I’m sure there’s a way to tell this part of the story concisely, and without quite so much whining. But I’m not sure I have it in me to distill that story down. I’ve lost track of how long ago in the seven year process we switched tack on trying to build farmer housing and decided to go with the “quick-and-easy approach” of just buying a couple of prefabricated units on trailers and plonk them down next to the existing buildings. So simple. So quick. If things went as projected, folks could move in some time in March. April at the latest.

Yeah.

So, checking the calendar, we’re now half-past June, and neither unit is hooked up or habitable yet. One of them is still sitting in the driveway, waiting to be hauled into place, and it’s clear that we’ve still got at least a month of work ahead of us. At least.

When I say “we” I mean mostly the excellent teams I’ve hired to do the actual digging/leveling/pouring/trenching/piping (shout out to Mike of Kilnworks, CB and Zach of Johnson Construction and Toby and Bill of Key City Excavating). But there are literally (and I mean actually literally, not figuratively, as it has come to be used in daily hyperbole) dozens of moving parts in the schedule that keep falling out of sync, and decisions that need to be made on the fly to try to keep the whole process from coming off the rails: first unit is getting delivered on Thursday, and we’re pouring concrete for the second unit on Friday. But then delivery is delayed until Friday, so we postpone concrete until Monday. Except that the concrete company just got another big order in the meantime and now can’t send a truck out until almost a month later. But we can’t deal with that now, because the delivery truck has shown up as a convoy with both units in tow. And the spotter that the delivery company was supposed to have sent out never made it, and it turns out that neither house will actually fit down the lane unless we cut down half the cherry trees along the lane and and the twenty feet of mature lilac that the farm’s founders planted.

Then, when we’ve got those big expensive-by-the-hour excavators trenching in the water connection, we come across buried pipes that aren’t on the map. What are they, what do we want to do about them? Tick tick tick…

It’s been a stressful couple of months, and every time I make plans to take a break, my phone rings. But the mountains have also been calling, and they’ve been very patient.

Yesterday I decided they’d been patient enough, threw on my Limmers and scooted up to a trailhead I’d read about at the edge of the Buckhorn Wilderness Area. Slab Camp Creek. A light mist in the air, nothing but rhodies, ferns and fir all around me. (Okay, there were a lot more species than that, but permit me the alliteration?) Just half a dozen miles or so of solitary trail down to the valley for a misty picnic by the river, and back.

Oh god, I needed that. I could use more of that. So…heck. Checked my calendar, and in spite of the barrage of “Where should we put the gravel?” and “Is the farm truck still broken?”, I don’t actually need to physically be here for anything until some time around the end of this week. Most of those questions people need me for, they don’t really need me for. I’m a convenient source for answers, but I’ll bet they can figure things out on their own. I’ve got an 8 o’clock ferry reservation in the morning, my passport and the envelope containing my leftover Canadian cash from last summer. Overnight kit, snacks, tent, air mattress and bag thrown in the back of the car. I’m going to head north and east for a little. Other than that, I think I’m going to figure it out as I go.

[Note: posting this in the morning, having written it late last night, and I’ve already fallen prey to Rule #5 of travel around Puget Sound: “Never trust the ferry system to be in any condition to get you where you expect to go.” On my way down to the terminal, I got email from WSDOT that the Kennewick, the ferry nominally serving the Port Townsend to Coupeville route for my 8:00 reservation, was “out of service due to a shortage of crew.” A quick chat with the ticket taker confirmed that he had little confidence that the 9:30, 11 or 12:30 ferries – or any that day – would actually run. Yes, I’d been looking forward to the languid drive up Whidbey Island, through Deception Pass and Anacortes, but…Rule #5. I wished him luck, wheeled the car around, and headed south just in time to roll on as the last car onto the Kingston ferry’s only-somewhat-delayed nominal 7:55 departure for Edmonds. I’m on my way.]