One year ago

Hey little dude. It's Pops. We’re toddling up to your first birthday, so I thought I'd mark the occasion with some of my mindless rambling. I know you're not old enough to read, but whatever. You can look at the pictures. You like pictures.

I can't believe how quickly the past year went. I know that's what every parent says at the end of the first year, but it's true. Seriously. When you first arrived you were 8 pounds, 7 ounces, with a misshapen little head. Now you're 25 pounds of peas, bananas, and cheerios, walking around with nine teeth and demonstrating how big you’ve become.

When your mom was pregnant, I remember being so nervous, so excited, and so terribly scared. Would everything go smoothly? Would you be healthy? And then I realized that I had very little control over where things went before you arrived. The only thing I could control was my intake of gin, which I did surreptitiously while your mom wasn’t looking. It never mattered – she knew as soon as she heard the sound of ice dropping in a glass that I was up to no good. Drat!

One of my favorite pastimes lately is thinking about going on an adventure with you when you're older. We could reenact Robert Persig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Or maybe camping. Hell, maybe you’ll be more into buying clothes in NY and responding "whatever, dad" to all of my questions. It doesn't really matter, just the thought of sharing those experiences with you warms my heart. Just as long as you don’t hate me.

Walking has been an interesting development. You gotta try and take it slower, man. I am fearful that you'll grow up to be a football player and I'll have to pretend I actually enjoy watching games. I mean, you do like to tackle stuff, like the corner of the coffee table. You should try not to lead with your head, though. Mom was very upset that you had to go to the emergency room. It made us look like negligent parents, and that's not cool.

Happy birthday, buddy. Look forward to many more.

Rebuilding

Six years used to seem like an eternity. Six years ago I was in Philly. Six years ago I commuted three hours round trip for work. I was still in my 20s. Unmarried. I could stay up until 2 a.m. and get up at 5 a.m. with little problem.

These days, six years ago seems like a blink.

I watched it all unfold on TV while standing on a treadmill in the corporate gym, 45 minutes outside of Manhattan. Gina, working at the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, IM’d me and said there was a plane crash. Check out CNN. What I saw made me gasp. I caught the live coverage just as the second plane disappeared and left a fireball in its place.

My brother. Jeezus. Who else is there?

The phone. Nothing but an automated voice telling me the circuits were overloaded. Fuck. I finally got through to my mom, who said that she had heard from Pete, that he was OK. He had been on the subway from Queens when it happened, heading to work.

They were just at work, too. The guy in the yellow dress shirt and dark pants, his left foot tucked behind his right knee as he falls 100 stories to the ground. Turn the photo upside down and he’s like Superman, heading skyward to save a damsel in distress. An angel. Floating. But he’s not. He’s just a guy that had to make a decision that morning, from his office in the sky: stay or leap into nothingness.

Me? I don’t have a story. I wasn’t there. Didn’t see anything first hand. If you want the truth, never in a million years did I think I’d be writing this. I’ve complained to Gina that the memorials, the corporate ads chiding me to never forget – it’s all too much. Never forget? Fuck you. But sitting here, today, avoiding the coverage, the news, it’s like I’m overflowing. The display on the phone even sets me off: Sept. 11 10:57 a.m.

I really can’t explain the profound sadness that I feel on this day. Where we are, what we’ve become. I don’t deserve to feel this, to feel sad. I have a home, a child, a wife. It’s so much more than so many others. And somehow, somewhere, that day left a mark. A chunk is missing.

Yeah, I don’t deserve to cry. But somehow, I just can’t help it.

A technical note...

I just realized that comments aren't working on the site, so hang tight if you've recently submitted a comment. I'll be working on fixing the error over the next few days.

Hard to explain

It's unbelievable to me how quickly they grow.

Victorian inn for sale

Any entrepreneurs out there looking for a great restaurant to buy? There is a beautiful inn up the street that's going up for auction on January 17, and it would make a gorgeous B&B or just a fantastic destination restaurant. Price starts at $325,000 for 3+ acres, 66 seat restaurant, PA liquor license, separate garage, chalet.

I drive past this place all the time and have often dreamed about making it into a great gastropub or something, serving duck confit, great burgers (if you order one well-done you are shown the door) and pomme frites served with mayonnaise. And of course, we'd have to serve fine micro-brews and use only herbs grown in the garden. It would be nice to see it go to the right person, someone who doesn't plan on ruining the joint. No, I don't know the current owner or have any stake in the sale. I just think it's a great spot and the right person could do something amazing with the property.

