Tuesday - Wednesday, at the Rabbit Patch | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant memoirs of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    Today, started out beautifully. It isn't as cool as it has been, but it is pleasant. It is July in the south, after all. In the peace of a lovely morning, I got a phone call. The home inspector would be here around noon. There are tools and paint in several rooms and there is a spot in the floor, in the process of being repaired. Of course, there is also the absence of any sign of housekeeping. The grass needs mowing, too.

    I have never dealt with a home inspector. I am sure he is a nice person, but he sounds mighty official to me. Jenny says he may spend the afternoon and will look high and low for all sorts of issues. That is the way she comforted me. She said also, that inspectors were there to help. I decided to take her word on that. Brant moaned, when I told him and quickly called out to God.

    Since, the rabbit patch was in total disarray, I started back on painting the kitchen. It was the only course of action that made sense to me. I had completed the ceiling around midnight. With the ceiling such a clean, stark white, the walls looked dingy, so I decided to paint the walls-and that meant the cabinets, too.

    At some point, I had to laugh at the irony. Just a month ago, I was quite proud of the rabbit patch. Everything in place, closets and cabinets orderly-even all those wretched barns. The lawn was tidy. Flowers were blooming and birds were singing. . . That was a short lived affair.

    Brant had an appointment and Christian high tailed it out of here, as he is every bit as terrified of official anything, as I am. I was on my own -and I felt stranded. I knew then and there, that we were having left overs for supper.

    As it turns out, the inspector was a friendly fellow. He was not wearing a badge and he chatted like a "regular" person. He went his way and I went mine . . .back to painting the kitchen. Hours later, he drove off, telling me not to worry and that he "really liked this place". . . .that I call "a Rabbit Patch".

    I spent the afternoon finishing the kitchen. It did make a nice difference and I was glad I had persevered. When Kyle came in, I asked him to please remove that ladder from the kitchen and far away from my sight. Now there was the clean up to get started on.

    It was drizzling rain at the early service on Wednesday. It has been a while since it rained here and I was up for a rainy day. Housekeeping sounded delightful to me, after climbing a ladder for two days. Besides that, the rabbit patch is not "out of the woods" just yet, as this is the early stages of a complicated process. I expect more official visits in the future. What a lot of business! Selling a house is not for the faint of heart. . . in a lot of ways.

    While I scrubbed the kitchen floor, I remembered the merry days of times past at the rabbit patch. Once upon a time, the many bedrooms were full. The kitchen table was bigger. The barn housed miniature goats and a miniature horse. There were chickens and rabbits. That was a special season, but the sons grew up,(as sons do) Grandmama passed and a hurricane turned the chicken house over. One thing happened and then another, til at last the present circumstances prevailed.

    Though, I love remembering, I knew it best not to dwell too long on how things used to be. It is an awful habit of mine. I can not bear to look at old photographs for very long, for I will inevitably sink in to mourning. Knowing full well, my typical behavior, I let my thoughts wander instead, to what might be next. I hoped for a little cottage that would be lovely at Christmas. I thought of a yard that did not require a tractor, to mow. I wondered a lot, as I scrubbed. One thing I knew, whenever and wherever I go, I will plant flowers.

    Eventually, the floor was clean and the kitchen was fit to cook in. I did get a fair share of housework done. As I was folding laundry, I thought, the present moments were beautiful, just as they were. . . .They always have been.