The next stop was Keene, NH to visit my husband’s youngest brother and his family, our first time at their house.

It was such a treat to see them in their home! You know, you hang out with people and visit them here and there, but being in their home — seeing their projects, looking out their windows, eating their food — is such a completely different experience. It gives a much more nuanced and complete picture of who they are.

I’d told my sister-in-law not to expect us for supper. I didn’t know when exactly we’d be able to leave the farm, and I didn’t want to make them wait for us, but that McDonald’s pitstop (my one-time fast food concession for the whole trip, not counting Dunkin Donuts and Subway) turned out to be one of my biggest trip regrets. Because when we arrived, they were just getting ready to sit down to supper: a whole bunch of homeamde pizzas, the sourdough crust all bubbly and blistered black. Even though I wasn’t hungry, I had a piece of the white pizza — artichoke, basil, fresh mozzarella, and garlic — and it was, quite possibly, the best pizza I have ever eaten, and I’m not even being hyperbolic, promise. (Later, I took notes on her method and ingredients, and today I have plans to replicate her kitchen wizardry. The bar, however, has been raised quite high. I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach it.) 

The next morning after a feast of eggs, blueberry muffins, and a dazzling fruit salad, my SIL took me on a tour of her gardens. I’ve always known she liked to garden, but her gardens were like none I’d ever seen before, rambling and half-wild, and absolutely everywhere: in the woods, around the house, behind the shed, on the side of the hill, down in the meadow. I’d had no idea.

every inch of this, she knows

There were log-lined “raised” gardens, and rows of hay bales that she planted in directly — the bales made raised gardens one year and then, as they decomposed, excellent mulch the next. In the tree stumps, she’d drilled holes for mushrooms. There were stepping stones and little hoop houses and staked plants. There were little wild strawberries woven in among the asparagus and potatoes, cultivated strawberry plants here and there, raspberry bushes, fruit trees, little patches of lettuce and peas.

strawberries, mint, garlic, asparagus

She told me about how when they’d bought the house, the flower gardens were full of orange tiger lilies and how, over time, she’s dug them all up and replaced them with plants of her choosing: pear trees and flowers and different varieties of honeyberry bushes. I’d never heard of honeyberries before, but they’re like blueberries, only better — more juicy and tart — and shaped like a cross between mini mangoes and fruity pebbles. (In the fruit salad photo above, see if you can differentiate between the honeyberries and blueberries.)

Down in the meadow, beneath the grape arbor, she showed me her method for making a garden: she digs up a three or four foot strip of dense field growth, plants in the fresh strip, and piles the grass and weeds at the far end of the newly overturned ground. The next year, she sifts through the pile of composted sod, pulling out the weeds and rocks, and then uses the rocks to make a border along the edge. She plants in the composted section and then digs a new section. Bit by bit, she’s carving a garden into the hillside meadow in front of the house. 

note the new bed cutting into the field of ferns

As we walked along, she’d occasionally pluck a diseased leaf, or yank out a weed. I’d look at the ground around me and see what looked like rambly undergrowth, and then she’d come along and name each plant, cultivated and uncultivated. She explained how she gets a start from a bush — by stapling a branch into the ground, covering it with dirt and then, once rooted, clipping it off and transplanting. She talked about transplanting whole sections of garden, adding more “show” (her lingo for color pops) to different areas, and scavenging bits of wire to cobble together trellises. 

pear, herbs, roses, and lots of “show”

Hearing her talk as we walked through her gardens, it was like I was seeing an artist at work, but with soil and seeds instead of canvas and paints. The depth of her knowledge, her hard work, her exuberance and joy, her boundless creativity and energy — it was stunning, truely. And inspirational. To me, gardening has always been tied to drudgery and work, productivity and perfection, but to her, gardening is how she plays.  

hay bale bed

And it’s not like she’s spending boatloads of time out there. Shocking, right? But really, she doesn’t have much time to garden, what with the small kids and her other projects, like spinning yarn and knitting intricate sweaters she designs herself. When I pushed her about how much time she spends gardening, she said, after thinking about it a minute, about an hour a day, probably. Hearing her say that unlocked something for me — gardens don’t have to be all-consuming affairs. I’m not going to suddenly turn into a gardener, I know, but doing better at it — and maybe enjoying it even — could be within reach. 

grazing on wild strawberries

For example, and it might sound silly, one thing I gleaned from her is this: cut out the bad plants. I always thought I needed to pull the weeds out from the roots, but she repeatedly mentioned how she clips out the bad plants. So the day after we got home, I went down to the raspberry patch and cut out the big weeds I can never seem to get rid of. And it was good enough!  

This same time, years previous: teen club takes Puerto Rico, buttermilk brownies, lemon ice cream with red raspberries.

Thanks to insane traffic, our nine-hour drive to Framingham stretched to nearly twelve, so it was dusk when we arrived at our daughter’s house, a small cottage directly beside the farm. She stepped out the door and we both immediately burst into tears and hugged and hugged and hugged. Four-plus months in a completely new place is a pretty long time to go without seeing family and friends, and it’s the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing one of my children.

She gave us a tour of the farm then, introducing us to each of the horses (she knows them all by name, like they’re people), showing us the Big-Ass fans in the arena and opening the garage door-like windows. In the feed room, she explained the feed charts (I understood not a word), and turned on the heating lights so we could stand under them. 