More info is available on the auction company's website.

I have an excuse.

I know you've been waiting in rapt anticipation, wondering "do they have cold OJ? Is their milk still fresh?" Well, I have good news. Last Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. the fridge guy finally showed up with a tiny box of parts that probably cost around $5. After twenty minutes of work -- five of those involved pulling out the refrigerator and accessing the back panel -- he fixed the damn thing. I have a nasty-gram ready to go to LG because their customer service sucks.

So, with that out of the way, Gina decided to go into labor. By 9:03 a.m. the next morning we had this 8lb 10oz squirming scream machine:

He arrived right on his due date, December 7. I like punctuality.

Losing (my) cool

Two weeks ago, our 9-month-old refrigerator – the refrigerator that replaced the lovely harvest yellow model that came with the house – began making a funny noise, similar to a Harley Davidson taking off in the far distance. I knew right away that it was a matter of days before it stopped working altogether and, needless to say, I was terribly annoyed. After all, this was a refrigerator recommended by Consumer Reports and now it was suddenly and inexplicably making a terrible racket in my kitchen. So, shirking my responsibilities as a husband, I had my wife placed the dreaded call to the LG service department.

First, they needed the model and serial number to open a service ticket. She was calling from work and had brought everything but the serial number with her, meaning one of us needed to call from home later. But the customer service rep assured us that once we called back with the serial number, service would come within two business days. As soon as we arrived home that evening, my wife called LG once again with the serial number, at which point they told us they couldn’t arrange for service because of our location. Instead, they gave us a few local service outfits and told us to call. Good luck.

So I called the appliance dealers, left messages, and we finally arranged for someone to come out and diagnose the problem. Four days after it first started making a noise, the guy shows up and tells us that, yeah, LG ‘fridges seem to have this problem. He needs to order parts from LG, and that usually takes a week. We’ll call when the parts arrive. That was a week-and-a-half ago, and still no parts.

I have a wife who is ready to give birth, and currently we’re living out of four coolers stashed outside on the porch. Last night, after I called LG and tore several vocal chords explaining with increasing frustration why I was so upset, we went and got a small 4.5 cubic foot fridge so at least we could keep milk from going bad. It totally confounds me in an era of FedEx and DHL why they can’t get the parts out quicker. For crying out loud, I can buy shoes online and have them delivered the next day!

We bought the LG ‘fridge from Home Depot, which was a stupid move. I now see why people opt to buy from an appliance dealer that offers service. When we finally get around to redoing the kitchen, I'll defintely take that route. As it stands, I’m assuming we’ll be without a fridge until some point next week.

Thanksgiving

A few months ago, I stumbled on a blog written by a woman out in sunny California, around San Francisco and the Monterey Bay area. The blog, I Heart Farms, is focused squarely on sharing the beauty of small sustainable farms, capturing their spirit in both words and in images. It's a great daily read and it's refreshing to see someone who cares so deeply for both how and where our food is produced. I'm pointing this out because on the day before Thanksgiving, at a time when we're preparing for our tables and our tummies to be filled with so much great food, it would do us good to take a hard look at where that food came from.

It's everything a good blog should be, and I can only hope to make this site as heartfelt and as interesting as her daily musings. I urge you to take a look. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuffen up

Things around here have been a bit slow lately. We've spent most of our free time dealing with the arrival of the kid: washing and folding clothes, assembling strollers, car seats, playpens, etc., and taking all the prerequisite classes so that you can say you're prepared for all this when, in reality, you're just winging it. T-minus nineteen days.

The one thing I did manage to complete recently was the mailbox replacement. I didn't feel like getting into a terrible loop where I replace the mailbox only to have it smashed to bits by a bunch of kids loaded on PBR pounders. This time I opted for something a bit more substantial. This is the Tuff Body version, which can supposedly withstand flying pumpkins, baseball bats, and small IEDs. I'm certain its Tuffness will be tested at some point in the future, so we'll see how it holds up.

The street name has been blurred to protect the innocent.

Grumble

Last night after work Gina and I visited the local fire hall to complete our civic duty. After waiting in line to cast our vote we hopped in the car for the five minute drive to our house. We live in the country, so it's dark: there aren't any streetlights lining the road and our closest neighbor is about 1/4 mile away. If we forget to leave the porch light on -- especially when we revert to standard time in the fall -- you nearly have to feel your way to the front door at night.

