(Deck before. Work in progress. All photos Socotra.)

I am down on the farm and the light is just coming up. The first truck and horse trailer did not rumble down the lane-and-a-half blacktop until nearly seven, dawn still minutes away. I contrast that to the morning in Arlington, and the difference is stark. Here on the farm is the sound of the train at the grade crossings on Rt 522, peaceful, breeching the soft night sounds with the remembrance of other deep nights in the country.

Arlington’s mornings arrive stark and all-business. The roar of bureaucrats and lobbyists hurtling into the Federal City is palpable through the open door to the balcony. Their aggressive headlights pierce the soft light as they roar toward their cubicles.

Here in Culpeper there is little ambient light save my own eerie cold blue-tinged mercury vapor of the security light on the pole over looking the Garden of Whatever and the birdbath.

Don-the-Builder’s crew was here and sealed the deck since I was on the property a week ago. The wood looks good and ready for another season challenging the gales of winter. I listened for the whine of The Russian chainsaw in the pastures adjoining mine, but things were silent and broken only by the distant rattle of gunfire from the range at the hunting camp at Happy Acres near the state forest. Life is pretty damn good here.

(Deck sealed and ready for winter. I think I got the stain color about right. Now, if I can get the pavers in the ground I will be able to walk without getting Virginia’s red mud on my boots, all the way to the Garden of Whatever from the stairs).

I succeeded in failing to bring the correct drill bits to repair that pesky fence board that was crushed under the weight of the pine that came down in the upper pasture two years ago. Screws, not nails, is my motto, but one would have to actually act on it.

The small things- priming the little gas engine on the blower to clean out the garage of a year’s worth of detritus- and prepare for the workbench and small tools I need to get organized. Chores are good, and justify a most excellent happy hour on the deck with the Russians when the light began to lower, and the colors under the pale blue skies began lengthen and darken with purple hues of evening.

I was sitting on the refurbished deck drinking with the Russians, trying to wrap my brain around the concept that this is likely to be home, the place I am going to live one of these days.

(The dying flowers of fall just over the deck. won’t be long now).

The change is marked. Leaving Fairfax County the Obama-Kaine-Moran lawn signs abruptly change to Romney-Allen-Cantor. That is just about the place where the State has placed the ‘Welcome to Virginia” center. It is clear that Richmond views the northern tier of the richest counties as not exactly being of the state, since they face Washington, not the state capital.

Same deal headed south on the nightmare of I-95: the welcome center is at Fredericksburg, an hour’s drive (if you are lucky) south of Arlington.

(The view from the kitchen window. I do not mind doing the dishes here. Ah, Fall!)

So at the farm there is a certainty about many things: the changing of the seasons, being one. Another the necessity of caring for the land and the structures placed upon it. The satisfaction of doing simple chores and laying in supplies for the coming winter.

None of these things happen back in Blue Arlington. We are busy, busy up there, and I forget just why.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com