“My muddy boots, my city shoes, I found the note I wrote to you.” My life sounds like a country song. I am on a train from Hudson to New York City, calling Chris on my cell phone. “I found Dad’s tractor directions in my papers. Got a pen? Slip the clutch on the power take off, use the big hole on the hook up, and don’t pound the auger,” I say, relaying my father’s tips to my husband, who was recently granted permission to drive the John Deere on his own. Chris is digging yet more holes for a septic system percolation test.

We are mired in mud. The soil is saturated from a month of record rainfall, including Hurricane Irene. The first set of perc test pits failed to drain fast enough for us to bury a septic system in the field. The next option, far less attractive both visually and financially, is a raised bed. Columbia County said we can use 18” of the soil and add several feet of sand and gravel to create a big mound. An excavator tells us we can fill and grade and make it blend; an architect warns our hillside will never look natural again. Septic systems range from $8,000 to $35,000 and may or may not involve pumps, sprayers and alarms – including the most unattractive idea of a receptacle in the basement that grinds solids and pumps fluids up and out.

Today Chris will make a last-ditch effort to see if we can bury a system in an alternate location. I will attend meetings and eat lunch at a Japanese restaurant, so I have slipped on my pumps instead of my boots, now coated and cracking clumps of clay.