Lughnasa College Moon
We’ve cleared out the three sheds. This morning the dog barrier on the orchard fence (which never worked) came down, the hardware going in a plastic bucket. The new place will have fence, too. All of the electric fence parts, from the charger to the plastic clips for the fence line and the electrified rope will go with us, too. Bears, mountain lions, mule deer, elk to keep out and dogs to keep in.
It feels like we’re walking widdershins around our property, unwinding twenty years of presence, trying to neutralize the most intimate space of all, home. Doing this now, in the fall when the air is cooler, makes it all seem appropriate. The growing season has begun to walk widdershins around the plants, seeing them revert to their ground level selves or to bare their branches, fatten up roots and otherwise end the time of producing.
We are undoing the enchantment we have created here. This place has become, through vigorous effort and the work of many, a place where we could enjoy life. It has become our home. Fires in the firepit, vegetables in the raised beds, apples and cherries and pears in the orchard, meals on the brick patio or out on the deck. Years of dogs creating paths in the woods and in our hearts. Now this enchantment has to be undone and stored for use in another location.
We will, I have no doubt, do the same in Colorado. It will be a different same of course, the paradox of home being where the heart is, not one physical place. We will have a smaller garden, but we will have one. We will still need to contain dogs. Our new home will be xeriscaped as soon as possible, so flowers, unless native, will not be part of it. We will still need a study and workout room for me, a sewing room with space for the long arm quilter for Kate. And in creating these spaces and functions we will become one with a new place. A new spell will be cast, one with Western themes instead of Northern.
