This morning I had the strangest dream. A young man (my persona) is walking along a dirt road through and old growth forest. In a clearing he comes across two old men, skinny, poor teeth, shabbily dressed, and clumsy. They are removing every other board from their shack of a house. Their work is not well done. They have split many of the boards trying to get them off, and are using the pieces to patch the now broken boards they have left on.
The young man is puzzled by this, but as the two are obviously not ‘all there’ he tips his hat good day and walks on. As he walks away he hears one man say, “aye, but that is a thing of beauty”.

When he turns the fellow is patting the patch work he has used to keep the door frame secured to the shack.
Now he realizes that the men had a plan, and are satisfied with their work, done to the best of their ability.
Further on where the trees are denser, and bigger around he comes across a fella’ of about 40, building a small home with his two sons about the age of 10. The boys are running in and out of one wall of the house where large gaps have been left. They are good naturedly chasing each other and a few chickens. A pup lies chewing a bone under a tree.
The young man enters the house, being constructed much like an old time shed, for a bit of conversation. He sees an electric drill on the workbench and exclaims over it. The fella’ says, “why don’t you take it, I hardly ever find myself using it any more.” That’s when he notices that hanging from the wall behind the workbench, and the beam overhead are all sorts of well used hand tools. Hand saws, a bit and brace, chisels, ect. He sees a small power appliance of some kind (a generator maybe?) and asks if the fella’ would let it go, but the he says, “Naw, I’d better hold onto that for awhile just in case.”
They get into a discussion about water supplies. The young man wanted the generator to run a pump to bring water up to his building site. Im fortunate says the fella’, my pond is above the house, and I can get water gravity fed.
As the young man walks away with his new drill, the fella’ says, I don’t know why, but it just seemed best to leave that wall as open to the world as I could, and it has made me happy.
As he walks on to his site the young man spies a small pond in the woods that would have mad gravity fed water plausible for his home, but alas he will have to continue to haul water, as his pond lays below the house. He thinks about his neat and sturdy little place, with its’ strong door and small neat windows.

Now why did I have this dream?

It does reflect my philosophy of openness. Perhaps it is expressing the sadness of fall when I have to start keeping the windows and doors closed. Maybe I just had too many blankets on my bed and was too warm, wanting some opening to let in fresh air. Or perhaps it is because the sidewalks are being replaced around my house and right now about every other block is missing. Getting in and out of the house requires meandering around blockades and tape strung for safety. Or perhaps it is because we are awaiting a carpenter who will be replacing all the windows in the house, and anticipating the empty openings in the wall.

Or maybe it is because I would like to build myself that simple chicken shed home in the midst of an old growth forest with plenty of openings for light, where children and puppies can run with the chickens, and build it the way my grandfather did.