Dandelion stars

This week marks a year since we broke ground on our house. The spring dandelions are blooming, though they have started to transition to seed. Last year this field was full of yellow blooms and days later it was completely white with seed pods. I have never seen the transitional time before this year. It seems to happen in two days time. I have been negligent in maintaining this blog lately. The progress on the house has been so slow and quite frankly a bit too frustrating to write about with optimism. To keep it in perspective I am trying to remember that my frustration is simply due to waiting. I remind myself daily that day to day difficulties of living in one room surrounded by mud is not always how it will be.


In the past month or so we made progress with the wiring and sheet rock for the main floor and the second story. The floor is now down on the second story. We put some speakers in the ceiling and it is great fun to connect the computer to the speakers to listen to music or to a Red Sox game on the radio. After super-K goes to bed I have often found Tilt upstairs in a lawn chair listening to the game. At least he doesn't need a blanket anymore.


The arrival of spring has really helped us to feel like we are getting somewhere. Tilt expects to work full time on our house again soon. We are waiting for him to finish up some jobs first. Until then though we have been doing a bit of landscaping that the excavation team did not finish last year. We are limited without the big machinery, but we have borrowed Dad's tractor a to spread topsoil and plant some grass. It is a lot of heavy work to get it all spread out without many rocks. I want to see the grass to grow so that it is not so muddy after every rain. The physical work feels good on my body and in my mind. My sore muscles remind me that I am helping this project move forward.


Springtime in Vermont is beautiful. Our house is located in a field so the wildlife has been amazing to watch. We have become familiar with the herd of deer and flock of turkeys that come out to eat late at dusk. There are bobolinks, evening grosbeaks and red winged blackbirds at our feeder. Some nights we see a woodcock do his amazing fling routine and a groundhog was checking the place out last week (fortunately for us, he did not find a habitable spot near our house). On a clear night we can see an unbelievable amount of stars. I expect the dandelions will reflect the stars by turning all white by tomorrow. Our house will not be finished, but in the grand scheme of things it will not take longer that the change of the spring dandelions.