So that's where we were last night as we came upon the house. I forgot to leave the porch light on and the moon was obscured by a thick blanket of clouds. It was dark. My headlights bounced off the mailbox as we approached and I noticed that it seemed to be slighly askew. I drove past the driveway to get a closer look. In fact, it was totally folded over on the post, with the remnants of a large pumpkin scattered across the road. Someone trashed our mailbox, and I'm totally pissed off.

What's amazing is that the mailbox is mere steps away from our front porch, and someone did this between 5 and 6 p.m. That's pretty bold. And I'm really afraid of getting into a vicious circle of replacing a mailbox only to have it smashed. All night I've been thinking of ways to bait the nefarious smashers. Fill a mailbox with concrete and paint a big bullseye on the side? Get a local welder to weld some 1/4 inch steel into a box? Wire up the videocamera to tape the little dirtballs in action? Dunno. But right now my weekend project will be installing a new mailbox and post. The smashed one is currently held together by a couple of bungie cords. We're all about class here.

Falling behind

This weekend I stepped outside and suddenly realized that, my God, fall is really here.

What happened? I had all these plans, these projects that -- with winter looming on the horizon like some battleship ready to lob ordnance at my humble home -- still aren't completed. Wah. I blame my foul mood partly on houseblogger.net. It's an excellent site and a fantastic resource, but honestly, there are people on the site that could build a house in a weekend. Mine stil needs paint. How can I compete with that? It takes me weeks to even figure out how to tackle a project, much less get it done. Grumble.

I don't think I'm alone, though. I'd bet that most of us who live in an old home or are working to bring one back to life would readily admit we’re not only gluttons for punishment, but that we're also a terribly romantic and idealistic bunch. This can be a frustrating slog, trying to bring a property back from the dead while still holding down a day job and tending to the demands of everyday life. But I really believe that these properties deserve to be saved, that they are a part of a history and a landscape that is rapidly disappearing. It’s nice to have central air and leak-free windows, to not have to worry about the next project, but in the end I’d much rather look back and say I’ve saved a piece of something.

Hopefully I won’t lose my mind during the journey.

Secret rooms

NY Times: Installing concealed rooms.

Not long ago someone in the houseblogs network discovered a secret room in their old home, but apparently it's a trend in new construction, too.

Renewable energy festival

When I was a kid, the Kempton Fairgrounds was the place to go for church fairs, funnel cake and any event involving four-wheel-drive trucks, mud and big motors. I remember going there to sell funnel cakes for our church and to watch a hill climb, where beefy, beat-up jeeps tried to make it up a muddy bank without tipping over. Yes, sometimes even I'm amazed that I can form complete sentences.

How times have changed. The latest event at the Kempton Community Center — notice it's no longer a fairgrounds — was the Pennsylvania Sustainable Energy Festival. Although it was held September 22-23 and I was out of town during the event, I think it's still worth mentioning, especially considering how progressive it is for the region. The festival covers everything from environmentally-friendly construction and solar energy to natural foods and sustainable farming. As the website says, the festival is meant to "inform and educate ourselves and the public on renewable energy production, energy efficiency, and sustainable living through meetings, workshops, educational materials, and energy fairs."

I'm impressed. It looks like there a lot of great discussions and vendors that attended this year's event. Hopefully next year we'll be able to make the festival.

Giddiy up

Living in the county, on a small lane that connects two larger roads, we don't get much traffic. It's generally the same few cars that pass by reguarly and although I don't know the names of many of the drivers, I always wave and they generally return the gesture. Today, though, while mowing the lawn (will it ever stop growing?), I saw a massive line of traffic coming down the road.

This wagon train passed by last year while we were working on the property and we were completely amused. Apparently the horse farm over the hill has a two-day gathering each year that involves music, a bonfire, and a wagon train.

Ya just don't get that in the city.

Ernesto, we hardly knew ya.

The one nice thing about having a farm is the storage space – there's no lack of outbuildings in which to stash countless amounts of junk. The storage space came in particularly handy this past weekend, when hurricane Ernesto was threatening to ruin our Labor Day picnic. On Saturday, with the rain sweeping horizontally across the meadow and very little clue what Sunday's weather would bring, my dad and I busted out the brooms and cleaned out the lower part of the barn. Where cattle once stood, we'd have people.

