Personal Space - The Surprise

The day I have been waiting for. The day to spring the surprise !

I woke this morning at 7am. Early for a Saturday. I still had to finish sanding and install the armoire doors before I show it to her. But before that, I had a meeting in town regarding some community work I've been involved with. Right after the meeting I rushed home to finish the job!

Another mid-summer day in Winter. 70 degrees. Sunny. Wow. It doesn't get much better than this. The wonderful thing about Summer in Winter is that you have all the warmth, without the FLIES! Yeah! I got back to the farm just after noon. There was utter harmony. I had given everyone notice earlier in the week that this weekend was a farm improvement weekend. We will all work together on small projects and jobs that will make our lives here happier. Working on things like this together helps bring a sense of collective responsibility to a family. We all really do play a critical role in our life here on Lavender Hill.

My son was well into his task rebuilding some raised beds. This year the wire mesh at the bottom of one of the raised beds in the garden finally rotted through. A gopher wreaked havoc on my tomatoes for about a month before I got him under control. An ounce of prevention though is worth a pound of cure. So rebuilding the beds in the home garden became a farm improvement project. Last weekend, he dismantled the old beds, and today he was rebuilding the new ones with the same wood. Well done!

My daughter was also working in the family garden. The winter veggies needed weeding. Not terribly exciting, but it can be meditative. I actually like doing it in early morning, when no one is awake yet. Seriously, I'm not trying to Tom Sawyer you. But today, since I had to go to the community meeting, my daughter took the task. She says she doesn't like the work, but she was smiling when I checked in. So maybe she found the same Zen, but just won't admit it to ol' Dad.

After checking on progress in the home garden, I finished up my sanding and installed the doors. But in process, I was discovered. All covered in wood dust, I turned around to see my wife staring at me. She wanted to know what I was making. Figuring I couldn't say "nothing" with a 7 foot armiore standing in front of me, a sander in my hand, and covered head to toe in dust. "Go read my blog" I told her, "then come back." She did, returning with a smile.

Now that it's ready, how to break it to her? I came up with an idea. I would tell her to read my blog, and she could learn of the surprise the same way you all did! After dinner, I casually brought up some excuse to tell her to read my blog. I had to insist actually, since I got the standard "I will" with no actual forward motion. This became a bit of a test of wills, but since my wife was in on it, she backed me up. Apparently my son had discovered me earlier that day, so he joined in too, and finally she sat down to read, while we all stared at her with goofy knowing smiles. She smiled. "All this from one outburst?" she said. Maybe I saw a happy tear, I don't know. It could have just been the light too.

Well, it worked. She liked it. We all grabbed a flashlight and hiked over to see it in the dark. I even got a rare hug. That made it all worthwhile.