Hap­py 10th birth­day, Red Gate Farm

Ten years ago this month, our fam­i­ly moved into Red Gate Farm.

It seems like just a breath ago, but also the place seems to have been part of our lives for­ev­er, this lit­tle white farm­house sit­ting demure­ly in a dusty bend of San­ford Road.   The moment we brought Red Gate Farm into our fam­i­ly, the house and its set­ting, its atmos­phere and its aura of tran­quil­i­ty, began to nour­ish and sus­tain us.

I didn’t want a week­end house.

“I like New York on the week­ends, when every­one else goes away,” I insisted.

“Have you ever thought that there might be a good rea­son that every­one else goes away?” my hus­band asked rea­son­ably.  “Maybe they’ve got some­thing we haven’t.”

“Yes, traf­fic, and pack­ing up the car, and week­end guests, and wor­ry­ing about the house while we’re in town all week,” I said.

But I knew it was only a mat­ter of time.  My hus­band loves real estate.  He loves to look at hous­es and apart­ments, any hous­es and apart­ments, whether he’s in the mar­ket to buy or not.  But I could rec­og­nize that behind his insis­tence this time was a real impulse to have an escape hatch.  So I went look­ing with him.

Week­end after week­end, we left behind the qui­et, aban­doned city and sat in the cars of real estate agents as they drove us all around the tri-state area (New York, New Jer­sey and Con­necti­cut, in case you’re not from there), and even ven­tur­ing into the riotous­ly expen­sive neigh­bor­hoods of Bucks Coun­ty, Penn­syl­va­nia.  We saw many, many ter­ri­ble houses.

“This house was built by the archi­tect who built Madi­son Square Gar­den!” chirped one enthu­si­as­tic agent, not seem­ing to con­jure up a men­tal image of that mon­stros­i­ty, the most hideous of strains upon the New York City skyline.

“Don’t pay any atten­tion to the smell of cat pee, it’s only in the car­pet,” car­oled anoth­er opti­mistic go-between, lead­ing me to won­der if oth­er hous­es boast­ed pee in the walls as well.

“The kitchen is big­ger than it looks, it’s just because it’s so dark inside that it seems small.”  True enough.

After trawl­ing these places for Sat­ur­days and Sun­days we strug­gled back in the home-going traf­fic while I tried not to think, “I told you so, I told you so.”

Final­ly I put my foot down.  It was May.  New York City was fresh and dewy and much more appeal­ing than the high­ways where we were spend­ing all our time stuck between SUVs and trucks filled with hydro­gen.  “This is it,” I said firm­ly.   “The last week­end, and then we admit defeat, and just stay here, where we’re hap­py.”  “Fair enough,” John said, and we head­ed out, with our lit­tle 7‑year-old daugh­ter in tow.

The day brought fresh dis­ap­point­ments, if fresh could be the word.  In the minus­cule dri­ve­way of one sad lit­tle dwelling, the agent reas­sured us, “I know this yard is awful­ly small, but think how close you’ll be to the road if you need to be plowed out!”  At this, I shut my lips in a tight, thin line and John said, “One more house, then we’re finished.”

As we pulled off the felic­i­tous­ly-named Jere­my Swamp Road onto an unpaved bit in dap­pled sun­shine, I admit­ted, “This is more like it.”  A per­va­sive qui­et hung in the air, as we came up a gen­tle hill.  We stepped out, walked to the gate of a white pick­et fence, opened it.  “That gate should be red,” I thought sud­den­ly.  “This is Nan­cy Drew’s Red Gate Farm, only the gate is white.”  I looked up through mas­sive maple leaves into a blink­ing blue sky, saw two red barns speak­ing gen­tly to each oth­er across an expanse of green, green lawn, a low brick chick­en house in the dis­tance, the depths and dark­ness of a pond enclosed by ancient stones.  The house itself, a lit­tle white salt­box with a ram­bling, awk­ward addi­tion on the back, sat qui­et­ly by a gray­ing wood­shed with wavy glass in the win­dows.  Over all flowed a gen­er­ous sense of peace.

“I don’t even need to go in,” I said.  “This is it.”

John lat­er point­ed out to me the unde­sir­abil­i­ty of this state­ment, from a nego­ti­at­ing stand­point.  But he was smit­ten, too.  And when we did go inside, it was a house made to order for us.  Dark, orig­i­nal floors, white, white walls, and where there could have been a dark, unpleas­ant orig­i­nal kitchen, the Fico broth­ers who restored it had opened up the “born­ing room” into a dou­ble-height space of light and air, soar­ing but cozy.  The bed­rooms upstairs were per­fect for us, with Avery’s tiny space being just large enough to pic­ture two twin beds, and lots of laugh­ing sleepovers.

