Night Before
“Now it is the time to know that all you do is sacred.”
—Hafiz
I read that the night before the barn was scheduled to arrive when I was very very blue, very alone, very unsupported. No one was going to be here from my world to celebrate, to cheer me on. To be excited with me. Of course I have been keep this somewhat secret so how could I have had that support, but I guess I thought Ric should drop everything and fly out. Then I read the Hafiz, realized I was being childish, and settled right down. I was able to get out of the lonely child head and see that this project will be the source of great joy, peace, deepening, beauty and Beauty for years to come, for me and for others.
Delivery Morning
A battery of calls back and forth between me, Wilson Pole Barn Construction trucks, and Jamie, who will help them up the mesa road in a tractor, to coordinate the arrival. Wilson trucks were delayed in Tucumcari at the Weigh Station on the OK/NM border. Wilson Co. is out of Wagoner, OK and I’ve worried faintly for the past two weeks, despite plenty of vetting online and on the phone with their references, with the OK Attorney General, and with lawyer databases that Ric has access to, that they might not be real or might be funky. But I just loved talking to Alberta, who turns out to the sister of Lloyd Wilson, the owner, on the phone. She always picked up. She answered all my questions no matter how dumb or redundant. And I liked their simple, direct website—nothing fancy, but informative enough. It felt the way a barn outfit ought to be putting itself forth.
I drive to the top of Apache Mesa Rd. to await the crew, ready to shoot video. A dark sky hung over us. Maybe rain. I held my breath that it would hold off until they got the massive trucks up the switchbacks and across the mesa to the barn site. Ric was on the phone with me. I kept eyeing the bottom of the road far far below. Did I see them? Vehicles went back and forth but I couldn’t tell if it was the barn crew. I had my truck parked and ready. Suddenly, puffing, grunting engines on the slope just below me! They were almost up.
I jumped in my truck, turning on the camera as Jamie, solid as a rock and cute as a rock star in his yellow tractor, rounded the bend towing a double cab pick-up dragging a 20’ trailer loaded with 26,000 pounds of pre-fab rafters, barn poles, and metal skin. 
The drivers were pretty smooth around the top hairpin but I heard later from Alberta, who accompanied her husband, Rick, the delivery driver, that it was a hairy business. (Alberta wanted to meet me. How sweet!) A red pick-up with the building crew followed up the caravan rear. Rick and Alberta would drop off the load and head back to OK right away leaving the crew behind to put up the barn.
At the top of the mesa, there was a general palaver about tow chains and now what? It was decided that Jamie should take them all the way to Ravenrock, an extremely wise decision as the large dark clouds menacing us on the horizon began to dump heavy rain and hail about halfway to the the property. The road turned to bacon grease. I followed up the rear of the caravan and got to see the vehicles fishtailing. What a mess! If not for the tractor we would have spent the night mired three miles from our destination. We got to my gate—a downward slope of dirt, now pure mud. Trucks careened this way and that, almost taking out the posts.
Once at the site, the rain abated but the ground was now soft and the trucks were sinking their tire teeth into the grass, making ruts. The crew—Steve, Tim, and Juany—unloaded the trailer truck. Alberta and Rick departed with Jamie. 
The crew spent time in the fog and damp cold organizing the site, then pulled out the auger to dig the first post hole and see what lay in store. They needed to be able to dig down three feet. After a foot and a half of nice soft dirt they hit limestone shelf. This meant they would need a jackhammer to get deep enough. I texted my neighbor that the crew would need a jackhammer in the morning. At last, they headed down the muddy road to their hotel in Las Vegas.
After everyone left, a second cold soaker dumped rain and hail. And then!!!! A huge full rainbow. And a double rainbow. The coyotes sing riotously. It’s a rock concert! An opera! And it makes me cry with its beauty. A powerful blessing from the heavens.
The crew has finished digging the holes and now set the poles, standing them upright, filling around the base of each. They are deep in the ground.
At sunset I stand on the road and look into the site. All the poles are set, standing vertically now, every ten feet. They ring the full footprint, like Stonehenge. Like a temple. I feel a surge of joy. I walk into the site. The 2X6 lumber that will form the wall supports lie along the ground delineating where the walls will be. Jackhammer, sawhorses, shovels, hammers, saws litter the enclosed space. Despite this, I see the dance space; it is a beautiful dimension. I can see that the shed will be perfect for a sleeping room on the SW corner and a summer kitchen with a long wooden table toward the NW for people to eat and prepare meals, or just sit and talk. I see where the slide doors will open in the back, and which tree I will prune a bit so it grows into a shade tree like the one on Rocky’s land beside what used to be the stone schoolhouse form the Depression era. I turn and look and pace around in the golden late afternoon light. A home for my work.
