In the Beginning
In the Beginning
The Birdsalls moved to NH in 1974:
Laura, Mark and young Rachel. Mark had left active duty with the Navy in 1973
and gone to Adelphi University to do the Waldorf Institute there; living with
Bill and Jane Freeman on Dogwood Avenue during that year.
In the fall of 73, Mark went with a
senior class from Garden City Waldorf School to Camp Glen Brook in Marlborough,
NH and visited Wilton, meeting with Ann Pratt (who had babysat Mark and Chris
years before in Spring Valley).
In Jan of 74, Mark and family visited
the Mitchells, who were living in the Scotts' summer home in Wilton Center, up
a gravel road behind the Pine Hill building owned by Charlie Sullivan. Kati was
just Rachel's age and Suzanna was an infant sleeping in a stroller in 0 degree
weather, like a good Norwegian girl should. Heat, what there was of it, was
from a David-sized potbelly wood stove. We all wore woolen clothes and hats to
bed at night. But karma was calling.
That June, we packed up and moved to
the boys dorm at High Mowing, along with the Mitchells. David and Mark would
rise at first light, eat, make lunch and then go to Old Temple Road to build
the Mitchells' house. They had purchased 5 acres from Ruth Moynihan of
Lyndeborough and she also promised to sell the Birdsalls a neighboring piece.
Mark and David would return home around dusk--a good 12-hour workday most days,
very tired. We took about 1 or 2 days off before school work started. But we
made a lot of progress.
David, Phil Brooks and Ron Ravenscroft
had purchased a cherry-picker load of pine logs, and Phil ran the old Class II
sawmill at High Mowing while we milled 6x6's and 6'8's for our houses.
Meanwhile Pine Hill had grown, and
bought property that summer on the Bennington Battle Trail from a religious
group called The Trees of Righteousness, who were moving to Canada. So in
August there was a lot of cleaning up, cleaning out, painting etc. to be done
to get ready. All hands on deck.
At one of the first school
meetings, Swain Pratt handed me (Mark) a book and told me I was the school
Finance Guy / bookkeeper / bill payer. What fun. John Knutson, and parent and
accountant, oversaw the work.
That fall, the Mitchells lived in a
little former chicken coop on the new Pine Hill property. Lowell and Edie
Rheinheimer and family went to Europe and left us with some sheep and chickens,
including a big black ram named Jupiter who sorely tried our patience many
times. Sheep are really really dumb. The Birdsalls moved in to the 3rd floor of
the school building; David and Mark hoisting all their stuff (a 24' truck load)
up to the 3rd floor. We also moved dozens of other new arrivals into the area
during those years. The school was growing, and we were the musclemen. David,
especially, did not know the meaning of 'can't.'
Teachers cleaned the school after
classes that year, bathrooms included. Somewhere in late fall we hired Gene
Patten, a former blacksmith from Mystic Seaport and his family to help maintain
the property. They lived in the back space. Gene did very little cleaning, etc.;
he had other interests and eventually was asked to leave. He looked amazingly
like Abe Lincoln.
That fall the Birdsalls bought 6 acres
next to the Mitchells from Ruth, and Mark Started clearing a 500' driveway for
the house. Since these were the sensitive back to the land 70's, he bought a
nice new double-bladed axe from Dick Tuttle's lumberyard and cut them down with
that (before cutting them up with a Stihl chain saw). After school and weekends
went to that. Then Bruce Kullgren, from down the road in Temple, brought over
his dozer and excavated a foundation hole. Next Mike Bergeron, a little French
Canadian as broad and strong as he was tall, did the forms and we poured a
foundation that fall. We covered it over the winter and started building as
soon as the weather and school permitted in the spring. The septic system was a
tank and dry well off the northeast corner of the house; there was not quite
enough clearance for the dry well from an outcropping of granite, so Mark drove
a hole in the granite and Bruce provided a stick of dynamite, which made the
clearance. Not quite legal, perhaps, but no one cared in those days. We did get
a building permit from old George ______ in Lyndeborough, but he never came to
the property. George Randlett, an air traffic controller who lived up the hill,
came by almost every day though, so we called him 'The Building Inspector.'
Mike Latham, Mark's brother, came to visit and designed the stairs, a
complicated job beyond our skill level.
Mike Bergeron did all the form setting
by himself, and got the levels a bit off, so when they poured the basement
floor, they had to pour about 8" of concrete back in the NE corner where
the electrical panel, etc. sits. But otherwise, all came out well.
In the spring of '75 Mark began
working on the foundation, cleaning it up and getting ready to build. (The
Mitchells, meanwhile, had moved into their house. They had lived in the coop
until it got to be too much for even hardy pioneers (well, for Anniken at
least), and then they rented in Wilton near the library.) When school was out,
David and Mark began working on Chez Birdsall, but at more reasonable hours
than the previous summer. Mark also hired Chuck Smith, son of school secretary
Beverly Smith, to help out. 16 years old, Chuck was nonetheless very quick to
learn and strong and was a good assistant. Some friends and family also stopped
by for periods to help. Annalisa Birdsall was also born that spring, April 8th,
and we all still lived on the 3rd floor of the school till Dec 75. John Karjam,
Laura's grandfather from Estonia and a skilled carpenter, gave us his aluminum
tilt in windows--some of the first ever created, although not very energy efficient.
He also brought his special tools up and weather-stripped the front door, which
was still good and tight 19 years later when we sold the house in 1993.
A lot of the lumber for the house was
bought from the Tappley (father and son) lumber mill south of Milford for 15
cents a board foot--there was a recession going on and times were tight for
building. Bill Tappley Jr drove it up on a big truck and raced it across the
stone arch bridge down the road by Ginny Fisher's house, since he greatly exceeded
the legal weight limit of the bridge. But it was a lot stronger than
advertised.
We kept on working after school and
weekends in the fall, and moved in on St Nick day in Dec 75. It was an
unseasonably warm day, 50's at least, thank God, and what a good feeling to be
in our own house. Mark was still flying in the Naval Reserves and working full
time at school; Laura had two children and Catherine soon on the way.
"Life was full" is a considerable understatement. The Pine Hill
Community was very active, festivals, plays, assemblies as well as a new
construction project there in the summer of 75--a kindergarten/eurythmy space
replacing the old chicken coop. Benton Frye, parent and Board member, did that,
and Mark was the school liaison for the project since he lived on site.
So we were in, and although there was
a propane gas heater in the Master Bedroom and bath, they were hardly ever used
and only for a while, we heated with wood. At first there was a wood cook stove
in the kitchen, mostly for heat, later replaced with a Franklin stove. A
Shenendoah barrel type stove provided most of the heat from the living room.
Later a Tempwood took its place. When the basement apartment got occupied, a
wood stove there helped also. All operated off separate flues, as well as a
fourth flue designed as an air intake, but never really used. The chimney in
that house is about as robust as any in the world, cement block filled top to
bottom with gravel and with cement in the corners, gravel packed around the
flues. An atom bomb would only move it a bit.
We're not quite sure HOW we got this
all done; we just did it and it got done. If we had planned it out, we would
have seen it was too much, but there we were. In the fall of 76 Catherine was
born and Chez Birdsall had its full crew, not counting renters and family who
later took the apartment downstairs. Another story!
posted by Mark | 5:04 PM
|
0 comments
