Monday, November 20, 2006

Wolf Hill Farm

As it turns out, instead of visiting a campy attraction after leaving our motel in Ames, we went to Main Street in search of a decent cup of coffee. We ended up spending hours luxuriating at a local coffee shop with good food and a fascinating mix of people. Ila and P. took a long walk on Main making friends with the local merchants while I absorbed the personality of the town through about as diverse a crowd as you can get when there are only white folks. An upright, well hair-sprayed bible thumper, a bearded man about 6’5” with huge knockers, more of those wholesome college students, and a couple of moms and dads straight out of Berkeley... old, young, gay, straight, preppy, hippy. We stayed for coffee and lunch taking turns giving Ila some fresh air and wandered into a superb toy store. It was 2 pm when we finally pulled away, now unable to stop at any of our kitchy stops (though it turns out several were closed anyway – guess November isn’t the high season around here). We did the math and realized we’d be doing the one thing everyone had instructed us not to do – arriving at the farm after dark.

And we didn’t know from dark! With overcast skies and no moon, it was pitch black at 5:15 when we pulled up to Caroline, Christopher and Emma’s farmhouse at the end of a long gravel drive. But even so, we could see that the farm wouldn’t disappoint. The front porch was lit and decorated with a scarecrow, pumpkins and cornstalks. Our headlights illuminated Christopher, flashlight in hand, on his way to check on the sheep. We were herded in for tea and within a few minutes were joined by Caroline and Emma back from school and work. The girls ran off to play while adults caught up, then P. and I poked around the sweet, comfy house. The ladybug infestation we’d been warned about seemed to have abated, though there were stragglers in every room crawling sluggishly by windows and ceilings. The house was cozy too, not freezing, though the temperature, at least initially, was in the balmy upper 30’s and nothing to complain about in the first place. After a hearty meal and late bedtimes, we snuggled in under a pile of blankets.

In the morning we woke to lowing cows and more grey skies. Ila says we left the sun in our neighborhood and that he’s lonely. I’m sure there’s more to that than just the change of weather. I feel it too. I’m missing our home a little more every day. Feeling adrift. But at the same time, it’s fun, and eye-opening. I feel more relaxed than I have in a long time.

We were introduced us to the ewes – twelve docile, nearly tame girls. In a frank, farm girl way seven year-old Emma told us that her parents had planned to butcher Blue Girl until she had twins and proved her worth. As for her twin brother Blue Boy, he was the soft skin on the floor in our bedroom. Chickens, she told us, hadn’t worked out because the mink got them. Even the babies who were just old enough to start roaming on their own.

Blue Girl





It felt good to be at the farm. Caroline, Christopher and Emma work hard to maintain a lifestyle of relative simplicity and environmental responsibility, and as guests, we had a chance to feel like we were doing the same. Everything from grazing the animals to washing the dishes is done in a careful way. One afternoon I hung laundry in below freezing weather, while Peter and Christopher shoveled sheep poop for use in next spring’s vegetable garden. Both Caroline and Christopher grew up with English influences so the days were marked by a series of decadent meals: breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea and supper – usually followed by more tea and sweets. Christopher told me that Caroline once said you could tell it had been a good day if there were no clean mugs left at bedtime.

It’s hard to capture the feel of the place without making it sound clichĂ©. You can browse through a book like Weeds of the West, or The Complete Guide to Skinning and Tanning. Or you can turn off the electric fence and go hang with the ewes. You could walk the 80 acres of forest and grassland or drive a lazy road dotted with silos, barns and crooked farm houses. We took a day trip up alongside the Mississippi to see the tundra swans during a stop on their migration and discovered beaver dams and eagles nests. But it wasn’t all purty all the time. It happened to be the beginning of a very brief deer hunting season and we took a risk walking through the wildlife preserve. Yes, they hunt on wildlife preserves.

