Twenty years ago this month, we moved into this house.

We had three children back then, ages 5 and under. I was 30 years old and pregnant with our fourth. 

2005: celebrating my 30th

Fast forward to now.

Three weeks ago, we paid off the house. Tomorrow I turn 50. 

I’ve never lived this long in one place. Our children are from this place — the home place. It feels extraordinary, that we’ve made a home. That we’ve raised them. That we’ve lived all these years, here. The gratitude I feel — for these walls, our five acres, this valley cupped with the gentle swell of blue mountains — is chest-crushingly enormous.

Twenty years of full-on, hair-straight-back living in this place! I keep mulling it over. The exactitude and finality of two complete decades makes the chaotic richness of those years that much more mind-boggling.

I am so different now.

We are so different — all of us. 

2008

2022

Over the years, this house has seen so much life. 

• There’s the upstairs bedroom where I squatted on the floor to push the baby out, just a few months after we’d moved in. 

• In the field, the children dug holes and started fires and rode horses and built forts. 

• The beloved dogs are buried next to the porch (and all over the property, skeletons of chickens and pet mice, cats, baby goats, and other sundry bits of farm life are tucked beneath the ground, because raising animals means you gotta deal with the bodies, too). 

• There have been water balloon fights, fire bombs, hymn sings, cookouts, butcherings, doughnut parties, a wedding.

• There have been the other people who have lived here with us (the foster children and Fresh Air kids and International volunteers), as well as the renters who tended the place the year we lived in Guatemala, and the many, many guests — some from just across the field and others from across the globe. 

• There’s been SO MUCH FOOD: grown, harvested, preserved, purchased, cooked, eaten.

• There have been spills and messes and broken glass and tracked mud, and fights and temper tantrums and punched walls and patched drywall. So much patched drywall. 

• There have been stacks of library books, and hours of reading aloud together, voices droning, pages slishing, eyelids drooping. 

• There have been lazy morning and rolicking after-supper debates, accidents and illnesses, depression and loneliness, exuberance and random flare-ups of Unstoppable Giggles.

• There have been mountains of dishes washed (and the abundant caterwalling to go with).

• There have been endless home improvements: clubhouse! milking shed! attic fan! computer desk! barn! closets! kitchen island! patio!

• There have been family night movies with all six of us piled on one sofa and hundreds of pounds (literally) of popcorn eaten.

We’ve loved this place, and we’ve loved in it, and through it all, it’s held us.

Now, even as we’re continuing to fix it up, parts of the house are beginning to go. Twenty years is when you have to start redoing things, my husband says. Like the deck, for example. The railings are wobbly and loose, so “fix deck” has been added to the (mental) queue. 

first evening on the new patio

I’m 50 this year. This week — tomorrow. 

I know I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating.

The number itself is easy — 50 strokes of the hairbrush, 50 chew-and-swallows for a meal, 50 steps, calories, dollars, etc, etc — but when it means years lived? Of my life? That’s harder.

The other morning when I was putting on my shoes before work, it occurred to me that it used to be that the years stretched endlessly ahead of me. All that future, just waiting to be lived! 

But now time is stacking up behind me. I’ve lived long enough to have changed — in many ways, I am wildly different from who I used to be — and I have the memories to show for it, way more than I can possibly hold in my brain. 

I think about this — my dwindling future — a lot. 

Making the last payment on the house.
^{(Or so we thought. Turned out we had to wait another week.)}

My college roommate used to say she wanted to have lots of wrinkles when she got old because they’d be proof she’d smiled a lot. (Do you remember this, Corinna?)

Now that I’ve got wrinkles and gray hair and less energy, her comment pops into my head at least once a week. I don’t fully share my friend’s enthusiasm for the wrinkles, but I know I better find the beauty in, and gratitude for, aging if I’m to do it gracefully.

(Isn’t it funny how one small inocuous statement can barnacle itself to another person while we forget almost everything else? Makes me ponder what barnacles I might be leaving in my wake…)

Unlike houses, remodels on the human body do nothing to extend the lifespan, so long ago, I decided I’d skip the hair dye (and other age concealors). Sure, they tempt me occasionally (or the idea of them tempts me), but I figure it’s better to come to terms with my natural evolution (or de-evolution?) incrementally, rather than in one big whoosh at the end.

After all, life is just one long race to the grave so it behooves one to pace herself, yes?

2025: our house, twenty years a home

So there you have it. In summary, barring a catastrophe, this house will probably long outlast me.

Act I
50 years, lived.
Children, raised.
Home, made.
…and lots of other stuff I’m skipping.

[intermission]

Act II
Coming soon…

Here’s to hoping the second half’s as good as the first.
[clinks glass]

This same time, years previous: South Africa, farm tour, chicken chica, Italian chopped salad, a bakery shift, the quotidian (9.23.19), a bunch of things, grape pie, a day in the life, better than cake, test your movies!, baking with teachers, the quotidian (9.24.12), painting my belly.

A few months back, I decided to try water kefir (pronounced kah-FEAR).

