A
northwest wind picks up the leaf fall in the yard, swirling about the dry oak
and cherry cast offs and making little dust devil-looking figures. These settle
into small piles that lay still until another gust animates them this way and
that.
The
front portion of the barn has leaves piled against the foundation, having come
to rest there from an eddy where the wind tunnels between an adjacent white
pine and the corner of the barn. These leaves are two feet deep, covering the
foundation like a protective blanket.
I’ve
read that such shoring up of foundations was the norm a hundred years ago.
Families would gather the leaf fall and grasses and pile them up all around the
foundation of the house, even using fencing to retain the material as
insulation. This barrier would help protect the house from winter’s draft, at a
time when home foundations weren’t so overly sealed from the external
environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment