Love Through Stone

Our homes are an expression of who we are.

Celeste moved in with Bob about 50 years ago. A former track star, he’d recently bought some scrub land and built an octagon shaped structure out of repurposed wood and muscle. She was newly passionate about growing food, having read Adelle Davis’ book Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit. The idea was simple: what we eat directly contributes to our health. Celeste began to garden.

It seems Bob’s domain would be the building of immovable structures upon and through which their lives would move and Celeste would focus on the movable things and the purpose for the movement~ the seeds, the soil, the produce, and above all~ the growing family. This, in turn, meant canning, freezing, dehydrating and yes, cooking.

For the first few years, as Bob unmoored trees and expanded the farmable land, Celeste tried out her ideas for food production in raised garden beds made from untreated lumber. They looked great in June, but after the ebbs and flows of cold days, humid nights, hot spells and wet slogs, the following May the wooden beds were beat up and ready for repair.

Bob had an idea, instead of wood, he’d move to stone.

For seven years, using a wheelbarrow and a carpet, he pulled massive rocks from the ground and placed the massive things just so. Here a bed of garlic grew in a rectangle that would last millenia. There a sun gold plant with a touch of blight sprouted up from a model of the Himalayas. As the years passed, Celeste grew more and more~ learned more and more~ and the fledgling dream of new lovers had formed into a homestead and family anchored in rock…

(to be continued)