I love my carbonated water — and I have the bulk tank of gas to prove it — but a naturally fizzy water flavored with a few pieces of fruit? That’s supposed to be good for you??

I was curious. So I ordered a starter packet of grains and 6 flip-top jars. I researched my eyeballs out. And then I ran test after test after test. Here are my water kefir cliffnotes, as per my system. 

Water Kefir, A Process
Once the kefir grains have been hydrated, the system is as follows.

Step 1: Mix ½ cup of raw sugar with water in a half-gallon jar. Pour in the kefir grains. Top off the jar with cool water. Cover with a piece of paper towel and leave on the counter for 48 hours. This is Ferment #1. 

Step 2: After 48 hours, the liquid will be brown from the raw sugar and only mildly sweet. There might be bubbles on top of the jar, and if you tap it, bubbles will shoot to the top. Pour the jar’s contents through a sieve to catch the grains.

Step 3: Repeat Step 1 to start the next batch of water kefir, using the grains that are draining in the sieve.

Step 4: Pour the fresh water kefir into fliptop jars. Add fresh/dried/frozen fruit, herbs, juice, and maybe a teaspoon of sugar (if the ingredients don’t have much natural sugar). Let the jars sit on the counter for 24-48 hours. Every morning and evening, burp the jars. This is the 2nd ferment. 

Step 5: As the kefir becomes ready, white bubbles form on the surface. When burping, there is a ‘POP’ upon opening, “steam” swirls out, millions of bubbles race to the surface, and the drink comes bubbling up and out of the jar. When very ready, fruit may end up on the ceiling.

Pro tip: when opening, place the jar in the sink and cover with a wash cloth to contain the chaos.

Once you’ve got the proper fizz, refrigerate the bottle and drink within 2-3 days. A good water kefir tastes gently sweet, fruity, and wonderfully fizzy. A so-so water kefir has a slight touch of gentle funk. A “nope” kefir tastes like bread yeast or rotten fruit. 

Flavor Experiments and Suggestions
Here are the kinds of water kefir I’ve made and what I’ve thought. (All amounts are added to a liter of first-ferment water kefir in a fliptop jar.)

Pineapple: ½ cup canned pineapple juice
Good flavor. Excellent fizz.
Watermelon Mint: 2-4 tablespoons fresh watermelon juice and a couple sprigs of fresh mint
Weak fizz, leans towards yeast.
Mojito: juice of 1 lime mixed with 1 teaspoon sugar, 2-3 sprigs fresh mint
Very delicious and light, average fizz.
Ginger Lemon: Juice of ½ lemon, a couple slices of fresh ginger, sometimes a drizzle of honey
Good flavor, weak fizz. 
Coconut: canned coconut water, lime juice, fresh mint
Weak flavor and fizz.
Sour cherry: frozen sour cherries with juice
Yeasty, mild fizz
Whey and Coconut Water: ⅓ cup sweet whey and coconut water
Disgusting. No fizz
Guanabana: canned guanabana juice
Thick texture/flavor, but good, not great fizz
Raspberry: 10-15 frozen raspberries
Light and delicious, pretty color, good fizz
Grape 1: frozen grape juice concentrate
Good grape flavor (like grape ice pops), average fizz
Grape 2: 10 fresh grapes, mashed
Light flavor, a little yeasty, explosive fizz
Blackberry: 6-8 frozen blackberries cut in half
Spectacular color, mild flavor, decent fizz
Apple Cider, plain: ⅓ cup cider
Delicious, wonderful bubbles
Apple Cider, jacked: ⅓ cup cider, 5 raisins, a piece of cinnamon bark, some dried apples
Coworkers say it tastes like an alcohol-free hard cider, great fizz
Peach: a scoop of canned peaches
Kinda bland, but it ferments well.
Orange Marmelade: a scoop of orange marmelade jam
Unexciting, didn’t fizz well.

Pro-tip: If a water kefir is acting extra sluggish on its second ferment, add a couple glugs of a strong, finished water kefir. That usually picks up the pace.

Now, a couple months later, I’m of two minds — maybe three — about water kefir. 

Mind One
It’s delicious and fun to play with and now I don’t need carbonated water, yay!

Mind Two
Water kefir is just one more thing to tend to, and since the family prefers straight water, why bother? 

Also, since it’s so full-flavored — it feels almost like a food — I only drink a glass a day. With carbonated water, I can easily down a full liter with just a kiss of fresh lemon, no sugar at all. In other words, water kefir doesn’t meet my craving for bottomless fizzy sipping.

Mind Three
I can’t quite shake the feeling that all this prattle about water kefir being good for you is a bunch of hooey. I mean, there’s all that sugar that gets added at the beginning, after all. I know the grains supposedly “eat” the sugar, and it’s true that the starter ferment doesn’t taste hardly sweet at all after the 48 hours, but I don’t get it.

The sugar’s still there, right? 

And generally speaking, I’m skeptical about the whole probiotic craze. The way people go on and on about it, you’d think probiotics will fix everything that’s wrong with your body, mental health, relationships, and the whole freaking hell-in-a-handbasket world we’re living in. 

