Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Conservation Easement

We live in paradise, also known as Central Florida, Green Swamp West, Woodhills Ranch. More than twenty years ago we felt the need to have some rural property. We have a great need to be in the country, not in spitting distance from anyone. And so, as we were looking for some rural place, perhaps on a river, we heard of land north of Tampa and a bit north of Dade City, that was part of the huge Cummer lumber tract, and they wanted to sell out. We looked at this land and it was the prettiest woods and fields we had ever seen. Immediately, we plotted our way to owning a portion of it. At that time we were not rich, but frugal, and beginning to put kids through college. But we used 'creative financing' to buy this land- 250 acres. It was the best gamble of our lives.

At first we camped out on the property. Gradually, as we came to know it, and we had more income, we staked out a future barn site we built, then a house, a guest house, a pool, and now two workshops. Flocks of friends came, our grandchildren, and kids from my school have come every single year for their week at the ranch, the best activity they said. Our daughter grew up here and we have so many memories of nights we had to care for new calves, or plastering ourselves dressed only in nightgowns, against the fence, as a cow stampede went by.

I remember a time when middle school kids were here and we went out in the truck and observed the birth of a calf. This was an amazing event to them. They were totally quiet, watching the whole thing for almost an hour. When the tiny calf stood up, finally, they all cheered.

This place has history for our family and for so many others. We do not want to see little mansions dotted around the gentle hills. We want to keep this ranch pristine, no development. Our neighbors on one side, the Blanchards, have put their 1200 acres into a conservation easement. On the other side is Swiftmud all the way to the Withlacoochee River. With all these properties together, it makes a strong corridor for wildlife to flow for a long distance through the Green Swamp. The birds and owls, turkeys, Florida jays, foxes, all kinds of reptiles, have a place to go and to be. We had the opportunity to add sixty acres to our land, and we did.

A long way around describing a conservation easement. First of all, we want to keep this place as a wild Florida place for future generations. Second, we could not imagine how any of our children would have the resources to keep this place up (even if they wanted ).
By putting this place in a conservaton easement, it lowers the value of the land. No one, not us, not anyone in the future can develop this land. What's here now is all that there can be.

There are several ways one can do this: you can pay to get your land into a land trust, or, if your land is in a critically environmental situation, the state will pay you for the conservation rights. We explored all options, excluding The Nature Conservancy because Andy is involved with that. Swiftmud, our neighbor to the south and to the north was a natural.

Today, we heard that, after all these months of negotiation, SWIFTMUD has granted us the easement. Two newspapers have called for interviews about it. It makes me nervous! All I want to be is an anonymous wildlife conservator. This is a win-win situation. SWIFTMUD has allocated from Florida Forever funds a million dollars for the development rights to our land. Many weeks from now I assume we will get a check. We will pay off the realtor (5%), the surveyors, and the people who made core samples in the cow pens to check for old arsenic, and we will pay a huge 25% capital gains tax. We will fund a 529 for our six grandchildren to go to college, and we will pay down a chair we have funded at USF. Whew! Maybe enough left for a new tractor? Probably not!

But it is still fun to win the lottery!
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Friday, July 27, 2007

Grateful Dead Revisited

The Lacoochee gang came for another day at the ranch. I had prepared the dye baths and the pristine damp tee shirts for a morning of creating wild projects. First, we all assembled in my studio to view the clay projects from the last time. They had been glazed and fired and looked so bright and lovely as they were arrayed on the table. The kids, twelve of them, chose their own pieces and wrapped them in newspaper and lots of tape to take home.

Then, we moved out to the barn (it was gently raining), and got started with applying the rubber bands tightly to the shirts. We had four vats of dye. Considering that this is a complicated and very messy project, the kids did well and were pleased with the results. One by one, those shirts began to hang out on the fence to dry. There was no complaining, just utter concentration. I had gloves for the kids, but I noticed that all of us had purple hands.

