When I first joined up with the Farmer 14 years ago and moved onto the farm, I was quite taken by the tiny miniature farmhouse in the backyard. The Farmer had built it himself, as a playhouse for his two little girls. By the time I arrived, it had already been sitting idle and unused for a few years.
I pulled the rickety screen door open and
pushed the wooden one in. Crouching down, I could just fit myself inside. There
was a perfect replica kitchen with upper and lower cupboards and a tiny sink. A
child-sized table and chairs sat under a window with floral curtains. There was
a set of stairs to a loft, where someone once had a nap or maybe camped out.
The blanket was still there.
Under the stairs, a mosquito net hung down
over a bassinet, protecting the pretend princess that lay inside, eyes closed.
Dreaming.
As the girls became teens and moved out, we
watched the tiny playhouse slowly fall apart. Wind blew the shingles off the
roof and bricks fell out of the chimney. A groundhog family tunnelled beneath the
house, causing the floor to cave in. Raccoons took up residence inside and
clawed their way through the screens when the door was closed.
I still thought the house was beautiful, if
in a slightly haunted way. It was front and centre in all of my sunset photos
for the next several years.
Then, one day, my daughter had a daughter.
I asked the Farmer if we could fix up the little playhouse and he said, “No –
I’m afraid it is beyond repair.” I stuck my head into the house to survey the
damage. It didn’t look that bad to me. But what do I know?
By the time our granddaughter turned 2, she
was totally fascinated with the little playhouse. She would stand on the tiny
porch and peek in the window. She understood it was unsafe to go inside, with
the broken floor. But that didn’t stop her imagining that a witch or a fairy
lived inside.
Our granddaughter is now 5. The other day,
the Farmer surprised me. “You will have to make sure there are no wasps in
there,” he started, “but if you can clean it up, I will put in a new floor.”
The playhouse is getting a second chance to
entertain children. And since she is old enough to wield a paintbrush now, our
granddaughter will be enlisted to help give the house a new coat of paint.
I told her to choose a colour that her sister
will like too.
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