Putting things together for a holiday trip away from home and feeling sad about leaving all of our animals. Just listened to a podcast of "Favor Nation" over VPR which I'm told is a Christmas tradition in these parts, a heartwarming yarn written and spoken by William Lange. Part "All Creatures Great and Small" and part "The Waltons." It was enjoyable.
Here's something from a day or 2 ago:
"I stood in the garage this morning watching our geese gather around a white plastic water bucket I’d placed for them just outside the garage door. It was frigid out – finally, seasonal weather – crisp and brightly sunny, a newly washed sky. They didn’t mind me watching them, they weren’t spooked or confrontational, they were busy, in their element. The pond’s frozen over, has been off-and-on for weeks, will be (knock on wood) for months, so this bucket of water is their touchstone to their world. It’s almost as if they come to worship. Sure, they drink from it. They are need of it to wash the grain down their gullets. And the way they drink, mesmerizing, a delicate dip of the neck, a clackity-lapping sound, and then a tilt up and their heads cock back to let the water flow down the inside of their long necks. Lovely. But there’s more. Their ablutions, a ritual. They go individually to the bucket and splatter shake their heads, their beaks just under the surface, over and over, splashing the water back onto themselves, onto their feathers, carrying the water back along the feather’s shaft to clean and prune, cleaning their beaks too. It seems as if there’s ecstasy tied into it all. It’s connected to who they are, an extension of who they are. And inevitably, at least one of them tries to climb into the bucket, Felicity did it this morning. It so moved me. Why? She wanted to be closer, nearer the source, or so it seemed. Maybe she thought it was a portal to a larger body of water somewhere. Moments later it was Shmuel’s turn at the bucket and Felicity moved aside, but she carried on as if she were in the water instead of a driveway with gravel. She dipped her chest down as if diving beneath the surface of the water, something I’ve watched them all do on the pond, diving and flapping and belly flopping. Is it just their nature? Or is it also fun to them? And then the patient sprucing of the feathers, the necks so limber, bending back on themselves, reaching every feather, sewing machining down the whole feather with such thoroughness and pride, immaculate. And then, when finished, they flap their wings whomp, whomp, whomp, one after another after another. I always thought that was Shmuel’s way of saying “I’m boss!” but maybe there are myriad meanings. Little miracles all around."
Richard pointed out the quality of the light the other day and he's right, it's marvelous. Very much of the season, a winter light, bright, but slightly dulled and buttery, sepia toned almost. It's comforting.
I can just eat this place up sometimes I love it so much, just the simplicity of it. I marveled at the kale in our garden, still going strong, growing despite the cold, hearty and dark green. We feasted on it last night and I feel fortified deep down, fantastic. And the parsley too which is even more miraculous to me because it has the color of grass, bold and lively green. It too is a member of the Polar Bear Club. Bring it on it seems to say. Very impressive.
The shortest day once more, the cycle of seasons. A white grey palette to the sky today, our hill beige brown. I must take a walk out in this, say goodbye for a bit. Our chickens are out; I can see Red Vestey, our rooster, and his particular harem of hens up visiting the open goose pen, strutting through the straw and stealing a feed while Shmuel and Mary Ann and Felicity wander about the lawn. Lovely seeing all this LIFE around a seemingly dead countryside. Oh, I can hear some muffled crows from the roosters. Yes, unfortunately some of the hens we thought were hens have turned out to be roosters and once we're back from holidays, Richard has marked them for the chopping block. Too many roosters around mean harried hens.
I wish you all a pleasant and abundant holiday season, filled with warmth and laughter and fun. Happy Solstice and Winter!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
The color of geese
The sky, the pond, the surrounding landscape, everything is the color of our geese this morning, white and grey. We woke encased in fog, a haze from the unseasonably - or seasonably from now on - warm weather, up to 60 tomorrow, and I could just make out their silhouettes up in their pen. I'm reading things into their behavior, watching the way they walk, stand, look at me, react to sounds, movement, as if they were all signs of shock, bereavement, post partem depression from 5 of their flock disappearing from their lives. And it's a ghosty day. Everything unfamiliar. I just spied them out the front window across the road, staring at the pond. Of course I was about to stick the word "forlornly" into that sentence right after "staring." But how do I know? Isn't the pond frozen over enough to give them pause? This grey white world melting a bit now from the 6 inches of Thanksgiving snow. Everything's off, so different. Where'd the green go? Or the moveable surface of the pond? The depth to dive in, the space for one's webbed feet to gain purchase and push you forward? Where did that world of water go? Go ask Persephone, headed south for the warm weather in Hades for the winter. She's no fool.