We left then for our hotel in Framingham so she could get to bed (she had to be at work at 5:30 the following morning), and then came back first thing the next day to watch her riding lesson.

When training, the horses wear ear protection to muffle noise and help them focus.

Here are two little videos from a recent lesson (not the one we watched, but with the same instructor). I find the instructor to be as interesting as my daughter’s riding. She cracks me up!

Her instructors kept asking us if we could see her improvement and we were like, Um, yeah? I mean, it seemed like she’s working hard and the horse’s feet keep doing weird things, but really, we had no idea what we were seeing.

(Tell me again how an equestrian was birthed from my body?)

Still, it was fun to just be in the space where she spends her days, watching her tack up and hose off her horse (and then towel dry him!), and put the little booties on their feet, and lunge them in the hot walker arena.

where she stores her gear

In the round pen inside the hot walker.

We walked with her when she walked down to the paddocks to turn out a horse. As soon as she released him, he went nuts, bucking and kicking and riling up the other horses and so, naturally, my daughter went in to be WITH him.

She grabbed his halter and clucked and purred at him, and calmly — no, nonchalantly — held her ground until he settled.

I never wrote about it here, but a couple months ago a horse rolled on my daughter. She called to tell me (actually, she texted me a photo of a saddled horse with the caption “another one bites the dust” and then I, panicked, called her) and I asked, “Are you alright?” and she said, “Yeah, I got back on and he’s not even limping or anything” to which I roared, “I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE FREAKING HORSE, I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU.” Later she sent us the footage from the arena security cameras: my daughter cantering smoothly and then the horse gliding forward and down, rolling to the right and then coming back up and standing there, and my daughter popping up and going to the horse. The whole thing took all of two seconds, maybe three. It was graceful. Elegant, almost. She was fine — just a purple egg on her leg (thank goodness he hadn’t rolled on her knee) that changed color rather prettily over the next few weeks. 

So this is why, when I see my daughter handling horses like a boss, I’m impressed.  

While my daughter did her horsely duties, my husband and I strolled through the state forest trails at the back of the property, and then took the kids into town to get lunch at Waverly Market, an Italian deli that’s nearly a hundred years old: the 99-year-old grandma was behind the cash register; the son made our subs and prepared our cappuccinos with exceptional focus and care; the granddaughter helped us figure out what we wanted to eat. We split a couple subs and tried the cannolis (I was surprised to find that I didn’t really care for them). 

Back at the farm, my husband worked on my daughter’s car, the kids played with the farm dogs, and I read on the porch while, at the other end of the porch, a group of women met with a therapist about managing fear and anxiety about riding. 

My daughter’s work completed, she quickly packed her stuff and then we all piled into the van and headed north on the next leg of the journey.

This same time, years previous: cherry picking, Korean beef, the quotidian (6.22.15), weigh in, please, beets, and more beets, spaghetti with fresh herbs and fried eggs, driving lessons.

Whenever our family goes on trips, it’s to see family, or for a day trips, like to the DC zoo. OR we swing in the other direction and move to places like Guatemala and Puerto Rico to work (and then occasionally trek about). But then our older daughter moved to Massachusetts and one thing led to another and before we knew it, we’d mapped out at honest-to-goodness road trip, our family’s first!

(And then our older son bailed on us and went to Hawaii instead, but more on that later.) 

Usually a travel hater, I was uncharacteristically excited for this trip. I was eager to see my daughter, and I had a fun plan, complete with booked tickets for a touristy outing, hotel reservations, and a ungodly amount of snacks. I google-mapped the heck out of stuff (and somehow still managed to never know where I was), and emailed with family and friends re travel tips and home visits. As we collected supplies, I piled them behind the living room sofa: the box of homecanned goods and Costco socks and GoT DVDs for my older daughter, bags of homemade granola for our breakfasts, plastic bowls, a huge bag of reading material (that I hardly touched), etc. 

Pre-trip, cleaning out my bag. Apparently, I mostly haul around junk.

But the biggest reason I was excited, though, was because for the first time maybe ever, money was not a stresser. Thanks to the pandemic, kids moving out, and random goodies from the produce farm and the bakery, plus our own beef and milk, I’d managed to squirrel away a good-sized chunk from our grocery budget each month. We still had to play it smart — no fine dining or room service — but if we had to pay for any surprise fees, or screwed up and found ourselves at a hotel with 55 dollar valet parking (oops), or wanted to buy fancy coffee, we could. The not-pinched feeling was totally new to me. So this is how people go on vacations, I thought. What fun!

In the week leading up, we readied the property, emptied the fridge, cleaned the van. My husband and the kids tightened up the dog kennel (i.e. electrified it because Danny Boy likes to jump fences), and we arranged for animal care (thanks, family!).

This particular set-up was not parent-approved and thus removed.

My son ordered tech stuff and the Spiderman movies — he reports that he watched the first one two-and-three-forths times and the second one two times; by the end, he was reciting the lines along with the actors — and spent hours scheming ways to transform the van into a lux entertainment studio.

And then Friday morning came and we were off!

This same time, years previous: Novia Scotia oatcakes, one morning, all before lunch, the quotidian (6.19.17), puff!, the quotidian (6.20.16), sinking in, in recovery, magic custard cake, refried beans.