated the time and energy needed for several of the most complex, labor-intensive portions. How does anyone know how long a certain job will take from start to finish? All we can do is throw a dart on the wall and aim for it, which is what I did. So I aimed too low.
I’m still counting down, but the target is softer now, made squishy with humility. First it shifted four weeks to the right of my first departure date, and now another week or two is inevitable, if I want to get everything done. And I do. Though I would dearly love to be at the Farm already instead of here.
Truth is, aiming at leaving early (my original date was May 16th) has helped me accomplish an enormous amount of work in a ridiculously short period of time, much more than if I’d had a more “realistic” departure timeline. I call this working better under pressure. Scare yourself into thinking you only have a week to build a spaceship, and you will probably get at least the launch pad poured by Friday, all by yourself, which would be a monumental achievement by any measure. This pretty well describes what I’ve been up to since March 26th, after my household goods were all packed in the trailer and taken away, leaving me free to concentrate on the landscaping projects.
My “Daily Notes and To-Do Lists” notebook charts the course of these final efforts, and it is truly amazing to look back through the days/weeks/months and see what I’ve gotten done. It makes the list of work remaining look really, really small, which is such a good thing.
The moving trailer was picked up on Monday, March 26th; on March 28th two pallets of block and a yard of gravel for the last terrace wall were delivered, and I spent the day moving more than a half-ton of concrete by hand from the driveway to the edge of the backyard. The Final Landscaping Projects phase had begun in earnest.
I’ve kept a rigorous schedule since then, fueled by my passion to get everything done and focused on the mid-May departure date. My day – every day of the week – begins at 5 am with coffee-making and a shower, then out the door walking the dogs by 6:30, then back home to breakfast for the three of us. I’m lacing on workboots and grabbing my gloves by 8 am, just as though I were working on my old landscape crew. I knock off around 6:30 pm to take the dogs for their second walk of the day, then it’s shower and eat something and check email and update status on Facebook and finally drag myself to bed. Blog posts take too long for me to write at this pace. A simple sentence or two and a progress photo on my facebook page has been about all I can manage. But it has paid off: I am down to the last of it now, and the things completed outnumber the things left to do by a long shot.
I’m still not done yet, though. As far along on the list of things as I am, I’m still here; the dogs and I are still here in San Diego, walking the chaparral canyons for exercise instead of hiking up the farm road or running through the lush pastures of the farm; making improvements to this little suburban home instead of setting up our livestock operation in Kentucky. I dare not even plan the final trip, having already forfeited a non-refundable ticket for what I thought would be Bear’s return flight after helping me drive out there and unload, purchased when the best guess I could come up with was it would all be done by mid-May.
Ah, well. This is life, this is but a small glitch in the Big Project, this is nothing, really, in the Big Scheme of Things.
In truth, it is a test of my strength, and fortitude, and determination. I planned to do these renovation projects on the house and yard before I left and it is important to me to finish them and leave this little place in good condition when I go. So I am in limbo here; working joyfully on hugely satisfying projects I’ve had to postpone for years and finally have the time to do, but aching to be gone, to be planted on the Farm, rising every morning with an even longer list of projects to throw myself into.
This strange and frustrating moment where I am stuck between my two lives will end soon. I’ll survive project limbo, and one fine day I’ll pack the dogs up into the little Toyota pickup with the last of my earthly possessions in a Uhaul trailer behind, and drive east. Probably through tears, a little sad to leave it all behind.
So don’t let the lack of blog posts make you think I’ve given up on the Big Project: it’s just a trying time, and every minute’s precious, and I’m keeping an abnormal work schedule to get through to the end of it all here so I can finally make the move.
Back to work I go…
Thistledog's Farm 