The rain kept on dripping but there was no thunder or lightning so we spent the next hour in the pool. These kids have so few opportunities to swim and they love it. Now they know the rules (no running), and you can use anything you want - goggles, floats, toys, flippers, snorkels, arm floats- you just have to put everything back. I love watching these kids in the water. They invent games, involve each other. These kids do not have that 'entitled' feeling I have often felt from the prosperous middle class families I know. (As was mine, I might add.)

Dade City! I keep finding nuggets of interest. The Lacochee kids are not those children I keep track of in the New York Times. Today we had a birthday party for two kids. The grandmother, Pam, had made a splendid cake in the fashion of an American Flag. Pam, who might be in her late fifties, came today. She was limping from a bad knee. She is one of those women who raise kids, and then raise kids some more. She and her husband are building a log home by hand. They will give their present home to her daughter and her kids.

For this birthday party there were no gifts, none expected. One of the birthday girls brought to show me her best gift from her mom, a music box with a dancing ballerina and with a drawer below for treasures. The kind of thing my own daughter would have killed for at seven. At this birthday party guests did not have to contribute to the Heifer Foundation. The celebration consisted of a lovely lunch of white bread p and j sandwiches cut into hearts, four kinds of chips, and juice boxes. One of the children was asked to say a blessing for the lunch. I was amazed to hear a very long and articulate prayer. I provided vegetable sticks and a dip made of atheist organic yogurt and ketchup, and some slices of watermelon. Then, we lit the candles, presented the cake and everyone sang 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'.

I am learning so much from these gentle people. Next to coming to the ranch, their best thing is going to something called "The Christian Edge", a kind of road house up on #301, where whole familes go for lots of activities. Virginia and I are going to make a visit. Maybe we'll take some grandkids. Stay tuned.

After we made the tie dye tee shirts, the kids told me they would wear their shirts for an up-coming seventies night at the Christian Edge (and they would be awesome!)

Even as an oldster, one has to be open to new ideas, even in Dade City.
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Painters and Caterpillars

Strange and beautiful caterpillars are dripping from the hickory trees. For a couple of weeks we have noticed the copious caterpillar poop plopping on the driveway and onto the cars. I hear them dropping like rain on the tin roof of the barn, and now, having denuded the trees, the caterpillars are on the ground for about half an hour at which point they burrow into the earth and will be seen no more until a year or two. Then they will continue their cycle of eating leaves and.. The hickories are already leafing out anew.

Strange and beautiful painters live amongst us as well. Steve, and Jared, his son, are painting the house, the guest house, and the barn. The guest house has been painted, and the barn. The main house needs some interior work as well as the outside. They are always here. Our dog tells me that our regular nap/reading time has gone to hell. The painters are replacing rotten siding and they are prying and hammering.

We had just had an enormous number of guests before we left for a week's trip to North Carolina. Steve was to paint the kitchen while we were gone. I had left him a hurried note saying that since we had removed a large tree from the yard, the light in the dining room was different. Should we paint the dining room something different (from the usual off-white?)

When we returned we found that the kitchen and the hall were painted in wonderful vibrant Italianesque shades of yellow and orange. We gulped, then ogled, then loved it. Our decorator!

I love having painters, renovators, and handy people of all kinds helping us maintain our homes. We used to do everything ourselves, and now, though we still do a lot of maintenance on the ranch, we need the help of these wonderful folks.

This evening when I went up to the main house where Andy was making dinner, I asked, "Are we alone? Is anyone here?" They have all gone home for the day so we go for a swim in the pool, no suits, many laps, so cool.

We are so fortunate, here in paradise.

I need to share it, so this week twenty or more kids I know from Lacoochee Elementary School will be coming for a day of making tie-dye tee shirts, swimming, celebrating birthdays, having experiences, and leaving with a book to read and their own fired clay pieces carefully wrapped in newspaper.

