Our Florida Home

Looking out the big window in my studio I see the long shadows of a late winter afternoon. The setting sun backlights long strands of Spanish moss waving from the huge live oaks. A hickory tree, magnificently gold in winter, sheds its leaves and they shower down in the breeze, all in a bunch, bright coins covering the ground. I hear the dry scratching sounds of the cabbage palms roiled in the wind.

I have traveled to many places in the world, stayed in many wonderful and beautiful places, but our Florida home is the best. We are in love with our home all over again. We bought the property more than twenty years ago when land was cheap, especially this ragged cattle ranch with no amenities. It was love at first sight. We drove through the property on white sand tracks with all those fern covered oaks curving overhead. With quite a lot of creative financing, and maybe some misplaced confidence, we bought it.

It was a love affair from the start. We camped out for the first few years, and very soon it was the only destination for the weekend retreat from our usual city life. We took down the barbed wire cross fencing, fixed the mile long driveway,and built a pole barn. Gradually, we made improvements so that our campsite had power and water. When we paid off the first mortgage, we began to plan for a real house. We longed to have a home with a roof and a/c, hot shower, a kitchen. Camping gets old. We all remember rainy nights with a wet dog and cots that inexplicably gave out in the middle of the night. We were slapping mosquitoes, picking off ticks, avoiding the masses of poison ivy.

But we became addicted to this place, THIS PLACE! It isn't the man made stuff, it's what's here, and has always been here. There are orchids living on trees, sandhill cranes nesting on ponds, fox squirrels leaping through the trees, deer on the margins of the woods, eagles riding the sky,and fungus to stagger sextillions of infidels (in the words of Walt Whitman) Gradually, in long and short forays, I am coming to know this place- the birds, the wild plants, the nocturnal creatures, the reptiles. As far as I can see in any direction, there is no one here but us. And, of course, the cows who keep our pastures open.

We built our house, a sturdy cracker-style house, no mansion. It has spacious porches on two sides, a tin roof, and the idiosyncratic comforts of people who make things and do not hire a decorator. There are three bedrooms, all large, and a big center 'dog-trot' hall. The 'eat-in' kitchen can accommodate many guests who participate in the preparation of meals.

Soon, we discovered that we really needed more space for guests so we built a guest house not too far away from the main house. Our large family, now adults, really needed more space when they came to visit. This was a great decision. It's occupied almost every weekend. It is self-contained, only two large rooms with kitchen and laundry, but it looks out over a particularly lovely view of the big pond.

Next, we built a large swimming pool with a hot tub. Everyone in our family loves to swim, and this is perfect for laps or for twenty kids having water fun.

Last year we added two workshops for Andy and me. He has the dream workshop for making furniiture, and I finally have my fantasy art studio. These two buildings flank the barn with a contained yard in between, great for toddlers.

I am a fanatic gardener so we have not only spaces for native plants and wildflowers, but an always producing vegetable garden. After so many years of battling the deer, rabbits and armadilloes who also appreciate great veggies, the vegetable garden is now enclosed by a seven foot fence. Each evening I announce what is ripe and Andy picks.(He's the cook.) Eggplant? A salad of new greens? Peppers? Collards? That wonderful broccoli? Need any herbs? A ripe heirloom tomato?

I especially love the 'country' things I encounter each day. I comfortably share space with the huge gopher tortoise who lives at the end of the garden. I hear his huffing as he moves his heavy shell out of his burrough. Some of the cows come to the fence hoping I'll shoot weeds over the fence, maybe some yellowed collard leaves, or orange rinds from the morning juicing. I love seeing the deer leap across the road when I go to get the morning newspaper. I'll pause to watch the sandhill cranes come down for a raucously loud landing, or search the trees for the pileated woodpecker I hear. I stop to carefully observe the royally green chrysalises of monarch butterflies, or a blue sided fence lizard. I know where the hugest golden orb weaver spiders live. I spend moments observing ant lions at work with their carefully constructed traps.

I have many favorite places I visit each day. Sometimes I go down the lane in back of my studio because I love to see the incredible array of fungus on downed logs, the reindeer moss in a certain place, and in the mornings I check for tracks of what animals have been there during the night. Deer, raccoons, and what are those teeny-tiny foot prints?

Every morning promises a new adventure, a new chapter. I love this place way too much! Since Christmas I have been here everyday, a real record for me. I had never been here for more than a week. And I can't stand to leave tomorrow when I must go back to the urban life for a couple of days. I know that I'll have that breath-holding feeling as I go through the gate. Whew! I'm home!

I suck in my breath, awed by the overwhelming paradise we inhabit in so many ways. We are retired from very good and rewarding work, our children are a joy to us, and our six grandchildren are wonderfully evolving and ever more interesting. We still feel useful to our community. Who could ask for more?

We could hunker down and just enjoy this life in paradise. To a certain extent, we do. But the outside world is in an awful place right now. Can we get over having this truly bad and inept president? I may just have to leave 'paradise' to go and demonstrate in Washington. For peace.