That was that.  We bought it.  And scrounged around in our stor­age spaces for antique (and just plain old) fur­ni­ture we had put away in favor of the mod­ern pieces in our New York apart­ment.  There was every­thing we need­ed, except beds, which end­ed up com­ing from LL Bean.  Every object we brought into the house seemed to float into just the right spot, bench­es sit­ting hap­pi­ly under win­dows, leather chairs flank­ing a lit­tle old fire­place, mis­match­ing book­shelves find­ing ceil­ings of just the right height, old rugs brought back from Rus­sia set­tling onto the wide-beamed floors as if they belonged there.

So Red Gate Farm became our week­end haven.  And because South­bury has always been intel­li­gent enough not to become fash­ion­able, traf­fic posed no prob­lems for us.  We sped up there every Fri­day evening with­out fail, long­ing to arrive to the peace and calm, after the crazi­ness of the city.

Of course the peace and calm brought with them their own plagues.

“Was there always a hole in the din­ing room floor?”  I asked in some pan­ic, late one Fri­day night.

“Where?”

“There!  It’s as big as my fist, going down into the basement.”

Our neigh­bor farmer Rol­lie, who would soon become one of our clos­est friends, came by to inves­ti­gate.  “That’s from a coun­try rat,” he said knowledgeably.

“How’s that dif­fer­ent from a reg­u­lar rat, like we have in New York?”

“Well, it lives in the country.”

And there was the evening we arrived to find that the pound block of but­ter I had left out on the counter had been thor­ough­ly gnawed into a neat lit­tle pyra­mid, teeth marks clear­ly show­ing.  Coun­try rat again, no doubt.

And the skunk that slith­ered out from the garbage bag I had left on the kitchen step for a moment, and the mouse I just stepped on in my morn­ing-bare feet, but not quite enough to do him in.  And the bat we dis­cov­ered in the barn one chilly Octo­ber day.  I poked it with a stick, sure it was dead.  When it wig­gled to life, Rol­lie said sly­ly, “Hap­py Hal­loween,” amid our screams.

So many girls, from babies to teenagers, have shout­ed with laugh­ter on the tram­po­line under the big maple!  Avery invent­ed an elab­o­rate game of com­plex jumps named for the char­ac­ters in the ven­er­a­ble Archies comics, so the sticky sum­mer air was often filled with cries of “Veron­i­ca, Veron­i­ca, BET­TY!”  Min­nows with­out num­ber have emerged from the pond to be inspect­ed and thrown ten­der­ly back, and it’s also been trans­formed into a per­ilous skat­ing rink one winter.

“Do you think this ice is thick enough to hold Avery?” I asked our neigh­bor Anne one win­ter day when the air made ici­cles inside your nose.

“Oh, sure, I’m sure it’s fine,” she said blithe­ly, and test­ed it her­self.  When we all heard crack­ing sounds, we scram­bled to give Anne our hands and get her out in time.

In recent years, as our daugh­ter became less of a play­er and more of a thinker, our shelf space and floor space and in fact, any hor­i­zon­tal space, have become bur­dened with her books, and min­gling with my books, pro­vide a reveal­ing glimpse into our lives: “There is No Such Thing As Soci­ety,” “Les Mis­er­ables,” “Lord Byron and His Cir­cle,” “How To Eat Supper.”

Also as Avery grows up and away, John and I have learned to cre­ate our own pat­terns of qui­et life at Red Gate Farm, with long days of work on the ter­race, in the forests cut­ting the wood for a Christ­mas hol­i­day, in the kitchen watch­ing “Days of Our Lives” and scrub­bing the floor, in advance of guests to come in the months we’re away in London.

The Aggra­va­tion board, and unfin­ished jig­saw puz­zles, lie in wait for the unwary guest, and John’s beloved goldfinch­es crowd the bird-feed­ers, an exer­cise in tran­quil­li­ty for any­one will­ing to col­lapse on the ter­race and watch for a minute, an hour, an afternoon.

Of course, because I am a cook, when I think of Red Gate Farm, I think of food.  And guests, and par­ties, and peo­ple I have fed.  These mem­o­ries bring great joy.

