It’s not simple to understand Maria and the idea of chores. It’s’ not really simple to understand much about Maria, she is labyrinth and a mystery in so many ways.

Before we got together, she felt like she was an indentured servant, pressured to do hard labor and intensely physical work restoring old houses when all she wanted to do was her art. And she wanted to do it very badly.

When we got together, she bristled at the very idea of doing chores beyond taking care of herself, and so I got into the  habit of hiring people right away when there was some physical work to be done beyond daily chores – roofs, leaks, broken fences, downed limbs, heavy mowing.

I never wanted her to feel that pressure. And she was an artist, not a handyman. She ought to be making art, not crawling on rooftops, even thought she knew what she was doing.

I saw that these kinds of chores could make her angry and bring her back to a place she wanted very much to leave behind. She was not a slave, but she felt enslaved, pressured into abandoning her passion for someone else’s passion, a familiar story for many women.

That is changing, I think because she is understanding the different between voluntary tasks and work and work that takes you out of yourself and into a dark and suffocating place.

This began with her work on our farmhouse, she will happily move furniture around all day, scrape walls, mix paint, clean rollers and brushes and  rearrange rooms.

She hops up on rooftops, hauls hay around and Sunday, she announced that she was going install a quarter-mile of mesh fencing around the places where the sheep could get out into the neighbor’s big yard or run out onto a busy highway

I was going to call Todd Mason, who put the fences in, and ask him to do it. I certainly couldn’t do it, it involved hauling mesh fences out to the far pasture, tying it to trees, moving brush and logs and rocks, drawing ticks and bugs.

It was arduous, intense physical work for hours. Big men in big trucks and tractors do that stuff.

I told her she didn’t need to do it, we could call somebody.

And she had just dug a big hole for our Sycamore Tree.

I do my share of things – cooking, shopping, firewood, hay, calling people on the phone, paying bills – but I knew I couldn’t do this, too much crawling around in brush in a hot sun, my legs would never do it. I felt useful only if I could spare her the work, but I could see that gleam in her eye, it was a beautiful day.

She loves to be outdoors, and I could see that the creative spark had been lit in her. She was picturing this fence, working out how to do it. She had a plan, it would be good and  hard work that needed to be done on our farm, she said.

She usually ends up stacking firewood when she gets that look. And she says the same thing.

I stayed with her and tried to help, maybe for an  hour, and dragged some brush around. But I had to go inside, I was worn out, I do not  have her energy, I never did.

I went inside and took a nap and read and wrote on the blog and started thinking about dinner – Tortellini with kale and spinach. I was surprised at how long she was gone, I was getting  ready to go out and check, but then she came bursting into the house, beaming.

It was all done, she said, I put up mesh across the far pasture boundary. She looked pretty pleased with herself, not like somebody who was tired and grudging.

And she stopped and looked at me.

I did a really good job, she said, and she is not prone to self-praise, it must have been a good job, I thought. There was no trace of that old resentment and anger. It’s our farm, she said, I ought to do it. I want to do it.

And she did, I could see it, she had come a long way, was coming into herself, no longer reacted to what other people wanted, or what I wanted, but what she wanted.

She was figuring out what that was. She was coming to know herself.

This morning, we went out to take a look at the pasture, and I have to say I was deeply impressed. I suggested adding another mesh fence to one corner, and she bristled. “But I did a good job,” she said, “we don’t need another section of fence.” You are probably right, I said, treading cautiously.

It took her much of a day, but Maria’s fence is a great success. No sheep would ever even try to get through that mesh, it was all tied and securely fashioned. Sheep are not subtle, they don’t test solid fences, even if they are mesh, they are easily impressed, and there was a wire fence right behind it for backup.

I was shocked at  how long it was, how securely fasted, she must have been crawling around in thornbushes and brush forever.

We were talking about it tonight, why she liked doing it so much, she was trying to understand it herself.

I told her that I think all of her life had become art, and it was all about the creative challenge of figuring things out and taking care of our wonderful little farm, and doing a good job.

I call it the Maria fence.

And we don’t have to worry about escaping sheep any longer.