After living in our current home since the beginning of time, when the dodo birds still merrily flapped their wings, my husband and I will be moving to a new place, most likely within the next 12-18 months. This is a VERY unsettling (pun?) proposition for me. When I set down roots, they extend way down into the earth’s core.
We raised our children here in our current home. We made our friends and hosted countless parties here. We buried pets in our little pet cemetery. We’ve had spirit visitors here from our deceased relatives (no other way to explain lights mysteriously turning on and other signs, avian and otherwise). I have logged countless miles walking through the neighborhood with friends and often my dogs. They should dedicate some stretches of sidewalk in my name.
We are moving to a much larger property, 11 acres compared with our current 1/2 acre, so that my husband can fulfill his auto collecting dreams. There’s really no other reason I would agree to go to what’s currently a hay field (see photo above from this past weekend).
We have started the work of designing the house, getting the approvals to build on the land, designing a septic plan (what the hell is a septic anyway? Yuk!) , and talking to builders. It’s a very long process with so, so many decisions along the way. My husband has been doing a lot of the project management up to this point, talking to surveyors, septic designers, etc. Pretty soon I’m going to have to become much more involved with house design choices. It’s so hard to find the heart to become excited while my roots are so deeply extended under my current home.
We did something this weekend that’s the first step in pulling up a few roots. Joe dug up our raspberry bushes and moved them to this new property, that I not so fondly call “the freakin’ farm.” These raspberry plants have been established here for many years, the canes were a transplant gift from my dad’s garden. Most plants have not done well in the soil on our current 1/2 acre, I believe when this house was built they gathered all of the worst crumbs of dirt they could find and spread it around our house. Our grass that has never looked like a Scott’s Lawn commercial no matter what’s been done to it. However, the raspberry bushes voiced no complaints digging in here. They usually produced two crops of berries per season, and my friends knew they were welcome to pick a berry anytime they walked past my house.
I couldn’t bear to leave the bushes behind for some new owner to tear them up thinking they were just worthless, unattractive brush. So Joe dug them up by the roots for me before this growing season begins and they’ve been planted in our future yard. I hope they will be happy there.
And so it begins.
Donna Pilato 