Leaving the farm we passed truck after truck filled with orange-capped hunters and topped with dead deer. Almost more gruesome were the trucks with tops over the beds. You couldn’t see the deer, only tell-tale streaks of blood on the tailgate. Peter drove strategically to avoid upsetting Ila who was under the impression that the hooves she saw sticking up out of a pickup belonged to a deer who was just sick and going to the doctor.

Now we're at a fleabag motel with a shuffleboard court somewhere in Indiana. A far cry from the romance of the farm, but one step closer to the next part of this scheme.

Here's Peter on the farm:
Across the Mississippi River from La Crosse, Wisconsin, is La Crescent, Minnesota. My eldest sister Caroline has a farm there. La Crosse means “the Cross” and La Crescent means “the Crescent.” I’ve always had a pretty good ear for French.
When you pull up you see a beautiful white farmhouse, some farmy type buildings, but the product is unclear. A dried up patch of corn the size of a volleyball court, a row of grape vines, then you hear them and looking up you realize that you are being closely watched.
It’s a sheep farm. Organic, sustainable, pretty small. Twelve ewes, and a ram named Adonis. The idea is to sell to local co-ops, groceries and restaurants. Like lots of farmers, Caroline and Christopher have other jobs. Caroline works for a land stewardship program with an ever-dwindling staff. Christopher is a substitute teacher. Emma, their seven year-old daughter goes to a small school a few miles away.
So while Caroline and her family wait for some good smart restaurants to open and for the world to start thinkin’ different, they plug along much like the rest of us. Except that unlike the rest of us, they’re actually putting their money where their mouths are.
Plus, my sister who does work that’s important to her and to everyone, and everyone’s kids is in great shape, a really good artist, has been a journalist, cooked on boat on the Hudson River and served for the Peace Corp in West Africa the entire time I was in college (longer than the standard four years!). She’s got about three master’s degrees and she owns and works with her husband and daughter, this boss-bitchin’ picturesque farm in Minnesota. I’m talking quiet-on-the-set picturesque, and while she can’t use it towards sustainable reusable dollar bills, she certainly has my respect and admiration for the way she lives her life.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Ames, IA at the AmericInn.

I think this is my new favorite motel chain. Butter churners in the lobby, a pool, wireless and a waffle maker. Doesn't get better than this.

We’re in the heartland and as much as I want to peel off all the Bush Cheney bumper stickers, and as bad as P. says the drivers are, I’ve found that people are really nice. The college students (this is our second college town stop in the Midwest, the first was in Nebraska) are really good looking in that ivory soap way with a touch of MTV around the edges. Wholesome really. And as much as it disturbs me, it attracts me. I want to be wholesome too.

We’ve been driving for two days now. We’re headed from Denver to La Crescent MN where P.’s sister has a farm. We’ll spend the weekend there. I’ve heard rumor that it’s cold there. Our recent drives have been uneventful. The skies have been grey and the landscape is bleak although a few minutes of sunshine every two hours gave us a glimpse of how beautiful it must be in the other three seasons. We’ve found that the best way to drive with Ila is to keep it to about five or six hours of driving time broken up by lunch. Keeping with bedtimes and mealtimes makes it hard to do much sightseeing, but I did experience my very first Applebee’s last night and feel the more American for it. (For the record, P. says I’ve been to an Applebee’s before, but that it was by no means the popular restaurant it is now. As always, on the cutting edge!)

We only have about 200 miles to cover today so we may try to fit in some sights. Thanks to Russ I've reviewed roadsideamerica.com and it's just a matter of choosing between the Spam or Hobo Museums or the Grotto of the Redemption.

And now to start catching you up on the early part of the trip…


Friday, November 3rd
San Francisco – The Ritz

Friday afternoon, November 3rd, we turned over keys to the new owner. Our bags were still lying all over the sidewalk and the impossible task of somehow squeezing it all into the car was ahead of us. There was no time to do a leisurely last walk through of our house of four years. The house where we brought home our brand new baby and all that good sentimental stuff, so I just had to suck it up. This was probably was for the best since I was already crying every five minutes as it was. Eventually we just shoved it all in the car, pulled into the neighbor’s driveway, left Ila with them and went into San Francisco for a night at the Ritz – a gift from the folks at Kokkari.