Yeah right.

Since drinking water kefir, I haven’t noticed a single change expect that I’m perhaps mildly constipated. 

So that’s my water kefir adventure thus far.

For what it’s worth.

This same time, years previous: interview with a menopause researcher and specialist, the quotidian (9.18.23), fruit crisp ice cream, saag (sort of) paneer, family night, bottle calves, the unraveling, black bean and veggie salad, historical fun, the big bad wolf and our children, in defense of battered kitchen utensils.

For quite some time, we have wanted to get the milking equipment out of the downstairs guest room.

But wanting something to happen doesn’t necessarily mean it will . . . unless you decide to host a young adult from Mozambique.

When I learned about the need for a host family back in June, I jumped at the opportunity. I was (am) tired of having an only child at home, and I was (am) sick of our country’s abhorrent attitude toward people not “from here.” Supporting and learning from someone from another country would be a much-needed antitode to our current cultural depravity.

So we applied to host and — whoosh — just like that, a fire was lit under our butts. (Also, my husband had just finished a huge job and had a few weeks off.)

Now here’s where things get interesting. Because: if you sign up to host a young man for a year, then you’ll be forced to take the milking supplies out of the guestroom*

. . . and thus begins our little “if you give a mouse a cookie” adventure.

Here, let me spell it out.

If you decide to take the milking supplies out of the guestroom, then you’ll need a place to put them. Logically, that will be the back hall (a.k.a. the shoe room, a.k.a. the pantry, a.k.a the place the dog sometimes sleeps), but then you’ll have to find a new home for half the stuff that’s stored there.

Which means you’ll need to build a new pantry. The far corner of the living room will be ideal, but that’s where the piano is.

So, bye-bye, piano, and hello, massive dream closet.

But if you build a new closet, then you’ll have to fill it.

And while digging for all the pantry supplies that have been stashed hither and yon (not just in the back hall), you’ll realize that the bathroom dresser that holds lots of crap is actually, itself, total crap. (You knew this before, but you ignored it because you didn’t want a mouse-and-cookie day.) So one fine morning in a fit of rage over one of the swollen-and-stuck crappy dresser drawer, you hurl the dresser out of the house. 

Or rather, you’ll yank out all the drawers and stack them up in the guest room (which still has the milking equipment in it, by the way), and then you’ll get your husband to help haul the dresser out to the porch with all the other crap that’s already been cookie-and-moused out of the house.   

Once you throw out the crappy dresser, it will become obvious that you now need to tear out all the bathroom shelves and cupboards and install “new” second-hand ones (that your husband scored from someone else’s kitchen remodel). 

While you’re putting in the new bathroom cupboards, you will decide it’s time to tear out the old lighting that your 6’5″ son keeps whacking his head on. And if you tear out the lights, then you’ll need to put in new ones.

Also, a bathroom fan.

All the tearing out and stalling-in means there’s drywall to patch, which will remind you that the upstairs bathroom has spots needing patching, too, pant-pant.

At some point (there is so much going on that the storyline will get a little fuzzy), all the non-food shelving in the pantry will get ripped out and dumped in (you guessed it) the downstairs guestroom. Which now, along with all the milking equipment and dresser contents, will also contain coats, shoes, shower curtains, clothes destined for the thrift store, bags of trash, and a multitude of other things.

Also, the porch will be pure chaos.

And the houseguest from Mozambique is arriving in one week.

But now that the pantry is mostly emptied, your husband will remember that he never actually finished the floor when you moved into the house 20 years ago. 

“Hardwood or tile,” says your husband. “Tile,” you say, and so a new project commences.

Once the “new” bathroom cupboards are modified and installed, they will need to be painted. And if you paint the cupboards, then you will also need to paint the bathroom walls. 

And the entryway walls. And the pantry walls. 

Once the new bathroom cupboards are ready, you will have to fill them . . . nicely, so all the medicines and toiletries and cleaning supplies will have to be sorted and organized.

Now that the houseguest is due to arrive in 24 hours, the whirlwind, as if it’s even possible, will pick up.

The milking shelving will get lugged into the newly tiled and painted pantry.

The bathroom will get cleaned.

For the first time in the history of the house, locks will be installed in the bathroom and guestroom. New fire alarms will go in. Guestroom windows and walls will get scrubbed. A wobbly, thrifted desk will get shored up, the guestroom dresser which has a few sticky drawers will get shaved into slidy-drawer submission, a picture will be hung, and lighting will be arranged and plugged in. 

So if you seriously want to get that milking equipment out of the guest room, decide to host someone for a year. Then, chop-chop.

The end.

*Live-in guests get the downstairs guestroom (as opposed to the one upstairs) for easy come-and-go access, as well as close proximity to big bathroom and washing machine.

This same time, years previous: seven fun things, behind the scenes, growing boy lunches, four fun things, the quotidian (8.31.20), at home, crunch week, chomper, the quotidian (8.29.16), tomatoes in cream, it all adds up.