I call them angels, the big men in trucks who can repair and fix and alter just about anything that needs repairing and fixing on a farm.

I am not handy, Maria is handy, but her work is her art, not repairs. That is hard enough work, I don’t care to see her spending much time on carpentry.  On a farm with an old farmhouse, we need a good man or woman with a truck who comes running when there is trouble, and helps us get out of it. Fallen gutters, broken windows, gates that are eaten by donkeys, delivering and stacking firewood.

These men come and go. Some, like our friend Ben, evolve into specialists and give up common chores. Some, like our good friend Tyler, enter high school, have girlfriends, study harder, play football,  take part-time jobs and are not always available. Life is organic, it moves on and changes, we change with it.

In the best sense, handymen remind me of some animals, especially dogs. They come and they go, they appear when you need them, they sometimes stay forever, they often move on, they mark the passages of life. I think of Ben Osterhaudt working so  hard to get the farm ready for us and help us move in, I think of Tyler roaring over here on his ATV, he will always  be in our lives I  hope. If Tyler isn’t available for this Open House, Ed will be here, handling parking, greeting people. He loves people and is much loved in our town.

We have a list of things that need to be done. Buying firewood. Fixing the windows blown out in the wind in the barn. Painting some corners of the farmhouse exterior. Putting a new gate in the pasture, a new gutter on the roof. Clearing a path for us out into the woods.

We don’t  have the funds to do all of these things at once, but they do need to be done, one at a time. And we have just met a new angel with a truck (not big and nice and old). His name is Ed Atkins, he works with his brother Jim sometimes. They are incredibly nice and hard working people, they will do almost any task, are very experienced,  and are inexpensive and a pleasure to talk to and work with.

We’ve already given Ed a bunch of tasks, and he is on it, we are happy to know him and work with him, you will be seeing his photo often here, he is part of the Bedlam Farm family now, and I imagine he will be with us a good long time. Old farmhouses are always eager to know a good handyman.

Ed and I had a long talk about second marriages today, and the difference between women raised in the country and women raised “down South,” like New Jersey and Long Island. We both believe in love. We will get along well.