We headed out to Brandon, Vt. this morning to pick up two boxes of skeins of yard  (she will count them and offer them for sale tomorrow) and some roving made from the wool of our sheep, and Maria turned and looked up at one gutterless section of our back roof and said, “let’s put a gutter up there ourselves.”

I was, as usual, shocked by hearing of yet another thing that she seems to know how to do, and that I have never done or known how to do. Great, I said, I’ve wanted a gutter there for as long as we’ve been in the house. There are two parts of the back roof, one has a gutter, the other is a veritable waterful, especially in the winter, when the water freezes up, then melts and the back porch becomes an ice pack we have to attack with an ice chopper and many bags of animal friendly salt.

I’ve asked a half-dozen carpenters, handymen and freelance workers to  put a gutter, but they have all blown me off, nobody seems to want to do it, or perhaps it is more trouble than it is worth for them to do. I’m almost given up on it, even though this winter is supposed to be brutal.

We went and picked up the yard (it is quite beautiful, photos in the morning) then headed straight to the hardware and a conference with Nikki. I brought  phone photos of the roof and we left with two 10-feet sections of white gutter, a hacksaw, screws, downspouts, connectors and drill bits – $80 worth at Ace Hardware.

I am joining in on this one. We have a bagful of screws and connectors and will be at it in the morning. Photos coming.

___

The October Bedlam Farm Open House, Saturday, Sunday, 11 to 4, is shaping up to be something very special, Maria is organizing some amazing fiberworks. Two artists and spinners – Suzie Fatzinger, and Susan Smith  – will be bringing their spinning wheels under a canvas canopy, spinning  and knitting with wool from our sheep.

A lot of other things will be happening – art show, cow milking, poetry readings, shearing (the Gang Of Four get taken down) , farrier trimming, sheepherding, talks. We will again be asking for a $5 donation to help defray the costs of the Open House, which seem to be growing. The donation is voluntary.

You can come into the pasture and watch Jim McRae take on the imperious Gang of Four Romneys, who have not been shorn in years. Deb Foster will bring people out to meet the donkeys and Chloe, bring some carrots.

I’ll be conducting regular herding demonstrations with Red and Fate, and no two border collies ever approached the sheep more differently than these  two. People can meet the donkeys and the pony as well. (Please, no dogs, our animals don’t like strange dogs). Minnie the barn cat will love to sit in visitor laps, Minnie will most likely not be seen. She is shy around strangers.

Fate and Red are media and crowd prostitutes, they love to pose and get hugged.

We are both excited about this Open House, I think it is closer to any other to the idea we intended – a show of great affordable art by Maria and other exciting artists,  a celebration of the art and craft of rural life. I’ll be talking about my work, Maria will be talking about her art and her trips to India, several poets will be sharing their work.

As for me, roof gutters will join the growing list of things I do now that I never did – gardening, scraping wallpaper, painting ceilings, skirting wool, and mowing, to name just a few. If she lets me up on a ladder, I’ll try to clean up the one gutter we have, stuffed with leaves.

I see it as a Farm Empowerment program, I am growing happily into where I live. I love learning things I never knew and doing things I never did.

A bunch of things are going on in our town for visitors to our Open House – a special play from Hubbard Hall, a fund-raising dinner for the Round House Cafe at Pompanuck Farm. Details of all of this here.