Posted 18 May 2011, by Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Mother Earth News, motherearthnews.com
On Wabi-Sabi Wednesdays, I feature excerpts from my upcoming book, Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House , which was released this week. This post is a tribute to Kate NaDeau, who introduced me to wabi-sabi many years ago.
I met Kate NaDeau more than a decade ago, when I went to check out Stone Soup Farm, her 26-acre farm on a south-facing hillside in Monroe, Maine. I was immediately drawn to Kate’s hand-built stone cottage, comfortable and worn décor, and seasonal lifestyle. When I asked her about a rusty grate hanging on the wall, Kate said, “Oh, that. That’s just wabi-sabi.” Kate launched me on a journey to learn more about this Japanese concept, which finds beauty in things that are imperfect, impermanent and aged. Her home is wabi-sabi at its finest.
Inspired by back-to-the-land pioneers Scott and Helen Nearing, Kate and her former husband,Phil, spent five years building a stone house using a slip-form method of construction with elements of Japanese architecture. The 1,500-square-foot home is bermed into the hillside to the north and open to the south to take in passive solar gain. “Passive solar is so wonderful—working with the climate instead of trying to fight it—bringing in some kind of harmony, working with the elements,” Kate says.
Kate and Phil hand-dug 4-foot-deep trenches for the home’s foundation and gathered flat stones from the woods and fields nearby. (Some visitors to the farm, hearing they needed flat stones, hauled in loads of them.) Kate and Phil mixed cement in wheelbarrows and built wooden forms that held the cement while it set around the stones. Inside, they attached insulation, plastic vapor barriers and pine walls to two-by-fours inserted into the 6-foot-high stone walls; trimmed out a second-story bedroom using fir two-by-fours and topped the structure with a double metal roof. “The construction was spread over five years because we were paying as we went,” Kate says. “But the advantage is that you really get to know the land—where you spend time, where the sun comes up at different times of the year. There’s something to be said for going slow—which is very different from the way people in this country do things.”
From the large overhead beams for drying herbs and flowers to the greenhouse attached to the west side, the home was designed to accommodate agrarian ways. “I live a strongly seasonal lifestyle,” says Kate, who now lives alone. “The weather is ever changing, and farm-related activities are so different. So my home’s areas of use are very seasonal.”
In winter, the low sun streams into Kate’s denlike dining room and living area, providing heat that she supplements with a fire in the early evening. “Burning wood is a winter activity that I love, a gentle way of keeping things going—getting a couple of armloads of wood each day, keeping ahead of the storms,” she says. In spring and summer, Kate basks in the sun on the 15-by-20- foot wooden deck on the home’s south side and serves tea or picnics on the covered terrace attached to her workshop. She loves to catch the sunrise on the eastern porch. “Because summer’s such an expansive time, I really use that outdoor space much more,” she says.
Before she moved to Maine from California, Kate had grown a few tomato and basil plants but had no real experience with a large-scale garden. Yet she doesn’t consider the terraced masterpiece she’s created on the steep, sunny hillside such a big deal. “This isn’t rocket science,” she says. “I read the Nearings and other books, but it’s mainly a matter of just doing it, learning from your mistakes, trying and trying and trying. It always seems to be a good year for something or a bad year for something. Some pest is eating this and this, but you get the bounty in something else. When you look at the big picture, it all seems to work out okay.”
Shortly after the family moved to the site, which they dubbed Stone Soup Farm after the inspirational folktale, Kate began selling vegetables, flowers, and herb vinegars at a farmers market in nearby Belfast. She now gives workshops on using herbs and runs a small shop on the property that sells plants, herbal crafts and other garden-related products. One of her personal highlights was selling a perennial to the late Helen Nearing. “Here was someone I’ve so respected, who so influenced me and the way I’ve done things,” Kate says. “It just felt like a complete circle.”
If you’re in the area this summer, stop by and say hello to Kate at Stone Soup Farm, 156 Red Barn Road in Monroe, Maine. For information, call (207) 525-4463.
