How ABBA Maybe Saved My Life

The apartment is closed, the check is in the mail, and we have the money to build a house.  With apologies to any readers who have read this blog and know the background, here it is again: ten years ago, we bought about 75 acres of land, and during those years we have rented an apartment in a barn that lies within two arms of its boundaries.  The land is very pretty for the most part. Once a successful apple orchard on the north and western sections, a few trees still bear fruit, but essentially meadows, spotted profusely with shrubs and brush, dominate this part of our landscape. The highest point on the property sprouts a cedar forest, which is slowly but inexorably marching its army back down into the meadow. My favorite part of the land is a rocky ridge in the center toward the north side, which provides the best view: Catskills to the west and Berkshires to the east.  And last and least, there's the south end, a nasty no-man's land of impenetrable thorn, brush, and the horrible beggar weed.

A small wedge of our land borders Olana, the beautiful Frederic Church estate, and a chunk of the property is also in its viewshed. A few years ago, we half sold and half donated our development rights to Scenic Hudson, and as part of the deal we're allowed to build on five acres that aren't within the Eye of Olana.  The rest of it -- the fields and trees that had once been the apple orchard can only be used for agriculture and the forest can't be touched at all without permission.  We won't be able create a golf course or have neon signs. If we build a house it can't be chartreuse.  All good.

The five acres that Scenic Hudson allowed for a residence is, however, on the wretched south side in the lowest part of the property and so overgrown that during all the years we’ve been weekending here, we have thrashed our way through that vegetative garbage only a couple times and then given up.  We had no idea what it might look like when it was cleared out. 

So as soon as we knew we were going build, we found a contractor, Pete, and he hired Paul, an excavator, who, with his son on a bulldozer, in one day scooped out of that mess a landscape that looked as if it had been created specifically to contain our fantasy: a two-story glass and steel modular house with an adjoining guest house and garage, a native wild flower meadow, a pond, and a substantial vegetable garden.  We also want the house to be green, with solar electricity and geothermal heat. There's no far view, but that's ok; I am envisioning a place like a Hobbiton tucked into the Shire.

There was one tiny worrisome thing regarding the easement.  It only specifies that we can put solar panels within the allotted site, and because the land is so low, Michael wants to place them on a rise slightly outside the allowed building site to get more southern light. We can probably make them work within the approved area, but it might be harder to generate the electricity we need.

With the solar panels in mind, a few days after the machines had exposed the bones of our beautiful site, I decided to check out the uncut far western section that was still in our allotted area to see if there might be a better spot for the panels. So, I set off to chart the remaining virgin part of the building site. I started from a path that led across edge of the forest area, planning to make my way down through pristine section to the clearing.  However, once I stepped off the path, I encountered the same wasteland of thicket, brush, and briars that used to constitute the entire allowed area. I began confidently, however.  It was late autumn and the foliage had thinned out.  I stepped down upon a thick carpet of raspberry bushes, laid nearly flat from the chilling temperatures. The mass of canes was springy and so dense that I was able to walk on it without sinking in or getting stuck.  "Huh. This isn't so bad."  Wrong. 

Within a few yards, the raspberries met up with and were defeated by the deceptively evil multiflora rose and Japanese honeysuckle vines (both gorgeous for about two hours in the spring), which encased me like one of the loser princes seeking the Sleeping Beauty.  Worse, as I wormed my way back and forth against the current of this floral horror, thorns tearing my hands and digging through my jeans into my legs, my wool jacket became coated with the dreaded beggar weed, tiny seed claws that embed themselves into your clothes and never, never, never, ever come out again.  

Saying goodbye to my beloved pea coat, I laid it out in front of me across a mess of junky sticks, vines, and prickles, with the intention of using it as a wooly bridge. It was then that I heard the noise. "Huff! Huff! Huff! Stomp stomp." Bear? The Legendary Hudson Cougar? Insanely horny angry deer (most likely threat)? Trapped within the autumnal trash, unable to move forward or backward, I pulled out my phone and called Michael, who was back in the barn. "Help!  Come rescue me!"  While I waited for him, the huffing and stomping got louder, and although not frozen with fear, I was a little nervous.  

Suddenly, I realized I had a weapon.  I pulled out my IPhone and mentally searched through my song library for music most likely to frighten bears.  Quickly, I chose Dancing Queen over Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! and pushed the volume to the max.  Whether it was that inanely cheerful beat or those pointlessly happy falsettos, the huffing stopped and I was inspired to leap up and forward, throwing myself out into the open just as Michael appeared, dragging my dead coat behind me, the only victim of my adventure.

 We'll let the solar panels lie where they might and we'll leave the Northwest Passage uncharted, but in case she's ever needed in our new remote home to pounce out cheerfully at some vague rural threat, I'll have Mama Mia squirreled away in a secret playlist called Beggar Weed.