A barn can build a house, but a house can’t build a barn.

I’ve never forgotten the story I read in first grade.  A homesteading family was settling on a new plot of ground.  The wife felt they should build a house first, so that she could cook and care for their family.  But the husband informed her that wouldn’t be the case.  He would have his barn, so that they would have the means to build the house.  

So they camped, and she dutifully cooked for her family and cared for the children and helped him build the barn.  And then, one day after the barn was finished and he’d taken the wagon to town for supplies, she moved her family into the loft of the barn.

I’ve been thinking about this story a lot over the past few weeks while Mom has been in the rehab center recovering from her stroke.  In some ways, our family has been shaken up considerably.  She has been gone off the farm for a month.  And whether she was in the hospital or the rehab center, Dad was with her during visiting hours.  

The amazing part of the experience was how much continued right on schedule.  The sheep finished lambing and all the ewes and lambs got out to pasture.  The pigs farrowed, the chicks arrived and the brooder was ready for them.  Dad finally figured out how to use his cell phone to text (he always had Mom do it for him), and he, Bob, the girls and I are in constant communication, keeping everything running.  

But the farmhouse suffered.  My house suffered, too.  

Since no one was home in the farmhouse, any weak newborns came home to my house.  Herbert, a gangly lamb born third in a set of triplets an hour after the others were on the ground and nursing, never got colostrum from his mother.  He was weak and near death many times.  He was sleeping in front of the wood stove in the farm kitchen when the paramedics first came to bring Mom into the hospital.  Dad was issuing his feeding and care instructions before he left in the ambulance.  Herbert wound up coming home to live with us, where he became an object of transference for Saoirse and Ula.  None of us could help save Grammie.  But we might be able to save Herbert.  They gave him antibiotics, shots of vitamin B and doses of selenium.  They repeatedly administered enemas and monitored his bowel movements.  On cafe day, Herbert came to work with us, so that he could be bottle-fed throughout the day.  Customers visited with him while they waited for their breakfast, and I was thankful I hadn’t put lamb on as the special that week.  Herbert got a little too comfortable, deciding he needed midnight feedings while the girls were sound asleep upstairs, their parenting instincts not yet honed enough to wake up in the night when a baby needs care.  Then he decided he didn’t like living in a box any longer.  The morning I woke up to find Herbert sprawled on the hearth rug in front of the fireplace, I pronounced him healthy enough to join the flock of bottle lambs out in the barn.

Then the piglet came home, with it’s non-stop shrieks that caused our eardrums to vibrate.  We tried everything to save it, but to no avail.  I was relieved when it finally died, and drew a line across my threshold.  No.  More. Piglets.  

So the farm kitchen became the next piglet nursery.  And Mom’s cherished dining room table became the supply room, lab and operating table.  

Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to appreciate the creative tension between Mom and Dad, realizing why I liked that story from first grade so much.  Dad always puts the barn first.  Mom has always put the house first. And the house stayed livable because she would meet every farm worker at the door and bellow at them to remove their shoes before coming in.  She turned the mudroom over to Dad and demanded that he keep all vet supplies there.  She kept a stack of nice towels for the bathroom, a stack of old ratty towels for cleaning up wet newborn lambs.  Together, they’ve been a team.

Dad keeps the farm running.  But Mom makes sure there is a home.

But as I stood in the kitchen last week, the effect of my mother’s long-waning health fully fell on me.  I try not to tread on her domesticity.  She and I both like to keep our houses the way we keep our houses.  But I could tell that her illness had been wearing down her defenses for a while before she went into the hospital.  She had mentioned it to me a few times in passing, but I hadn’t wrapped my head around it. 

Now, I stood in the kitchen and felt it fully.  

A barn can build a house, but a house can’t build a barn.

Or is it the other way around?

This whole ordeal has been an exercise in anxiety management for me.  I know that I always said I would be here for my parents in their later years…That I would keep the farm running for our family, no matter what.  

