August 29, 2023 The Cottage and The Farm

Sometime in the 60’s, my parents bought a cottage on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. It was a small but comfortable structure on the canal that backed it, and across the road in front was an enormous field hard by the lake, upon which they had, at one time, contemplated building a house. My dad bought a sailboat and kept it moored in the canal behind the cottage.

We always had boats. When I was younger, we had a cabin cruiser which we kept at a riverside resident’s house and which we visited most weekends. We would take the boat down the Clinton River to the same lake. This journey is detailed in a somewhat fantastical way in the June 10, 2023 post, Dreamland.

We had such fun on that boat! Waterskiing, which I could never master, and cruising around at varying speeds just for fun. Sometimes there was fishing. I found going to the docks at the head of the river most enjoyable. The smell of the boat fuel I can still conjure up in my head, as I can the sights and the sounds of those spots. A comforting smell, that, with sweet memories of my dad deeply entwined.

One time, out on the lake, we were surprised when a storm came upon us suddenly. I remember my mother, her hair soaking wet from the rain, ordering my brother and I to get down below. An attempt was made by my folks to put the cover on the boat, but I cannot remember that being a successful attempt at shelter. After more than an hour, the storm passed, leaving behind the smell of a newly departed tumult of the skies. Then, naturally, we had to bail out the boat.

Every year, dad and my brother had to take the boat out of its winter storage and refinish it, as it was made of wood. That was an arduous task that neither one liked, but every year, it was done. My dad believed in maintenance and improvement. I recall one time at the cottage, my dad decided the walk needed repair. My brother was off to college, so it was my job to pick up the 100 pound bags of cement and pour them into the wheelbarrow to be mixed with water.

The sailboat was altogether a very different experience. It was perhaps as much as 32 feet long and made of plexiglass, except for the wood trim. There was no major refinishing of the boat each spring. One time, though, my dad (or was it my brother?) made a bad turn on the canal and dented the prow, which then had to be patched with fiberglass from a tub. I recall my dad’s hands being red and somewhat painful from that effort. Maybe that dent was my dad’s handiwork; if it had been my brother’s, he would have had to patch it…

My folks had that cottage for about ten years. At that juncture, my dad asked the neighbor boy who cut the grass to trim up the pine trees in front of the cottage. He made a right ole mess of it, cutting not the lower branches, but instead the top of the trees, making them 4 feet tall, instead of the 9 that they were.

After that, my dad was determined to sell the cottage, telling me that one should keep a hobby for only 10 years, and then drop it. So, the cottage went, the sailboat went, and that was that.

I bought this land in 1996. The house was built in 1999. We visited nearly every weekend. Before the house, we stayed in the mobile home I had purchased. I am fairly sure that these constant weekend visits were to the detriment of our children’s social life.

My family was rocked by the Ex in the early 2000’s. In the divorce papers, the legal action was brought by me in 2006 (he tricked me into signing the documents without a lawyer), claiming that he had abandoned us for 2 years. That was true, and then he was gone.

In 2006, I could have sold the farm for $750,000. But the split really threw me, and I did nothing about my situation until 2009, when I sold the city house for less than it was worth and moved to the farm in August of that year.

When I first came, I was fired up about everything. I mowed with a vengeance. Backing up the tractor and destroying hated vegetation with the brush mower was cathartic to the extreme. I plotted retribution against my Ex when mowing pastures, even as the swallows happily followed me, gobbling up the insects taking flight from the mower.

I have been living here full-time for 14 years, and have owned the land for 27. This place is my creation: every building, every fence, every garden, was designed by me. It is a creation that my children do not want. “Oh, well,” as my mom used to say.

This year, the equivalent of that neighbor’s tree cutting happened to me. My foolish indulgence of my farmhands has ruined me financially, then they turned violent against me. Particulars are in the post of August 29, 2023 “My Children Protected Me.” Since the petition for an Emergency Stalking No Contact Order was granted against my farmhands, I have felt beholden to locks to make me feel safe; before, I felt safe just seeing that everything around me was mine. I never even locked my doors before all this.

I do not want to leave. I still want to be buried next to Andy, the equine love of my life. For years, I have gone back and forth about leaving my beloved farm. I always end up staying. Whenever I looked out the window before the court order, I nearly wept at the beauty. Now, it is still beautiful, but has grown somewhat wild for lack of proper maintenance.

The tractor sits in a grass strip next to the corn. It has a new battery. I have the key. I haven’t touched it. The horses’ favorite pasture needs mowing. The pasture that I give the horses access to every day does not need mowing, but is never even approached by them. I think Babe may be dying, or is just too weak, or maybe in pain; in any event, she does not move from their lean to.

I’m not sure what to do about anything and everything. This is uncharted territory for me.