It kills me sometimes that I can’t help too much with physical chores. It thrills me that I live with someone who does. We are a wonderful match for one another. I ordered a new water pump in seconds; she laid down plastic all over the basement in a couple of hours.

I was alone on the first Bedlam Farm for six years and learned that living on a farm is intensely physical.  I could never have lasted as a real farmer.

I can’t do most of those things any longer, but something in my wife’s psyche loves to take on physical tasks as long as they are her choice, not somebody else’s.

Maria is astonishingly good at it, and with almost everything she does.

At 9 a.m., we learned that moisture was coming out of the ground and into the basement from all the rain.

This is serious in an old dirt-floor basement.

We needed to lay plastic down all over the basement floor to keep the moisture from dampening and harming our basement, which was well and solidly constructed. We saw moisture gathering on the floor.  Our water pump is having a nervous breakdown.

We were told if we acted quickly, we could keep mold from gather during a summer that has brought rain just about every single day, including day.

Maria and I agreed that I couldn’t be helpful other than to take pictures, run to the hardware store, and help with cooking and shopping. Maria went to work, I honestly don’t know where she gets her energy from, but as of noon, all kinds of junk had been cleared out; there is a large pile of wooden things waiting for a bonfire this evening, another waiting for a trip to the dump tomorrow, and the entire basement floor covered with heavy plastic from corner to corner.

It looks like a large work crew had been working on it for a few days.

She would much rather be working on her art, but something in her loves physical work that improves the house. But she loved doing this. “I love this house, and I love the basement (who on earth loves basements?),” she said, looking happy. “I love taking care of it” I was impressed, not nearly for the first or last time.

She does everything she does well.

 

When she was done, she stood at the top of the stairs (she loves those stairs) and just smiled. I smiled back.

 

Last night, she stacked firewood for an hour in the rain and dark (and mosquitoes having a joyous summer).

More remains to be done. It will rain heavily tonight and tomorrow and beyond. This is not a one-day problem; we will need to figure out how to get the pump replaced (a new one is on order) and some old wood replaced around the heater and water tank.

Maria can love many things that are not human. She loves houses, basements, studios, animals, art, bugs, spiders, birds, trees, and mushrooms, above many other things.  She loves stacking wood and shoveling out barns.

She even loves me.  It seems she was waiting all her life to live on a farm like this, with animals to care for, woods to explore, and all of nature to embrace and learn about. Her curiosity is as boundless as her energy.

In some ways, I don’t understand her. In every way, I love and admire her. Once again, she saved us from a big mess. Now, she’ll vanish into the studio and work on the Raven project. I often feel like an older man watching here. But then I remember that I’m a lucky old man.

So I’m learning to shut up about it.