"Sterbuck Farm"

It's winter now in Wisconsin

The choices one has in one lifetime--what to go for? What to pass up? What to dream about, but never seriously consider?

For some, nothing is quite so motivating as adversity. As in: a lost job, a broken relationship, grieving from any source--anything producing that overall sense of  "What do I do NOW?"

In the midst of just trying to put one foot in front of another, at times a huge leap is taken.

How this happens, to my belief, is providential. In the late eighties, something bigger than ourselves (the God we believe in) prodded my husband, Ramon, and I into moving forward in a big way--an action we surely didn't feel we had the resources to make, either spiritually or monetarily.

But we were so dejected (from long-term unemployment and then underemployment) that one day we packed up our old camper trailer and left Colorado to drive to Wisconsin, a place we'd never been before. We came here by crazy dreaming--chancing upon rural properties for sale in a national magazine and finding ourselves unable to squelch down the possibilities.

We owned our home in Colorado, and if we sold it, even in the depressed market that ruled the day, we could pay for one of the (suspected ramshackle) dwellings in the magazine. And owe no mortgage at all.

We were on our way then, to find out how ramshackle these places would be, upfront and personal.

Our closer look revealed many a bad bone, sinking foundation, rotting roof. In 1988, farmhouses in rural Wisconsin were a dime a dozen, and probably because their very presence hampered an otherwise good site to build a new and perfect home.

We wouldn't be doing that. We would have to take one of these farmhouses just as it was, and sure enough, one place, "Sterbuck Farm," crooked its finger at us and snared us for its very own. The house was a far cry from our our Colorado home, but it was livable, and priced right.

We regarded the place as a port in the storm of tumultuous times we'd come to know, but if we had been enjoying a perfect life it would have been hard to resist changing it all up for Wisconsin in the fall. Only in calendars had we seen such vivid colors and picturesque views. In Wisconsin, even ramshackle farmhouses emerged as palaces in such heart-sweeping panoramas.

Sterbuck Farm's namesake family had left many decades before. They were the only family to live here any real length of time. The depression of the thirties had sent the family packing; the farmhouse that once teemed with promise was ushered into a stream of short-term renters, coming and going, coming and going--until finally no one came at all.

For thirty years no one lived here. That thought boggles my mind. Thirty years of freezing and thawing, sweating and dripping---the emptiness, the echoing, the loneliness.

By the mid-seventies anyone unfamiliar with the "neighborhood" wouldn't know a house sat back here. Situated well away from a town road, the country lane leading to it had entered the realm of the landscape, with the encroaching forest rendering the dwelling unseen. Only because locals knew it was here did they speak of it to a young couple in search of a home.

It was these two who took the place out of abandonment. They drilled a new well, transformed an outhouse into a chicken coop and changed a pantry into an indoor bathroom, all to plant themselves into the business of hobby farming.

Within five years the couple followed their quest to get more serious about farming, and they turned the house over to another couple.

Anyway you looked at it, an old farm too long neglected spelled WORK. Just when it looked like another string of short-term tenants would spin the place into another abandonment, we came along.

I well-remember exiting the realtor's tiny car and peering about the property. The setting, though stunning, was daunting in its isolation--even in the isolation I believed I longed for. How would we get out in a snowstorm, I wondered. We wouldn't without a snowmobile, I guessed.

We had left our California upbringing many years prior in search of a dreamplace, and this surpassed even Colorado with its promises of a charmed life. As I stood looking about, seeing no other house and realizing that 80 acres was far more than we NEEDED (but came with) I thought about how we were placing ourselves even further from the families we loved. Hard enough the first time, this new contemplation had a stomach-sinking effect.

But a mama doe and her two fawns were feeding in a field, and the hills and woods were feathered with fall colors. An imagined life here was filled with peace and harmony. The potential release from anxieties that had saturated our days now seemed a vivid possibility.

And so we took the leap.

Later, when we learned about our farm's history, we understood that during their hard times the Sterbucks came to believe their best hope to start over was toward an urban destination--Chicago.

How curious this reversal of our roles in the history of Sterbuck farm. Or, I should say, how PROVIDENTIAL.

As described in earlier entries, I've named an impending online store "Sterbuck Farm," in honor of our historical farmhouse, and the women who have lived resourceful lives on places such as this. Very recently, I realized that my previous online "Etsy" shop could serve as a second (or first!) location for my "Sterbuck Farm" store. With a little changing up and tweaking as I go, that site is now open! Please take a look at http://www.etsy.com/ and search SterbuckFarm. And notice that this last picture exemplifies how springtime here fancies up even the humblest of abodes!

A Grand New World



Back at the farmhouse door

And so it goes that each era ushers another one forth, each with intricacies so unique the years prove as almost a grand new world.

Which, of course, each era is.

This house (what you see of it) is our house, in the here and now. It carries our "tone" and reflects our time and needs. For example, we needed a garage; it never had one and we wanted to protect our vehicles. We hadn't paid a lot for our home in its ramshackle condition (in 1988) and not-so-funny-enough the prices of our vehicles (together) were exceeding the cost of the house; it was time to shelter our means of transportation!

So we did that, and we're very happy with the natural flow between the house and the garage. We step off the porch and in a few short strides we are ready to go to town when we need. It's convenient, with pretty green space in-between. It bespeaks our time of wanting to live in seclusion, yet be close to services and a way to get to the road that takes us to them easily.

There is everything to love about this, and we don't want it any other way. But I also enjoy imagining the era before us in our exact spot. For all the imperfections, those years present images of times most of us wouldn't want to live in as our "now" realities, but would still love to immerse ourselves in, if we could, just once in awhile.

