A house built for tiny people full of cats

Our house is small. It is cozy. We are lucky that nobody destroyed the integrity of the house, built in 1760, and when we moved in we basically freshened up wall colors and wood work. I still have to paint the upstairs which was painted at some point for young children and is not my taste. but it was a relief to move in and not hate the interior. In our last farm, we spent years and lots of sweat equity to fix it and take it out of it's 1970's outdated and not-to-our-taste decor, not to mention just fix everything that was outdated. We have things to do here, the kitchen needs help...but basically the house is what it was, and will be for the remaining time we are here. Not only do we not have the money to expand it, it would ruin the house, in our minds. I would love a lager entry with a real mud room, instead the 'mud room' is an uninsulated 8x8 room, stuffed full of recycling, boots...and 'whatever needs to go somewhere until it is gone' room. I was at a friend's beautiful old home, small, but they remodeled it and it has an entry and mud area that I coveted. But then I got over it when I returned to my little oasis.

This house is cozy, as I say. I joke it was built in a time when people were much tinier. I imagine what it was like for The Rhoades with all those kids, and that was before they added on the 'meeting room' in the 1800's, I believe. I imagine the kids all slept in one room.

The good thing about this small house is we have to think about any thing we bring into it. There is no chance for gathering a lot of stuff. I've never been a knick knack person, but this house has very little storage. We have just enough glasses and plates to fit in the tiny kitchen. If I wanted to rob a bank and splurge on new linens, there would be no place to put them.

So that is that. We live simply, always have, and are content.

And just because we have little storage, does not mean I can't stuff the house with animals. Three cats, two dogs and some birds...oh, and the bunny. I think Omar, Oscar and Mister Mosely fit in with the wall color and furniture quite well, don't you? Our fireplace area where we have our tiny dining table, has a beautiful wood floor like the rest of the house-it is covered in dog beds. But somehow, it all works.

I like it.

Present day ghosts

Inspired by the many who have lived on this land before us. This winter I'll be diving deeper into the history of our 1760 property, first homesteaded by The Rhoades back in 1760, one of the first houses along with that of the Hilton's. I've been to their burial plots, and the history is rich, I feel it when I walk around, more so in the southern Wood. Then again there is the Quaker cemetery over there too.

"Present Day Ghosts" 12" acrylic on wood, now avaialable at the shop.

Opie goes to the sea and meets new friends

Yesterday was a big day for Opie, and me. We drove an hour and a half down to Harpswell, a beautiful area on the sea here in Mid Coast. Our destination was The Vicarage by the Sea, a private home for dementia elders. It is nestled in the woods, with open spaces for their gardens and views of the sea.

I had somehow stumbled on the place somewhere online, and was attracted by their philosophy for person-centered dementia care, and how they believe in allowing residents to explore nature, and animals are also considered a therapeutic entity. There is not a lock down mentality here-locking doors to keep residents 'safe' does not happen here, instead, because of the high staff-to-resident ratio, residents are encouraged to wander if they need to [supervised] and go on short walks out side. They have a trail they call "The Freedom Trail" where residents can explore. One of the residents had just done such a walkabout when I was there, and she came back with a smile and enthusiasm in her face and voice.

I have never worked, per se, with dementia people except for mild cases in my family. So this was a stretch, a good stretch, to put myself in. The care manager and staff were just lovely, enthusiastic not only about their jobs, but the residents, and as importantly, about Opie and what we are trying to do here at Apifera. I want to work with people like this, that truly value animal related therapy, and demonstrate they care by telling me.

There was a gentleman there who I sat next to when I first arrived, and he held some small rocks in his hand. I asked if he collected rocks and he said he did, and he spent a lot of time petting Opie. But what I noticed was how deliberately he stroked Opie's back, not in a over handed way, but in a very intentional way, with each stroke making an impact on him, and the goat. I believe in the power and healing of touch, and I think many people are afraid to be touched, or touch others. Some of us did not grow up being touched much as young people or adults. So I found it very moving to watch him touching Opie. And i think having these animal encounters allow people to touch when they might not do so otherwise.

I also really liked the way the staff spoke to the residents. They did not talk baby speech to them, and I recognized they were letting the people be who they were, people with memory lapses, but there wasn't this need to control them or correct them.

I don't know if they will remember us, I doubt they will when we return, but it doesn't really matter. When you are there, they are with you, they are getting something out the moment.

We are planning to go back in the early fall, hopefully with Martyn in tow, and the llama and some other love ambassadors. The staff was all for it.

And then, I had promised little Opie he could visit the sea. He has seen the cove here from our property across the way, but never the giant sea. He reads about it in Earnest's books. So after our therapy visit, we ventured only about a mile down the road, and there it was, on both sides of the road, vast and full of big and small vessels. But what was even more spontaneous, we noticed a young woman in a wheel chair, with two older women. They were clearly celebrating something. I wondered if I should approach them with Opie, thinking they might get a smile from that. I hesitated not wanting to intrude. But they called out to the little goat. I asked to take a photo and they agreed [I didn't feel right putting her face in this post] but she was all smiles. It was a brief interlude for her, and me, and Opie. Of all the places I could have pulled over I somehow stumbled on that one. It was s gift for all of us.

So that was the day the little love goat went to the sea.

Do you like Maine, they ask, would you do it all again?

