I was going to subject you to a continued tour of the ‘hood here around Refuge Farm. It is colorful, and reminded us of what it must have been like to live on these fields with only a thin tent for cover against the implacable elements. Raccoon Ford, a shallow stretch of the Rapidan River was one of the places of local note. It was once a bustling village around a mill powered by the inexorable might of rushing water. The critical importance of the crossing generated ten engagements between the two armies that occupied these fields. Those features are gone now, except for assorted irregular piles of cut stone. The recently defeated solar project would have covered much of the direct waking distance from the back door, less than five miles to the river by the unimproved local farm lanes.
So, there is a mass of little stories about the junction village of Winston of which we are part. There is a process of integration to bring them together into a lyrical narrative of labor and love and violence. You will be subjected to it in time. But the power of Nature herself , tall and gray and mighty is amazing and should be noted. The phone went off while the sky was still grey with residual light. Picking it up, we saw the Lady in Red’s digital assistants warned of flash flooding for this this part of the county through the night. And then the rains began to pound on the metal roof over the Great Room. With that, the electrical fixtures on which we depend flickered briefly and died.
All other features related to electricity likewise surrendered to the power of Mother’s sky. Including the ubiquitous internet, of course, and therein rests the story of a family rivalry spanning a century in these green rolling hills. Houses of worship constructed and abandoned, places of human commerce comfort reduced to rubble.
So, Nature has her way. She was accommodating, in her way, and we marveled that stains and paints of works in progress were allowed to be applied and mostly dried before her real power was applied. Perhaps as a reminder of how things could have worked, but did not. That her mercy in forestalling the deluge is balanced by her demonstration of power so immense as to defy imagination.
Of course, as humans with property rights, we were able to tunnel under eiderdown in our outsized beds under the steady beat on metal roof, stirring briefly to the chirps from phones left in ready positions near empty chairs. They came at neat intervals through the night. Power was restored to the degree that coffee could be conjured in the ambiguous gray of morning showers. They lessened to permit the burning of tobacco on the deck, and the nature of Mother’s gifts was revealed. In the big tree behind the Socotra Headquarters, a dark mass in the tree began to move and take shape. Rising upright, the mass was revealed to be the black foliage of one of the Vultures that share the property.
It was a slow process for a big bird attempting to dry feathers on an impressive wingspan before taking flight. It will be a long morning for the things that live under our skies. So, thinking thoughts of gratitude, the coffee was warm, the eggs precisely stirred in the frying pan and consumed in a room that is dry and warm.
Country living.
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