It is that very narrow space between the house and the garage that used to be, we've been told, a "road to town"--and not anyone's very private driveway.

I love to picture that!! I love to envision the old-timers of the area sweeping through on horse and cart, or in the first automobiles, to merge with the woods on the way to Boyceville for their weekly needs.

It makes perfect sense, its angle and accessibility. For the few residents of several back roads, this simple rustic road would have saved miles by its weave through this land. Its eventual hook-up at one of our property's corners to another more public byway would have resulted in a shorter way to town and an easier excursion.

We're told this was the way it was, so in my mind I've thought of it often. It's such a narrow trail, but I remind myself the garage wasn't there, and neither a car or a cart would be very wide. It would have taken a generous, practical nature in people to be welcoming to frequent traffic so close to the house, but I've always been told the family who lived here was just that. They were humble Slovakian immigrants, salt-of-the-earth folks, who would never have felt better sending friends and neighbors "the long way around."

In my mind, I've often seen the woman of the house, upon hearing horses hooves or the rattle of a motor, walk to the kitchen door to see who was going to town that day. I've seen her pause long enough to give a wave, or maybe even step off the porch to pass a little small talk. I've seen her in her apron, getting back to work, never disgruntled at the traffic that came her way.

I admit it...I romanticize that image, and it's very true I'm very glad that "road to town" now goes in another direction. I'm not glad Boyceville and other small towns have fallen in viability, no. But it was this spot's very seclusion that lured us into the adventure of leaving all we knew to come to a place we'd never been before. SO, I can't pretend I would love for that road to come by my kitchen door now, no. Not at all.

That era has come and gone, but just as the family who built our farmhouse came from a far-off land to their "grand new world", so did we. We will take it, imperfections and all!

Here is a picture of our house with an open porch, more as it would have appeared in the days "the woman of the house" might have left the kitchen, to give a friendly wave to her friendly neighbors, on their way to town. Or so I imagine, or so I romanticize!!

"Use it or lose it"

The hardest thing about teaching an old dog new tricks is convincing her she can do it.

I can't believe the calendar is ushering me into the years one might be considered an "old dog," but there you have it. I'm in my late fifties, and it's not like when my thirteen-year-old granddaughter was a baby. Then almost anytime she was with me, someone would mistake her for my own. (Or at least I fell for it.)

Today with the brand new grandbabies, that's not happening.  (Actually it happened once and like any momentous event I could tell you the time and the place.)

A couple of times in the past year I have even been asked in a restaurant if I would be taking the senior discount today. I don't know whether to slap the server or be appreciative of the offer. I usually take the offer; at least it's a tiny reward for accepting a truth I would just look a fool to deny.

The men that flirt with me now are such geezers I don't even bother to tell my husband--it's just embarrassing. But I notice that the women who flirt with HIM are not that bad. The hair on his head is almost nonexistent and his beard practically gray, but somehow this works for him. Me, if I added pure white hair to this package it would be totally giving up the ship--something I'm not ready to do.

We've all heard that both body and brain age more favorably with exercise--a "use it or lose it" principle. Lately I have read more about a time span in middle-age and even beyond where the brain , when stimulated, experiences a kind of "growth spurt."  I can use this about now; if I can't reverse the obvious it would sure be nice to offset things with the benefit of a "smart" advantage of finally getting with the program of technology, for example.

This I have been an "old dog" about, ever since the earliest cell phone arrived in my life, about 1997.  Yes, I got on board with a family plan, for sensible reasons and with a sensible phone. But if that first phone hadn't become obsolete, I would probably still have it. Clunky, with no features other than a keypad that enabled me to reach my family members and have them reach me; once I understood it I wanted nothing more.

Voice mail at home or on the move is irretrievable to me. Just too problematic: one system overrides another and passwords and codes are required to be reset far too often for me to keep up with.

Except to arrive at my favorite few channels, a remote control just boggles my mind. Programmable pads on things like our microwave oven, stove, washer, dryer and even coffeemaker go unused to their very "featuristic" potentials because I just don't get any of it. Just give me the basics, please, it's all I even WANT to handle.

A lover of words though, needs a computer, and the internet. One can still create a document the old-fashioned way, but the computer with internet plays a vast new role in how to get it from here to there, and how to get it READ, by one or many. The whole premise is a bottomless resource for someone who writes.

Or someone who sells. The internet has created such an affordable way of doing business that almost anyone who takes the initiative can try their hand.  No longer does a person have to establish a physical storefront in a viable location just to get going. No longer is anyone dependent on a limited local clientele, or fully helpless when competition moves in across the way.

I've known this for a long time, but the internet came along about the time cell phones did, when I had already bought a building on a small town Main Street, and couldn't know how technology would impact businesses of all kinds everywhere.

And did I have the time, energy, and motivated wherewithal to even pay attention? No, I dismissed the importance of technology, thinking it, willing it not to play a role in in my business.

As related in my first blog entry, I did what I did and it was what it was.

I am now onto a new frontier, opening an online store with two friends.  In order to open our store I'm now learning things I've resisted for many years. Most days it feels like one step forward and two back but I'm now clicking and dragging photos with the best of them, and soon I will try posting pictures to this blog.  That is WOW to me; who would've ever thought I could do this?!

Evidently the scientists, who do their research and tell people my age: You can do this. You can learn and try new things and your brain will work with you to meet your goals.

I had to really want this to be willing to learn new things. What is it that you'd really like to try, but have resisted for your own reasons?

Maybe it's your time!

Note: Please look at my next entry to see how I arrived at my store name, "Sterbuck Farm."