The rooster began before dawn at 5:19. She had not yet fallen back to sleep after the second trip to the bathhouse was completed at 4:29 am, but it didn’t really matter. Seven hours of restorative sleep had already fortified her. She was only lying awake to contemplate her blessings. Lodging in a tiny house, 288 square feet of authentic repurposed 100 -year -old farm furnishings, every square inch meticulously decorated with cotton doilies, linens and hand-sewn quilts. No sign that says, “do not touch.” Every indication that she is to wrap up in the quilt, pull out the exposed springs on the crib-sized trundle daybed and luxuriate for as long as she likes in her 650 down sleeping bag purchased for her birthday last year and brought along on this road trip for such a necessity. 

Any moment now her daughter will pop in from the farmhand bunk and make use of the hand-crank coffee grinder and organic coffee beans. Once the coffee is perking, they will gather eggs from the hens and have a fine omelette. Rain gently taps on the roof intermittently. Dad still snores softly from the quilted queen-sized bed nestled under an eastern stained glass quatrefoil window and concealed by an antique secretary bookcase now commissioned as china hutch. The bookcase is identical to a pair from her father’s childhood home, one of which graces her brother’s well – appointed professorial study while the other has use at the home of a cousin. It is 7:14 am and still Dad sleeps – an amazing feat for a man used to rising early on a farm, used to getting up before dawn to feed the horses and break the ice in the watering trough. But then, he has been up twice in the night for trips to the bathhouse. Trips on which she accompanied him because the path is unfamiliar and very uneven. Trips on which she, at the age of 66 and allegedly in her prime, reaches out to him and steadies him like she would a toddling child. When your parents age, it helps to have been a mother. The bathhouse has every luxury from clawfoot tub to heated toilet seat. The only thing resembling the old farm outhouse is the aged barnwood paneling the walls and floor. It takes time to enjoy these amenities when you are 88. It also takes time to wash your hands and get back into your coat. While he washes his hands and gets back into his coat, she slips behind the partition and makes use of the heated toilet seat for herself. A wise woman goes at every opportunity. She, too, might want to sleep until the sun is up!

Last night when Silvergirl pulled into the driveway about 7:00 pm the three travelers were greeted by a cacophony of bleating goats, honking white geese and clucking hens. By the time she and her daughter enjoyed a pit campfire and headed for bed the hens were cozily perched in their custom aviary and the frogs and toads in the pond were loudly singing an evening serenade. The amphibians were at it again briefly this morning once the rooster alarmed them. 

What a beautiful morning! Such is the life in Christopher Robin’s  Writer’s Cabin, next to the 100-acre-wood, on Whidbey Island, on a working farm – when she is not the one working!