Acreage
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Driving up |
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The porch |
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Siding |
September will make it a year since I've been going back and forth between my home in southern California and my temporary residence here in the south eastern part of the Dakotas. Much of that time I lived in a dingy motel room at a place called the Staurolite. A few times I offered to "move" on a more permanent basis but only if I could obtain a long term contract, at least 6 months in length. There were some marketing milestones that needed to be passed, however, and so it wasn't until this August that they finally bit the bullet and brought me onboard for the long haul. The most exciting aspect of that was that I'd be able to get out of my hotel room and move into a more permanent location.
Through a special arrangement from work I've been given an old farm house along with an “acreage”. If you head due south from downtown, you will pass small store-fronts and restaurants. If you keep going you will find that the road bisects a residential area to the left and a mix of commercial and industrial buildings. When you pass The Watertower you will find wide open spaces on either side of the road along with the scenery of the countryside: a cluster of trees on the left, a flock of sheep grazing to your right, and some horses on an open pasture. Wend your way inward, to the west and you will find a small dirt road. There are more horses as you look about you.
I saw a horse lying on its side and took it for dead when I made my first escorted trip out there. Discovering it was simply taking a nap made me realize I've never seen a horse that is asleep in my life. All those horse movies, Seabiscuit being the most recent, lied.
The dirt road you will turn off onto is small. I wonder what happens when two farmers with big trucks need to pass each other. It makes me think of the dirt roads of my past: Elgeyo Marakwet in Nairobi and S.E. Claireborn in Portland, OR. The house is pink - the sort of pink you may find on a Mary Kaye Cadillac and yet I'm endeared to it. We'll be getting to know each other, we're going to be good friends.
I always use the side entrance rather than the front porch and as you walk in you have a garage to the right, a small work room in front which leads to the basement, and some stairs to the left that will take you up to the kitchen. The ground floor has a bedroom which I sleep in, along with the kitchen and a joined dining and living room area. The upper floor has a full bathroom as well as two additional bedrooms. I've overrun the dining room with some of my gear: a large table houses my two laptops, a monitor, speakers and CDs. The living room has a couple of chairs and a couch, all of which point in the direction of the television.
There are several additional buildings outside that add character to the place. There is an enormous old barn which will dominate your field of vision, but as you look to the left of it you'll see a shed. That's where the mower is - I'll be cutting grass and faking some yard work as a part of this deal. You have to actually walk out there but when you do you'll find that to the left of the small shed there is a little house. It's too big to be a play house but it's got this miniature quality too it, like something crafted for a museum. This is the original farm house and it was built in the late 19th century. Remember, we're in the 21st right now.
I wonder if the family that built the place could have ever imagined a Ugandan computer programmer. Those three words only found their meaning in the last century, and even then it was as the century ended.
It was pointed out to me but I only took notice after R asked that there was a structure some ways off from the older farm house. It's a hog house. I don't think I'll ever go near it.
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The Grave |
All the buildings are behind the house as you come in from the driveway, but the driveway is perhaps 50 meters. If you look in front of the house, there is a lot of overgrown grass and some neglected yard fixtures. I walked around on Thursday, the day after I formally moved in and noticed a hole in the ground, almost rectangular and about 3 meters in length. It had a stone in front on one side. I thought it was strange - a grave perhaps? I wasn't disappointed when I discovered this had been a fish pond, not a grave and that it was removed.
I have yet to clean off the porch and find some chairs but at night everything is still. I'm planning to drink a cocktail on it one night and listen to that silence. There are a lot of insects in South Dakota but I bought some spray from Wal-mart and it should help. South Dakota has high levels of "West Nile" infection and since I come from the birthplace of the disease I keep having daydream sequences where a mosquito, upon feasting on my blood, infects the eastern Dakotas and starts an epidemic. I've had malaria a few times, the "West Nile" variety, and it's well known that lots of bad diseases come from Africa (or California for that matter).
The place is cluttered as I'm settling in: boxes, plastic bags, tape, tools and wires are strewn about everywhere. But it's home until December and our honeymoon hasn't ended.
That's the story, so far as it has gone.
6:18:02 PM 
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