Photographer Unknown
Our place is located on forty acres at the base of a small hill mostly covered with trees. We have a dog, a cat, two horses, a few chickens, and a cow. Our two gentle horses are sister and brother and have their favorite walking trails through the trees and the tall grass in the valley. We’ve ridden the paths so often we barely need to hold the reigns. After a ride, we brush them and replenish their feed and water. I tend to overfeed them. There are people a few miles down the road who can’t feed their horse enough, so I overcompensate with ours. If their mare is out while driving past their pasture, we can see her ribs, tangled mane and thin patches on her coat.
My wife spent the afternoon making the filling for steamed dumplings, a big batch of kimchi and other side dishes while I did outside chores. Years ago, she taught me how to assemble the dumplings so I can help when she’s ready. When our daughter was young, she helped too and sometimes her friends pitched in. Now she makes them herself in her own home with friends nine-hundred miles from here. We usually make six to seven dozen dumplings and freeze a few dozen for ourselves. The rest go to friends and neighbors. One of our neighbors makes a lot of pies and other baked goods, so we trade with her because my wife loves peach pies. After I finished my chores, I went inside to help. The filling was ready, so we both assembled them and she steamed them. After we were done, I napped and then we had dinner. Afterwards, she worked in her studio, and I went to the workshop next to the barn for the rest of the night.
We have a large batch of glazed bisque ware that needs to be fired. They’ve been sitting on carts for weeks. Tonight I’m finally going to load the kiln, seal it and start the fire for the slow overnight preheat. All day tomorrow and tomorrow night, I’ll stoke regularly it to get the temperature up and maintain it. Then spend late tomorrow night and most of the following day monitoring it. In three or four days, we’ll be able to unload it and see the results. It’s a nostalgic ritual I’ve done many times with other students in college. The peace it brings me now is the same as it was forty years ago—it feels simple and primitive.
It’s the perfect activity to do while doing other things that need to get done. Tonight I’m cleaning stalls and milking the cow. After I transfer the milk from the galvanized buckets into glass bottles, the heavy cream rises to the top which we pour off. We can’t use all the cream for butter, so we give most to our neighbor who bakes a lot because she makes her own butter too.
The other project I’m revisiting tonight is the design of a new gate for the end of the road. We purchased the current one at a farm and ranch supply store in Point Reyes and have imagined something more interesting ever since. I want to learn to weld because I want to construct two large panels mounted to beefy log piers. I’d like to incorporate driftwood, sculpted wood forms, found metal objects, symbols, and maybe even letter forms, all suspended inside steel frames—something Louise Nevelson might approve of.
Because the second night with the kiln requires less wood, I checked in with my wife more often, worked on other projects, and spent time with the animals. At 4:00am I got into my sleeping bag on the big leather couch. It’s near the kiln so it’s a perfect place for sleeping outside on a cool night. When I woke a few hours later, I went into the house and made coffee and oatmeal. My wife was still asleep, so I walked back to the workshop while the early sun lit the thick clouds of fog curving through the valley like they were alive.
Songs :: Sit Yourself Down by Stephen Stills, Clay Pigeons by John Prine, So Damn Lucky by Dave Matthews, Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and Took A Walk by Shaboozey
© C. Davidson