There have been count­less meals at Red Gate Farm, whether lob­ster feasts at the pic­nic table on the ter­race (a ter­race lov­ing­ly built from local stone by the last owner’s hus­band), or blue­ber­ry muf­fin break­fasts at the lit­tle blue kitchen table over­look­ing the big hay mead­ow, or enor­mous turkeys for Thanks­giv­ing in the cozy, can­dlelit din­ing room.  I remem­ber one sum­mer feast with my friend Shel­ley dur­ing a pow­er fail­ure, sur­round­ed by can­dle­light from tall hold­ers and tiny votives, watch­ing the rain lash the curvy old win­dow glass.

Fam­i­ly and friends have streamed end­less­ly through the doors: some choos­ing the mud­dy spring­time path to the back door, some the treach­er­ous snowy walk­way to the front of the house.  Light­ed can­dles have twin­kled from the hydrangea tree every Christ­mas Eve, and we’ve estab­lished a trea­sured tra­di­tion at the table once the lights are lit: every year, Anne, David, Alice, Con­nie and lit­tle Katie troop across the road for a creamy, gar­licky, cel­ery-laden oys­ter stew, com­plete with round, dusty lit­tle oys­ter crack­ers to pop in the bowl and scoop up with a sil­ver spoon.

Red Gate Farm has seen long, lazy vis­its by my pre­cious par­ents-in-law, birth­day par­ties for my moth­er, August half-birth­days for my niece Jane, and Camp Kris­ten weeks with lots of lit­tle girls rush­ing in and out in bathing suits, shout­ing, “Who has my gog­gles?”, piled in sleep­ing bags in the guest room eat­ing pop­corn and watch­ing “The Pink Panther.”

There have been sad days of ill­ness, and days that were a gift because ill­ness had retreat­ed, and days where the house itself pro­vid­ed a cocoon of com­fort to those of us liv­ing with loss and bereave­ment.  The house has seen and wel­comed the birth and baby­hood of my two nieces and our dear Katie across the road.  I often think of Avery, her cousins and their neigh­bor Katie lean­ing over the fence, long after we are gone, exchang­ing gos­sip, and maybe even recipes.

Sad­ly for our love of Red Gate Farm, we moved to Lon­don just a year and a half after we bought the gor­geous place.  A year and a half of peace­ful week­ends was in our past.  But the future brought Christ­mases there, and sum­mers.  Now, although we feel quite Eng­lish and hap­py to live in our new home most of the time, each Decem­ber and June we find our­selves reach­ing out to Red Gate Farm, pin­ing for its seren­i­ty, imag­in­ing the glo­ries we will find when we arrive.

There is the new tra­di­tion of dri­ving weari­ly up the road in the dead of night, jet­lagged, the car packed to the gills with every­thing we need for our hol­i­day.  We approach the house in the dark to see its lights blaz­ing, since Rol­lie, Judy and Anne have made every­thing ready for our arrival.  They vie, sweet­ly, for who can turn up the heat, who can stock the refrig­er­a­tor before the oth­er gets a chance.  How lucky we are in our neighbors.

We stag­ger up the walk under our lug­gage, push open the front door that sticks with age, drop every­thing on the floor and sim­ply drink in the atmos­phere: a mix­ture of old books, ash­es in emp­ty fire­places, woolen rugs and leather chairs.  We feel both the weight and the light­ness of the gen­er­a­tions of peo­ple who have opened that door before us, we sigh, and are home.

Christ­mas Eve Oys­ter Stew

(serves 8, with leftovers)

6 tbsps butter

3 tbsps plain flour

8 pints shucked oys­ters, in their liquor

6 stalks cel­ery, minced

2 white onions, minced

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 quart whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

sea salt to taste

white pep­per to taste

cel­ery salt to taste

Tabas­co to taste

lemon juice to taste

In a very large, heavy stock­pot, melt the but­ter, add the flour and cook togeth­er until bub­bling but not browned.  Add the cel­ery, onions and gar­lic and sauté until cel­ery and onions are soft­ened.  Pour in the oys­ters and their liquor and stir them con­stant­ly over medi­um heat until their edges curl firm­ly.  Heat the milk in a sep­a­rate pan and just before it boils, add it to the oys­ter mix­ture.  Whisk until flour is thor­ough­ly incor­po­rat­ed and the broth is creamy and smooth.  Add the cream and then begin adding sea­son­ings to taste.  Taste con­tin­u­al­ly as the broth heats through and get the bal­ance of fla­vors just right to suit you.  Serve with oys­ter crack­ers.  The fla­vors inten­si­fy over time, so you may make the stew ahead of time.  Just be sure not to reheat it too intense­ly as the oys­ters will become tough.