More lights!

These are our living room lights, which are now working, as of this weekend.  We bought them back on October, because they had a cool name (Mac and Paul, you’ll agree with us on this) – they’re the Paulmann “Mac” model.  But it took some time to think about how to get them mounted, i knew that i wanted them to be invisible from the side, to keep the visual priority on the lines of the oak beams – and just to see little drops of light every now and again.

The other problem was how to anchor them into the stone/stucco wall without much anguish and mollyfastening.  I managed to get the transformer mounted and the first electrical lines onto which the lights would be mounted and then Gaël stopped by to look at it and said, why don’t you take the old electrical posts that we cut off the house, cut them up and weld on a triangular piece that would serve as a way to mount the screw and fix it to the beam rather than the wall?  Hah.  This is a very good idea except that i don’t know how to arc-weld and am not great at cutting things with the disk-cutter.

So here are some pictures of Gaël making our cool light fixtures,

which i love because they retain the historical reality of the arrival of electricity to our little horse barn house, but recycled into a beautiful, simple light fixture to enlighten our living room (currently, a godawful mess, but once all the upstairs stuff is moved upstairs, and the office stuff, moved to the office, ah it will be very nice indeed.)  I got them more or less mounted and all the cords stretched out, and then Gaël and Romain came back and plugged in some things on the fusebox, and we have more light; and it looks like the rusty pieces of metal belong there, and i love the contrast with the shiny electrical cables and squarish lights.

Having fun is what’s importning

That’s our Valentine’s day phrase-of-the-day from Gabriel, who offered this advice preceded by: “Don’t worry about money.” And his adaptation of the word ‘important’ is lovely, the gerund makes the word even more immediate, it’s important all the time to have a good time with the people you love. It was a great Valentine’s day here at Maffay. We woke up a little earlier than planned to chat with Izzy and Sally in San Francisco, and then ran to Shopi to get some eggs (ah! if only we had chickens: who am i trying to convince?), had our pancakes, and then François our great neighbor came by, and said hey can we plant those wisteria yet?

So we went out and dug around in the thawing weeds and planted two wisteria vines that he had put aside for us, alongside the telephone pole. I’m aware of the potential strength of wisteria, and am also aware that the telephone pole is our connection to the outside world, and is an essential part, for example, for you to be able to read these words.

So the vines might eventually be trained to run horizontally alongside the road, a vined fence for Maffay’s southeastern front. François even dug the holes. Have i mentioned that we have great neighbors?

We have a bit of time before the decision has to be made about the directions in which the wisteria should grow. But talking with François we also got some advice on what to plant (temporarily) to cover up the cemented end of our barn, before we move onto a second phase of renovating that side of the house. And it was so nice to be out in the garden in the sunshine watching things poke up out of the ground, that after we went down to say hello to François and Collette’s new 8 day old lambs, we came home and and some lunch, and then went back out into the garden and started moving rocks, from the pile out back by the compost, down to the small orchard where i’ll keep building up the rock wall. I didn’t take any pictures of this, because even though we worked for two hours moving rocks, it didn’t look like we’d made much progress. So when it looks as though we’ve actually made progress, I’ll take some pictures. But Gabriel is a very good helper at moving rocks, much moreso than he is with wood, which is very nice for his old mother because rocks are heavier. And perhaps, next week, the mobile home will move off to its new home…

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.  Heureux St. Valentin à tous.  (This picture is evidence that the writer of these notes is not French:  would a French person feed Mont d’or to their cats?  No.  Mont d’or is the favorite cheese of three of the four beings who live on the left side of Maffay so for Valentine’s Day, Cip got some Mont d’or from a spoon, and Max got goat milk, after they caught some fieldmice, and G and i got a little chocolate and sunshine.)

Blue Maffay

5:00a.m.  Just one small comment about the elections.  Uf då.  Many strange and wonderful things are possible in this world and the way that the Americans have voted today, in such number, makes proud, and fills me with hope.  I keep going back to the AP map and remember this same map four years ago and wonder what it will look like in four years, and eight, but tonight, sleepless, it is wonderful.  Bon courage, President Obama.

11:30a.m. Hughes’ dream deferred has become our dream.

Update

We’re dealing with sewage, and more bulldozing, but the result of this will be that we have very good drains around the house, so we’ll get back to you soon with more upbeat news.  But we’ve also just returned from Venezia, where we found some beautiful glass piastrini (mosaic pieces) for the shower.  Because the outdoor palette shower, while it has its appeal, is also starting to fill up with leaves, and get cold.  More to come soon.

Oh:  and glad födelsedagen, Magnus.  Et joyeuse anniversaire Grâce!

Tiny Mo comes to Maffay

We have had an amazing year.  And a most singular early september:  Tiny Mo and his mama, my little sister Isabella, came to Maffay to put order into our lives and get the house ready to move in.  And it was one of those visits like the visits we’ve had so far this year:  where you truly see the people who have come to be with you in the sort of squalid living conditions at present, and they surpass the high esteem in which you already viewed them, and their generosity and good humor changes the way the world looks.  It was the same for Grandma Sally, Carolyn and Wich, Paul and Joycie, and now, Aunty Izzy and Tiny Mo.  Those of you who “visit” by mail are equally important to helping us keep up morale.

But hearing Tiny Mo call for Cip-da-dip and run around after Gabriel, and Aunty Izzy’s chiseling and laundry management tactics have made us realize how truly blessed we are, to have been able to spend this time with them.  As always it went too fast, because we were always laughing, that kind of laughter that you can only have with someone with whom you’ve grown up and will grow older with, bouncing off each other’s lives and making dents and shining up rough spots, as they have for us.  I only hope that we can help out Tiny Mo and Aunty Izzy and little soon to be nascent Luca Paul and their papa Big Mo, someday, as they helped us out these past 10 days.  We love you, thank you, please come back soon to your home at Maffay.