The window

painting by Johann Georg Meyer

FarmWife used to have a great big comfy office with a window right out onto the lawn. It happened to be that I would get turned out right beside her workspace on certain sunny summer days. We could work side by side—her at the computer on her various editing projects and me on the other side of the glass on my mastication of the delicate grasses. It was beautiful.

Then FarmWife's littlest child grew big enough for a room of her own, and FarmWife and Husband made a tremendous sacrifice. They gave up their master bedroom, moved into the former office downstairs, and turned an upstairs nook—what was once a master closet—into a windowless pit of a room. FarmWife now works in a space about as cheery and soulful as the inside of a breadbox (but with fewer delicious baked goods), but she is rewarded with easy bedtimes which include no fighting about how many nightlights to keep on, whether to listen to lullabies on the CD player, or who's humming herself noisily to sleep.

Help is on the way! FarmHusband, who is terribly clever at turning bits of wood into beautiful buildings, has undertaken to make the space cheerful and bright. A real wall will replace the mustard-yellow blanket that divides the office from the adjacent bedroom, new sheetrock will provide a canvas for cheery paint, and best of all a WINDOW will look out upon the horse chestnut tree, the woodshop, and the pasture beyond.

The woodshop, which stands directly between the office and the mule shed, will block my most direct view of FarmWife's new window.  I will have to walk out to the pasture to summon her with a glance, but I think that at the very least my voice should carry better through two layers of glass than it does, presently, through an exterior stud wall.

FarmWife can't wait to report from inside her new-and-improved workspace, which should come together in the next week or two. She promises to hang a great many photos of me, Fenway Bartholomule, upon it's fresh and lovely walls. I'll let you know.

Ears,
FenBar