In the same way that spring produces the first gin and tonic moments on the veranda and frog songs that waft up from the marsh in the evening, it also produces two famous lists on the fridge: those things which must be done and another that fantasizes what might be done if we had the money.
The “musts” are self-evident. We all know by now that the chief purpose of any country property is to be looked after. There are gardens to fluff up and plant, lawns to repair and trees to prune. The wind ripped three sheets of steel off the barn roof, falling trees crushed 100 yards of fence, a flash flood tore a hole in the lane and carried a ton of gravel down the bank. There are seven internal combustion engines to coax back to life after a winter of discontent. It doesn’t matter that you put them away carefully, drained the gas out of the tanks and placed a drop of oil in the spark plug hole. They will not start until you call Jason the freelance small-engine guy who comes over and reminds you that all of the companies you bought these machines from have gone bankrupt and parts now trade on the black market like blood diamonds.
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There are no reliable trades who will help you saw up trees or prop up a fence. Your sons would help, they really would, but right now they are busy in the basement preparing for the coming zombie apocalypse. So once again, you are on your own.
Then there’s the wish list.
I’d like a couple of cattle. I know that owning them is a mug’s game and has been since 1975. The cattlemen around me who are still in the business all share the thousand-yard stare of Dust Bowl farmers or lunatic prospectors in the tundra. A recent spike in beef prices has stirred them up for the umpteenth time.
“This is the year!” they exclaim down at the loading dock at the feed mill. “There will be money in cattle this year!” Then they clutch their foreheads feverishly because they know they’ve said the same thing every year since Dief was prime minister. I point out to them that if we all just gave up our cows we could spend three weeks in Arizona with the whole family. They nod in agreement and think for a moment, and then say they suppose they’ll keep the cows another year. And I do the same.
The thing is, I like feeding stuff. It makes me feel useful, which is pretty important to a writer. So I buy two steers every spring and fatten them up until they’re so big you could sell them to Walt Disney. By the time they make it to the freezer they cost more per pound than Wagyu beef delivered by Lear jet. It’s ridiculous… but the light from the flame is so beautiful… I can’t help myself. Two Angus yearlings arrived this afternoon and the pigs are on their way.
My wife has only one item on the wish list but it’s a humdinger. She wants to close in the veranda from the ferocious westerly winds. Every year, all the garden furniture that isn’t bolted down tumbles away over the fields into the next county. (Sometimes, a new piece tumbles in from Winnipeg to replace it.) Tradesmen just love verandas and they flock to our door when word gets out that we are planning a renovation. Cows look like a blue-chip investment compared to a veranda project.
There are a couple of pie-in-the-sky items, like the 40-foot gazebo with the copper roof and bleached stain tongue-in-groove pine cladding on the ceiling. It looked great at that hotel in the Caribbean. But you can only sit outside on maybe four weekends a year in this township. The rest of the time the gazebo would be jammed full of lawn furniture and farm implements while howling winds bleach the exterior to match the ceiling.
Finally there is that downstairs bedroom project, for when our knees give out and the kids are gone and the barns are empty. It will have triple glazed glass, in-floor radiant heat and handrails to the bathroom. Maybe when cows turn a profit… Maybe when pigs fly…
Our city friends say we are living a dream. They don’t know the half of it.