By Sunday most of the rain was out of the area, bringing partly-cloudy skies and slightly cool temperatures to the valley. My father and I had stashed all the tables, chairs and other necessities in the barn, so Sunday morning we began moving everything from the lower part of the barn into the barnyard. By 3 p.m. I had cooked about 25 lbs. of ribs and people were just beginning to arrive.

By 9 or 10 p.m. we had gone through all but a few pounds of ribs, 15 lbs of chicken, almost three dozen ears of corn, plus all the goodies that people brought. Luckily I haven't received calls informing me of any salmonella-related illnesses caused by the round of undercooked chicken I served. By 11 p.m., well, honestly I don't remember much beyond 10 p.m., except the bonfire.

One really satisfying part of the picnic ended up being the positive comments we received from guests. As anyone restoring a house knows, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of a project and feel like you're making no progress or that your efforts are futile. This is the first time many of the folks saw the property and I was really pleased by how truly impressed they were with what we've done. We've got something really special, but sometimes I need others to remind me of why we purchased the property in the first place.

Oh, you're probably wondering whether Alton Brown stopped by the picnic. Sadly, no. Looks like I'll need to try again next year.

On notice

That's it. I've had enough. Hurricanes -- you're on notice.

Every big event we plan, a hurricane comes along and tries to elbow its way in door. Our wedding in 2003 was preceded by a hurricane that nearly blew everything into the Atlantic, and now our Labor Day picnic is being threatened by the remains of Ernesto. I'll be grilling 15 lbs of ribs and 20 lbs of chicken from a dinghy.

Oh, daddy.

Once again I managed to avoid doing much work on the house this weekend, opting instead to waste time by (a) washing the cars, (b) mowing grass, and (c) shopping for baby furniture. Yes, in 16 or so weeks we'll be welcoming a new addition to the family, and that new addition needs somewhere to sleep. We have the room picked out, but right now that room is functioning as our closet. My other closet is the chair that sits in the corner of our room – the one buried under an ever-expanding pile of clothes. Oh, and there is that makeshift closet that the previous owner built from plywood in the front of the hallway. It's very pretty.

Anyway, the kid. This weekend we looked at baby furniture and realized that even mid-priced stuff costs about as much as a full-sized bedroom. Scary. Not remortgage-the-house scary, but scary enough that I wished I were a proficient woodworker with a lot of time on my hands. Before we furnish the room, though, I need to do some painting and electrical work. Three of the upstairs rooms still have cheap old wall sconces as their sole lighting source, and the kid's room will definitely need a new light. I plan to tap into the line, install a switch, and then continue the line up to a new ceiling light. I don't think it will be a big deal since I have access to the attic and can run the line from there. So that's the plan over the next three months or so. I look forward to the day that I can have the wee one mow the lawn.

In the short-term, though, I need to try and finish up some painting outside. We're having a Labor Day picnic and before we get visitors -- many of whom haven't yet seen the place -- I'd like to spruce up at least a few of the outbuildings. Yesterday evening (Monday) I began the process of scraping the garage doors: three massive wood panel doors that slide along metal tracks. I intended to paint a bit last evening, but a forecast of showers made me think twice. I'm glad because we had some heavy rains last evening -- something we desperately need. It's really dried out over the past few weeks.

Oh, and by the way -- No word from Alton Brown yet on my proposal. Maybe he'll surprise me by dropping by for the Labor Day party.

Paging Alton Brown

OK, this is getting absurd. If you've ever cranked up your old cathode-ray in the early evenings and happened to flip to the Food Network, you've invariably caught Mr. Alton Brown in action. Part chef, part food anthropologist, part scientist, he attacks cooking with vigor and humor, dissecting the craft and educating viewers on the best tools, techniques and ingredients to do the job right. And as a prior cinematographer, he gets some really great camera angles: looking out from inside the fridge, the stove, the cabinets - you name it. Plus he used to have a KitchenAid mixer with airbrushed flames on it that just plain rocked.

So anyway, I occasionally catch the show thanks to the miracles of Tivo. I was happy to get a few tips, maybe learn something about cuts of beef, and then he shows up with a new series. About eating. About driving across the country on a motorcycle – a really nice motorcycle – and eating. It's called Feasting on Asphalt, and it's causing problems in this household. My problem? I want to do the same thing. Ride a motorcycle and eat. I'm slightly obsessed, actually. But since I can't just up and leave for a month to entertain this whimsy, I have a plan. My plan? Get Alton Brown out to the farm.