We are so fortunate.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Ironweed Summer

Middle of July and the ironweed, my favorite wildflower, is in bloom. The individual blossoms are small but they have that intense purple color of kings. Hardly anyone but natives would want to be in Florida in the middle of summer. The rains, proceeded by wonderful clouds, and ending with double rainbows, are happening each day. The sensual heat envelops us in a humid batting. We give thanks for the air conditioning we have in our work spaces. In the main house we sleep without a/c and use only a fan. We love hearing the frogs and owls by night and the dawn chorus of birds backed up by the insect tympani. We read the morning papers in the cool of the morning on the screen porch. We watch the pileated woodpeckers and the hummingbirds feeding and the butterflies flitting among the flowers and tree trunks. We feel incredibly blessed.

Time to order the new tomato seeds to start for planting in the vegetable garden by the end of August. Andy has made a big new armadillo-proof planter for lettuces.(We have trapped four armadilloes lately!) We bought new mats for the porches so the old ones are going into the vegetable garden as mulch to smother the weeds. The compost pile is cooking away, getting ready to be the planting medium for salad greens. Tomorrow morning before it gets too hot I will turn it over.

We are deciding what trees to plant in the yard outside the dining room. Last week we had a huge hickory tree, rather rotten, and ready to fall on the house in a high wind, removed. The area now looks naked. We are thinking of having several native palms planted there. We are so aware of which trees will withstand hurricanes yet lower the profile of the house and give us some shade from the morning sun.

The pastures are so thick with grass that they laugh and sing. The cows are fat. Blackberries are over, but now we have figs, eggplants, and the grapes are coming on. We have to mow and keep the fences intact.

I wake up each day with a delicious plan. It's a lot of work to keep this farm going, but so worth it! In the heat of the day we are in our studio spaces, painting or making furniture, or whatever.

And all the while, we think, listen or read about the dreadful state of our country and world. We volunteer for environmental and political initiatives. We try to reduce our footprint. I find myself apologizing to my grandchildren!

Soon, we will have many more children visiting us. The Lacochee kids are coming this week for an art and swimming day, several old SunFlower graduates will come for a day or so. And both of us are so looking forward to the annual summer visit of The Girls, four of them who come every summer and just do nothing. Feels just right to me. And then, just on the heels of The Girls, we'll have all our grandchildren and their parents together here at the ranch. I hope there won't be any hurricanes!

We love this place!
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Friday, July 20, 2007

On the Mountain

The morning the grandkids and all the others left, we stripped the kitchen for the painters. We wanted to be on the road for our trip to North Carolina to see old friends who have a house in the mountains. We hoped that our kitchen would be finished when we returned. About ten in the morning we left with our dog, Lola. She had packed herself in her kennel, not to be left behind!

We love road trips. Traveling through any part of America, this time the southeast, we reconnect with what this country is all about. Our trip was close to six hundred miles, through the rolling low hills of north Florida and into Georgia. We spent the night in Athens, a university town we have often been to on the way to taking our children to camp. We know that Holiday Inns take dogs. The one in Athens is pretty much bare bones accommodations but Lola loves going out and sniffing the scents of worlds beyond imagining for a dog. But then we can tell her to guard the room while we go out and explore this interesting college town, have dinner, and stroll back to our motel.

The next day is suddenly rising up into the Appalacian spine. It gets cooler by the minute. Within two hours we find ourselves in Highlands, North Carolina. We have been here before but I still recoil at the preciousness and perfection of this town full of antiques and expensive clothes and the reek of money. (No Wallmart or Target) Makes me want to go up to anyone and say, "Excuse me for being white and elderly with money to spend". But I don't see anyone to whom I'd adress this.

We drive on per instructions, up many gravel roads and arrive at our destination. Our friends live close to the top of a mountain in a wonderful situation overlooking layers of smoky blue mountains. They are in the midst of doubling the size of their modest house. They are adding a lovely screened porch, a new kitchen and great room. What they are doing seems so appropriate and perfect for them. We feel comfortable there because this home is right for the number of people there, and the footprint is right for a couple who live there and have children and grandchildren and friends visit.

We saw other homes in this development of homes on the mountain. Some of them were amazingly out of scale for our planet. I wonder why a couple of people would want to build an eight thousand square foot home, cantelivered out on a hill, with two functioning bars, swimming pool, etc. etc.?

