Getting into the Ground

While we finish up the design phase of our architectural journey and await the move into construction documents (which means we can FINALLY get our construction loan!!), John and I have been feeling antsy. With the interior demo being taken just about as far as we can take it, we waffle back and forth between wanting to get our hands into the soil to start our garden and wanting to wait until the impending days of Lazy Fox as a construction site will be over. Most of the time this translates into cutting grass on the tractor, using the weed whacker, straightening the contents of Ye Olde Shoppe, or just standing around drinking beer and Mike's Hard while we dream about the future . . . and maybe a few other things.

Father's Day Mayhem

A Typical Tuesday

 
Last fall we stumbled upon an amazing end of the season sale at Gulley's Greenhouse. We scored fruit and other trees, shrubs, and a few other plants for ridiculously low prices (also lots of free plants we donated to Mountain Sage Community School, where I sit on the board of directors). Hardly ones to pass up a good deal, we found ourselves establishing our fledgling orchard in the southeast corner of the property. It was, perhaps, a bit premature to start the orchard, but the time felt right and so we went with it. I'm happy to say that all the trees weathered the winter just fine and are doing well as the first days of summer have come to pass.

This has given us some hope, I think. I simply cannot fathom putting down literal garden roots when my own family roots are still planted somewhere else. This has made it difficult to move toward Lazy Fox the farm; I can be one hell of a road block when I want to. But planting the trees felt so good, and their tender green leaves on slender bending limbs remind me to be flexible. Growth takes time, and moving slowly, as we need to, is the name of the game.

So last weekend when I came across free raspberry plants, it just felt right to jump at planting something again. It was a dig-your-own situation. We took the kids and the dogs, and headed to a 1960's neighborhood just south of Harmony we never even knew existed. The 90 year old woman who owned the plants told us her gardening days were over. Instead of having her son simply yank and toss the raspberry plants, she waited for people willing to dig and use them. When we showed up, shovels in hand and trailer on tow, we fit the bill. We scored about 75-100 plants and lovingly brought them back to Lazy Fox.

Our initial plan had been to keep the larger plants and line the fence, keeping the dogs from running right up to it when other dogs walk by. The other plants we'd sell for $1 each. After some discussion, we realized it'd serve us better to have an actual patch where we can access the plants from all sides. We scouted out an area that felt right, the east side of what will be the garden, and got to work.

We quickly learned what we had suspected all along: the soon to be garden is rock hard, with maybe 2 inches of "top soil." Digging up the raspberry patch by hand was out. Barter to the rescue! We traded our friends over at Cresset Farm the raspberry plants we were going to sell for use of their handheld rototiller; win win!

After weed whacking, watering, rototilling, amending the soil, planting, and dodging a classic Colorado June hailstorm, we had all the plants in the ground. We're not sure how many will take, and we have plans to start amending the rest of the soil now for the garden next summer. But it felt so good to actually DO something on the property. Here's to more DOING!

This picture is so large it won't center, but here, size matters. Ella pre-watering the spot for the raspberry patch.

Chemistry

This post is about the chemistry we have with others, and the choices we face when that chemistry just doesn't work despite our best efforts to alter the formula, time and again. (I'm not referring to my marriage, by the way. While our chemistry does equate to total and utter chaos, I'm in love with it on a different level- a cosmic level. The same cannot be said for hiring professionals in the world of building . . . although maybe it should.)

Building the house at Lazy Fox is not our first rodeo. In 2008 we remodeled our home in Golden, CO. What started out as adding a second story without touching the existing interior morphed into gutting everything that had already been; we built a new house that used the shell of the little bungalow we originally bought. We learned so many things, primarily:

1. My husband's attention to detail, while overwhelming at times, is grounded in a very deep and expansive knowledge base. When he notices something and feels compelled to say something, I had better listen. There's an issue;
2. Hiring people based heavily on your personal chemistry is NOT a wise choice. More on that later;
3. You cannot be clear enough about expectations;
4. If your internal alarm is going off, pay attention;
5. When people feel stressed out, they do funny things;
6. Never stop walking . . . no wait, that was our rule from a trip to Amsterdam in 2004. That's a post for another blog entirely.
7. It's absolutely OK, and in fact our job, to speak up about what we want. This may sound obvious, but it's weird how when you are surrounded by "professionals," there is a tendency (for me, anyway) to default to their knowledge and opinion. Bad idea! It's my house for freak's sake. As my kids would say:

With such a lengthy, insightful list, it might be reasonable to assume we would be well suited to face the project at Lazy Fox. And we are. And we've already had to relearn some of these lessons just during the design phase. In our defense, this design phase has now surpassed 18 months in length, but really there's no defense here. We simply didn't remember all the previous lessons learned. I suppose that makes one more lesson learned:
      8. write down your lessons learned (perhaps in a very public place) so that you can refer to them time and again.

But I digress.

While there are many reasons that at this stage of the game we still have no permitted drawings, the single shiny star is chemistry. Back in 2008 when we were working on the Vernon Drive house, we hired our GC based on an alignment of values, and a really good personal chemistry. Some months later we found ourselves faced with someone completely different. Matters of money had rendered him unable to communicate, and he walked off the job. He claimed he was going bankrupt, but we never got any notices about it, and as far as I know, his company is still up and running. We were as upfront and forthright with him as possible, yet we stopped short of firing him. In retrospect, there were very clear warning signs along the way, yet we chose to ignore them and eventually, disaster struck.

This time around I can say that while we still waited too long with matters of personal chemistry, we have been proactive in changing course even when it feels horribly heavy to do so. Most of this is related to matters of money- letting go of that was huge, and scary, and I'm so glad we did. No one is done any favors when out of steam relationships are pushed forward for the sake of completing a task. The process and product also suffer, changing from something creative to something burdonsome.

All of this is to say that we are (back) on track with Lazy Fox and have a renewed sense of conviction. I'm sure the beautiful spring time weather has helped. We are awakening again to the possibilities that are Lazy Fox.

Cause nothing says "awaken to spring!" like

dogs frolicking in the purple twilight

of a family farm-to-be.