M'Lady Apple from my studio

We have been here exactly two years now. In 2016, we loaded up 33 animals and headed from our first farm in Oregon to make the 6 day journey to mid coast Maine. One of the first beauties we met was an old crabapple on the property, always in my view...I call her M'Lady. She is in full bloom now and simply stuns me every spring.

I can say that as we go into our third summer here, I am more grounded than the first two. Part of that is...logistics and getting through the upheaval any move has on a household, and in our case, a farm. We had to build a barn, and are about to start the third one. We had little or no fencing here. We created our gardens and stone walls and privacy areas. The house needed little attention in the beginning, it felt perfect in many ways, small but quite open for it's size. I have since done painting mainly and have slowly been recreating the rooms to our needs. We left a lot of furniture behind. I knew it would not fit in this little house. I sadly left all my father's studio teak work tables behind but I really had no choice. I left the couches too. In fact, the one thing I can say I would do differently is the personal property we left behind, for free. At the time, we were under the gun. The first buyer, who we grew to see as not the buyer we wanted for the farm, fell through. Even though we were relieved, we had many reasons we had to scramble and do as we did. I did my best. But...the only option would have been to possibly lose the house we are now in, and lose the $3000 downpayment we had on the equine hauler, slow down the sale of the new buyers and stay put and hope for the best in finding another place that fit our needs. It was either rush around and try to sell things, or move. But...I would have insisted on a separate payment for the probably $10,000 or more of personal property, including the 10 year old Kubota. That is one thing that I still get angry about, that I didn't do that. There were other things in the sale I can't think about because they make me mad, so I don't. I can't tell you how stressful the sale was...and all the logistics of the move I had to handle with the animals.

So, it took time to resettle, emotionally and physically. But we have.

And yes, we like Maine. I hate the bugs and flies, but you could put me anywhere and I would tell you summer, despite all it's pluses, is not my season. I love the winter here, really I do. So does Martyn, he gets to be on the farm working, the summer people are gone, it gets beautiful and quiet. Back West, Martyn was driving a total of four hours a day just to get from the farm to his landscaping clients. He was home by 7:30 on a good day. He was running out of steam after running his own crew and business for 20+ years. Keeping up with his estimating and billing was really getting problematic. I sensed at some point we weren't going to be able to sustain ourselves emotionally for another 15 years when the mortgage would be paid off, and we would have been 70 by then. And then what? We saw a lot of people wait too long to sell their land and farms as they grew older, and they would get into trouble.

The hardest transition, for me, was losing the more rural feel. But now we live in what I describe as a postcard New England village setting. Old houses from the 1700's dot the roads in midcoast, the sea cove is in view, old apple trees, the smell of the sea...it's all different than the Wilamette Valley. Oddly, I've met quite a few Oregonians who moved here, some who are small farms. The appeal of paying 1/2 for a piece of property [versus what it would cost out West] here is what first intrigued us. As freelancers, especially for Martyn, at some point you might not be able to put in the hours to feed a mortgage. So we don't have one now. We live simply, and hope our health holds out, but who knows.

I miss my vets. I was warned by one of my vets out West who had hands on knowledge and experience with the situation in Maine of the large animal vet care, or lack there of. I believed him, but thought, well, that was 20 years ago, surely it is better now. It's not. Equine vets a plenty. But farm vets? Nope. I have not found a clinic yet that I can I say I honor and trust. I started working with a highly regarded place, but just to get them to the farm is $100, anything they do here, such as coming to examine a goat, has a $150 minimum. I talked to them about this, that they are treating small farms like people with pets versus herds and flocks. She understood, and I really liked her. But, that's the way they choose to operate, it's their business, not mine. I feel sorry for both new farmers and the animals in their care-the vets I had in Oregon taught me so much, over time. And they weren't cheap, no vet is. But what would have cost about $375 total the other day was almost $800 here. So I'm grateful I had 15 years under my belt and know the basic treatments and do most of my own vetting thanks to the vets I had out West.

Would I do the move again? I always find this question odd. It's like asking, "Would you be born again if I had a choice?" Hindsight is 20/20. I would do it again, but I wouldn't want to, and I would do a couple things differently. It was hard leaving my farm. That farm was my dream, a dream I'd had since my first encounter with my Uncle's farm in North Dakota. I write about that dream in "Donkey Dream". But it was not a question of should we leave or not. I felt we had to leave. I felt compelled to move, as fast as we could really, and I felt it had to be Maine. I will live by that and swear by that. There were invisible reasons we had to get out of there at that moment, and get here at this moment. I just went with that, i believed and let that internally. Martyn is so happy here. I knew his work schedule was killing him back West. Mistakes were being made too that were effecting our finances, he was just...spent. He gets up at 5:30 now and goes to work 15 minutes away, for a small landscape company. He is treated well and works with a great boss and crew. He has no ego about not having his own company, or not being the boss. He works on beautiful ocean properties and doesn't have to think about the logistics of the job, he just shows up and does what he loves-landscaping. He doesn't have to worry about billing. And I know exactly what money is coming in and it's easier on me too. It feels much more manageable.

When I had my riding accident last year, I asked Martyn, "Would you stay in Maine if I died?". He didn't hesitate, he said, really in a positive happy tone, "Oh yea, I love it here."

Martyn gave us so much over the years, and still does. I think more than anything, I love Maine because Martyn does. He deserves so much.

And I have people here, and creatures, I love now. I love them. I wouldn't want to have not met them, including my elder friends, and including M'Lady.