Since he completely missed Pennsylvania during the journey, I think it's a perfect idea if he were to come to the farm for a few days. We could take a drive around the back roads, chow down on some local Pennsylvania Dutch food, and shoot the shit. I'll even give him a place to sleep, cook him a meal and make him a proper martini (though I still disagree with his somewhat meager use of vermouth). I say we Google bomb Alton Brown and see what happens. Just link Alton's full name to this post, and maybe we'll get somewhere. Do you know Alton? Ask him to skip out of the Iron Chef thing and stop in for a visit.

Mr. Brown, are you listening? Whaddaya say?

Churn, baby, churn.

There's been a lot of dialogue recently about the current approach to eating: the importance of understanding where your food comes from and the pitfalls of industrial farming. It's good discussion to be having, and it really resonates with me now that we live on a farm. Over time we've gone further and further from our food source to the point that it's now something shrink-wrapped, pre-seasoned and stocked on a refrigerated shelf. We've completely lost our connection with the very things that provide us sustenance.

We have 20 acres, five of which are currently being farmed by a local farmer growing potatoes and wheat, among other things. Right across the street I can watch them dig up the potato field and then wander over and scrounge around for some of the tubers that were left behind. But each year a bit more of that farmland disappears, and small farmers – faced with low-prices because of competitive pressures from agribusiness (or shall we say large-scale, industrialized, vertically-integrated food producers) – are forced to sell out to developers with deeper pockets.

One of the things that I've been pondering since we moved to the country is how we can make use of the land that we now own. One of the reasons we bought the place was to save this small piece of land, to keep it out of the hands of developers. It's terribly idealistic – at some point we could probably add substantially to our retirement by selling off and subdividing the land – but it just wouldn't feel right. In fact, we're in the process of selling our development rights to make sure that doesn't happen.

So what's my point? Somehow it would feel really great to resurrect this land, make it our own, and help to connect people with the food that they eat. To make a working farm that provides great local produce or some really high-quality chèvre. All you have to do is read this article. This woman is my hero.

I'm pretty sure my wife thinks I'm nuts. Do you?

Photos

You'll notice a new link over there to your right, one that takes you to some photos of the property. Well, go on, take a look.

Progress in pictures

OK, I've finally been able to produce some photographic evidence that we are indeed working on things home and garden related. First, a shot of the garden, which in this picture looks embarassingly small. I assure you, it's plenty for two people:

Next, some cabbage and a few onions on the right:

At the advice of Great Garden Companions (a great resource for you gardeners) we planted some marigolds around the border of the beds. Apparently many pests dislike the strong smell.

Finally, here's a shot of the front of the house. I had orderd 4 cubic yards of compost to redig the neglected flower beds, and so far this is the only one I've completed:

Those with good eyesight will notice the second floor windows are badly in need of repair. Hopefully at some point soon I'll be able to pull them, replace the glass, reglaze and repaint them. All things in time.

Making hay

It's a funny thing: growing up as a kid not far from here—fields and woods and lots of farms—I never truly appreciated the work of the men who made their livelihood tending crops. Each spring they'd rumble out to the fields in their tractors, spreading the stink of manure throughout the valley and raking up earth that sat buried for several months beneath layers of snow and cold, gray skies. I'd be out on my bike, riding off excess sugar and discovering new ways to crash, and from dawn to dark, those guys would plod through the fields planting, cutting, fertilizing and tending things that, somewhere along the line, gave us our very sustenance. All the while, I couldn't have cared less.

Over this past Memorial Day—a three day weekend, Monday off, I get to mow lawn and take it slow—every field surrounding our property was a beehive of activity. Sun and clear skies brought them all out: beautiful and dry, ripe for cutting and drying the hay. Like starlings they came upon the fields, chopping, raking, turning, and finally baling the goods. Monday, a national holiday when most everything is closed, I sat on the porch swing transfixed, watching them work until well past 9 p.m. Get it done before the weather turns. Before it's dark. Before all the work is ruined.

It's a tough life, to live by the whims of the weather. I complain of digging a few plots of earth for a garden, about the ache in back and the blister on my thumb, but watching those guys is good medicine.

Apricot Blossoms

Apricot Blossoms - April 2006

The start of spring

God, somehow even with warmer-than-usual weather this winter seemed interminable. But today, a week into spring, our first daffodil bloomed.

Hopefully the warm weather is here to stay -- we're ready to garden and spend some time outdoors.