Parts of my life

We are having the last blast of winter today. The gusts of wind have been so strong bringing in the cold front, a huge oak tree along our driveway toppled over. It was weak from lightning damage a few years ago. It's too big for Andy and Warren to slay it with the chain saws so the tree man has been summoned and will likely appear tomorrow.

I have been enjoying the land. I can see the pond while I hang out the clothes and enjoy the warmth of early sun. Ducks, anhingas, and other water birds are thick on the surface of the water. The cranes still hover around the edge but I still cannot see exactly where their nest is. Every few minutes they holler and flap. The vegetable garden is full of hummingbirds after the broccoli flowers they must make do with since other flowering plants are scarce so far.

On such a chilly day Lola, the dog keeps watch on everything from the couch. It's a good time for hunkering down in the studio, pictured today, to complete a couple of quilts that must go to the long arm quilter lady next week. Seems to be my blue period. I am trying to use up the fabric I have. The clay room is full of many Lacoochee kids' works drying to be fired next week while they are on spring break.

There is a lot to do here! Many acres, cattle, citrus, two houses, a pool, all the plants and gardens, stuff that always needs to be maintained and fixed. We have a lot of energy, but we do treasure any help we can find. Warren, the farm manager, is a partner, and can be called in a pinch to fix a valve on a pump or save the a/c when we have fifteen guests on hand.

Bruce, the wonderful handyman, can and will do anything. He 'exercises' the generator, maintains the water treatment machines, and remembers when we need to change various filters. He can build various imaginative solutions to our problems. He appears sporadically and we give him a list. I do not have to track him down and beg him to come. He just comes.

Since we have many guests (all wonderful!), we do have to think about maintaining the house and guest house. Dog hair, flying pollen, kids and general life take a toll. So, being as prosperous as we are, we thought it would be a good idea to have a cleaning person come once a week to hoe out, vacuum, dust, clean the bathrooms etc. For several years we had a neighbor woman come in. Often she brought her daughter and they were the twin tornadoes. The house sparkled. Then these two wonderwomen left because of other jobs. They left us with Tracy (someone they knew and liked from work).

It verges on the embarrassingly unseemly to complain about household help. (the servant problem, oh la!) Tracy, cheery and friendly, drives up in her really giant 4WD truck, gets out her caddy of cleaning materials. But nothing seems to get really cleaned. I have made check lists, supervised every time she's here, encouraged, suggested, flat out instructed. We had to get past the idea that she's to come on a regular schedule. We don't want her showing up when we are in the middle of a meeting here or have twenty guests who must raise their legs as the vacuum zooms by.

I tell her that I know she was not trained to do housecleaning (few of us are!). I tell her that I will never ask her to do anything I would not and do not do. I never ask her to shovel out mess; we are pretty neat. I give specific instructions. We pay top dollar for her services and all her social security tax. A pretty sweet deal, I would think. But, she is often late, comes on a different day, has to go to a funeral, has dental surgery, suddenly gets the vapors and has to leave after an hour etc. When she's in top form, she'll clean both houses in under two hours. (Try that!) I tell her that we pay her for four hours and if she can't see anything else to do, I'll suggest something. Such as dusting or maybe vacuuming the stairs. Maybe I am out of line?

Seems so churlish to complain. I do wonder about our American work ethic here. I am thinking of letting Tracy go and trying to get one of the Hispanic moms I know to do it. $100 a week plus more for special projects is not to be sneezed at. Maybe we'll do it ourselves. Andy and I are a famous cleaning team and together we can make everything glow in three hours. But I like and trust Stacy so I suppose we'll keep trying some more.

I am certainly acutely aware of the dire economic problems cascading upon us in this country. I am also very thankful to be o.k. Our pants are frayed and our cars are old and we don't eat out much. (Why would we when everything we consume is right here- and so fresh?) I think and divinely hope that we are truly resetting our impulses of greed and entitlement.