A road trip is always interesting, fodder for the mind. Seeing the second homes of America's rich and prosperous was pretty intriguing. It's easy to be judgemental, but I have to come clean about my own situation. Our footprint is pretty large.
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Saturday, July 07, 2007

A Joyful Noise

My mother remarked that when her grown children came back to visit she felt like a cat with kittens. Mom, I know the feeling. We have a house full. Three of our kids, Elizabeth, Ben, and Dan are here. Their spouses, significant others (whatever..) are not with them, but they have the four boys. Diego is fourteen and the youngest, Quincy is two. Pablo is eleven and Silvio is six. They have not been together as a group for a year. This week has been deemed the week that Quincy will be toilet trained and his mother, Elizabeth, has put all seven males here on notice that they WILL be models on the responsible use of a penis. They are to model peeing on bushes and trees and toilets. Quincy will not be wearing diapers. He watched a video on the topic of wonderful underpants while the rest of us ate a lovely dinner of tuna steaks.

They arrived for lunch.( the kids, not the tuna steaks.) Later we spent a lot of time in the pool. It's lovely to see these little boys all swimming together, happily clumped together to dive off the edge or play with the pool toys. Even Diego, the oldest is not too cool to be above playing with the little kids. Silvio, the six year old must have told me five times how happy he is to be here. "Grandma, this is my most wonderfulest day!" He doesn't have opportunities to swim where he lives.

Just wait until tomorrow. We'll go and find the herd of cows, see if there are still any blackberries to be picked, do some art in my studio, paint the incredible dump truck that really dumps that Grandpa Andy made for grandsons of a certain age, swim many times during the day. We'll check the traps we set tonight for armadilloes and raccoons. We'll walk out to the pond and maybe decide to take one of the boats out. Maybe we'll fish. I hope one or two of the boys will help me in the vegetable garden. And at night I want to take all of these boys out to look for fireflies, spider eyes and alligator eyes in the pond.

As we were getting ready for dinner I heard one grandson relentlessly tooting a recorder. Another one was dabbling at the piano. A DVD about trucks was playing in the background. The adults were loudly discussing current American politics. Pots and pans were clanging as the dinner was coming to fruition.

Such a joyful noise!
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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

My Head is Full of Children

Quincy, my youngest grandson, accompanied me in my tour of the garden today. Having been away for a couple of days, I wanted to see how everything was doing. We looked at all the butterflies among the flowers and I named the ones I knew- the yellow sulphers, the pipevine swallowtails, the longwing zebras and the gulf fritillaries. Quincy, at two, is not much of a talker yet, but he could name those butterflies. We moved on to the figs, now covered with fruit. I picked six ripe figs, pouching up my tee shirt to hold them. I was imagining a dessert of those delicious figs topped with cream and a tiny bit of honey. Quincy wanted to try one so I split one in half and gave it to him. He stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. "More fig" he said. So the two of us pigged out on those figs in the steamy Florida afternoon, our mouths dripping with the not so sweet but incredibly delicious flavor and texture.

When kids are here I have to put aside any thought of doing the responsible things I do as an adult. True, there are times I don't want to spark kids' activities, do pool duty, or put away the detritus. But still, as a grandma-aged person, those children energize me. The kids from Lacoochee, the old graduates from SunFlower School, my grandchildren , and the children of friends are always interesting to me, always welcome visitors. There is so much wonderful experience to be had here, and I am glad to share it. It goes both ways.

Quincy was here without his parents. He is comfortable with us and recognizes that we do a few things differently from his parents. No problem. And this is how it is meant to be. The other grandchildren and kids who come to visit us are the same, whatever age. We respect the various lives these children usually lead but we try to give them another view, just to taste.

I have such distinct memories of visiting people who had a totally different lifestyle from my parents'. Along the way, those were pieces I remember and integrated into being the person I am now. We will never know what effect we have on kids. I do know that having children in our heads and lives is the most important thing one can do.



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