The Ritz was ritzy. We were treated to an impressive dinner heavy on the foam and gelee, were sir’ed and madam’ed to our hearts’ content and nearly didn’t make it out of the gigantic room with the coziest beds in town. We could hear the sound of the cable car cables under California street, wierd new age music played on the flat screen TV, there was chocolate… it was spectacular. But we pulled ourselves together and went by Kokkari for a last goodbye, most of which I spent crying in the park across the street as I thought back on our early days in SF, how much we’d miss our friends and all the things we were leaving behind. Afterwards, we took a walk around Nob Hill looking down on the city, remembering those early days together. It was a lovely night, a perfect San Francisco night. A good way to say goodbye.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Nebraska, Highway 80

November 14, 2006

Highlight: tumbleweed attack

It’s unfortunate that we only have a few weeks to make our way across the country. Each driving day we pass at least a dozen places I want to investigate further. Even here on this dull interstate cutting through a flat, brown, overcast state, I want to stop in a small town and see what’s going on. Instead, I have to be satisfied with our pitstops and motel overnights, both of which often turn into mini adventures of their own.

Today we’re driving through Nebraska after a long weekend in Denver with three of P.’s four sisters and their families. Ila was in heaven with ten of our cousins (nine of them girls), and their endless supplies of princess finery, chocolate cereal and movies. P. and I relaxed, caught up with the sisters and brothers in-law, marveled at the genius of each niece and the nephew, and just generally enjoyed having Ila occupied by someone else. We were hoping to hit Lincoln tonight but we’ll probably cut the drive short due to some high winds and spend a night in the thriving metropolis of Kearney. Highlight in Denver? Other than Ila’s extreme pleasure and the comfort of family, my favorite experience was my niece Lucy’s piano recital during which two pre-teen girls sang, in falsetto voices, a dirge called the Outcast. I arrived too late to watch Lucy perform, but she managed to give me an encore in the practice room while the next round of performers warmed up. Lucy ROCKS the piano.

The first part of our drive today took us through north-eastern Colorado and south-western Nebraska. Not much to look at, especially at mid-day with very overcast dull grey skies. We were however kept entertained by tumbleweeds flying across the interstate at high speed. The first one was a treat. I pointed it out with a wild-west enthusiasm to Ila. A few minutes later, another one caught her eye and within the hour we were shrieking as they descended upon us in droves. Stopping for a toilet break, we noticed part of our grill had been left behind and I pulled handfuls of dried sticks from a hole under our headlight. At the rest stop Ila commented loudly about the bathroom conditions (stinky!) and Peter was forced to negotiate with a grouchy woman (?) behind the cafĂ© counter who must have noticed our California plates and weren’t too pleased to serve him. We’re not much welcome around these parts…

Sorry for the delayed posting, it’s been busier than I thought it would be. In fact, while I’d pictured myself writing copiously while listening to Spanish tapes and eating granola, I am in fact usually twisted backward entertaining miss Ila moo with magnet games and make-believe (Mom, pretend I am a princess, and you are a doctor…) while Charlotte’s Web or Raffi play on the radio. P. of course is always the driver because we both know he’s better at it and would go insane if he had to sit in the co-pilot seat doling out cheese sticks and sippy cups all day. When we’re stopped, we are usually busy visiting with our hosts and repacking in a futile effort to make it look like we have less crap, leaving little time for writing down the details. At motels we sometimes fall asleep all together, in our driving clothes, unopened bags all around, at 9pm. At least we’re perky for the continental breakfasts (Froot Loops, non-dairy creamer and mini muffins).

I'll catch you up on the early part of our trip in the next few posts.