But to say and to do are two different things.  And there have been so many moments this past month that I’ve looked at all of it and felt as though I would drown in the overwhelm. 

Why didn’t I just get a job?  Why did I commit to this?

If I had a job, I could use paid days off to visit Mom in the hospital.  Mom and Dad could just sell all of this, I could help them scale down, move them into a more manageable living situation and then go back to work. 

No.  I didn’t make the choice.  I wanted all this.  House, Barn, Pastures, Restaurant, and a writing career on the side.  And family.

So now, I am facing the help I promised them, the work I’ve taken on for myself, and the work of the farm. 

And while they have been away, the farm and nature and the world have continued pouring into their home.  The kitchen is over-run with recycling and egg boxes, the counters are covered in mail and there are piglets living in a dog crate and the dining room table has become a veterinary infirmary.  

I stand in the farm kitchen and feel like I am teetering on the brink of an enormous, tragic ending.

There is nothing I can do in this moment except brush the tears off my cheeks and walk away.  I need to get to the cafe to prep for the weekend, then I need to get to the hospital to visit my mother.  

The cafe has been my oasis of sanity in all this.  I can battle all mayhem during the week, so long as Saturday comes, and I have the rhythm of kneading the bread, proofing the croissants, frying eggs and visiting with customers.  And there, I slowly let my guard down and hint at bits of my angst…that I don’t want my mother to come home to see that in the battle between house and barn,  barn finally won. 

Throughout the day, my customers drop little hints.  “You aren’t alone.  Your family will help you….Don’t do too much in your mother’s house.  Just do a little at a time.  It is her house.”

At the end of the day, buoyed by their encouragement, I stand at the front of the cafe and look around me, and my mind flashes back to when this place was an auto body shop with collapsed ceiling tiles and buckets set about to catch the leaks when it rained.  I remembered the overwhelm I felt then, too, wondering what I could have been thinking, stepping into this mess.

I swam through the overwhelm until I found a box of garbage bags, a broom and a dustpan.  And I just began to clean.  I cleaned until the muscles in my stomach released their knots.  Then I went home.

It was a beginning, one of many beginnings I’ve had in my life here at Sap Bush Hollow.  When the cafe opened, we began again.  When we renovated the apartment upstairs, we began again.  When the pandemic hit, we began again.  When we left the farmers’ market, we began again.  When we bought Tibbets house, we began again.  When we faced a cancer diagnosis, we began again. 

Standing there amidst the tables and chairs, I am reminded that I am an entrepreneur.  I am one who undertakes things.  I face beginnings as a profession. 

And I could look at all this as an ending, or I could look at this as a beginning. I know from experience that beginnings are tough.  The trick is to start, then stop for the day.  Then come back tomorrow and try again.  And if you keep coming back enough days, one day you’re through the worst of it, and something amazing has been put into the world.

So I follow my customers’ advice.  I rein in my daughters about wearing farm boots in the house.  I challenge Ula, Dad’s second-in-command when it comes to veterinary procedures, to recover Grammie’s dining room table.  Bob tackles the kitchen.  I madly clear recycling and backed up mail until the counters are clear, the porch is restored, and the backed-up supply of egg boxes is stored away. I roll up any throw rugs that could interfere with the walker Mom is going to need for a while, I do my best to clear enough to make it work for them, but not to change their world. 

I don’t need to do more than that, because this is another beginning. It’s a new life with Mom. We’ll take it one step at a time. What can’t get done today can happen on another day. I intend to find every bit of joy and light this new journey has to offer. But when it comes to the battle between house and barn, I’ll make sure the house has a fighting chance.  

 

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And that’s a really important thing to do, because all of this— the podcast, the blog, the books and the creative recharging that happens over fall and winter—   are a result of the support of my patrons on Patreon.  This podcast operates much like public radio.  It is freely available to all, made possible by the gifts from our patrons.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Tanya Dixon and Beth Behrend.  Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!  Interested in learning more about Sap Bush Hollow Farm?  Find us on the web here.