Post mortem on the processing.
Richard told me to expect to be haunted for a while. And I am. Up on a treacherously snowy driving day Wednesday. A quick chase and corner and cage of the first 4 and then 5 to be taken. An hour and a half drive north on slippery surfaces with their eyes looking up toward me reflected in the rear view mirror, as they kept cluck calming themselves. I turned classical music on low for them, cooed, thanked them, trying to calm them and in the process, centering myself.
The Processor's had had a busy morning, but there was no one there when I pulled up. Cynthia, tough and leathery with clear blue eyes and a kind smile, directed me around back. Snow covered the ground which I chose to see as a blessing, the white covering up what must have been pools of blood. I was grateful that their were signs of animal life around to balance out the surroundings, Muscovy ducks poking around near the barn, a blonde stallion pacing its stall, and 2 brown mares frolicing back and forth between pastured enclosures and rolling around in the snow, standing back up, and shaking it all off in a full body shiver. I'd never seen that before. From what I had imagined from Richard's story of his trip here last year, I had expected a larger building where the killing took place, but it was really an old double horse trailer decked out for its new purpose: 3 galvanized cones attached to one wall an open gap down its front side (beneath the cones was a pile of what looked like hard white straw or porcupine needles doused in blood - on closer inspection, turkey feathers); across from the cones was a combination sink/plucking/cutting area with big plastic buckets beneath; to the back of the trailer, a galvanized trash can atop a sturdy propane burner, a cauldron of hot water in which to douse the carcasses before plucking, and to its left, a wide-mouthed plucking machine, looking like a huge cotton candy maker. Just outside the trailer was another tub of cold water to place the finished birds. I lifted the hatchback door and saw that despite my efforts to protect the the floor, the geese had made quite a mess. No matter. I lifted the cage out and onto the snow and cleaned the mess. They were calm, the birds. Skittish when I pulled them from their cage, but I held them, thanking them one more time, and passed them off to Cynthia, now having donned a long, brown rubber apron and gloves. Phil, a jovial helper, was already in the back of the trailer and Ralph, looking like an old cowboy right out of Lonesome Dove, sauntered around the back of the trailer. I introduced myself and then told him we'd made the classic mistake of naming all our geese.
"Just rename them Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc," he said.
"Don't look now," Cynthia told me, the first 2 geese upside down in the cones, the knife in her hand. But I felt I owed them and I watched every step.
I'm still not right with it, the taking of their lives. I've spoken of this before. Richard was right, it stays with you. And there was kindness, thoughtfulness from Cynthia and Ralph. They were good people, proficient at their job. I remember when it got down to the last goose, one of the youngest, a gander. He had been the loudest squawker whenever we'd come home, whenever a stranger passed on the road, whenever it was time to eat. He'd relaxed in the cage, he was sitting down, Cynthia needed to use her "chicken hook" to tug him gently from the cage. I held him, loved him a bit, and passed him off to Cynthia. I heard her coo softly "You were a good goose" before taking his life. And still ... still ...
I drove home, lonely. No image of them in my rear view mirror. Knowing now they would be holiday gifts to dear friends, that the next day one would grace the table of our Thanksgiving hosts. The thought of that helped. I had to call Richard to talk myself down, ground myself, to reach out to someone who had had the same experience. I didn't want to berate myself with some form of "get over it! C'mon! Your cousins have killed and dressed game from time immemorial!" I then called my sister, leaving a message, remembering the time when she, a nurse in training years ago, had witnessed her first autopsy and had called me to share the experience. Life here and gone, no matter what size the creature, matters.
A lot of activity out our back window. The chickens are doing their little scratch and peck dance all over the hill, happy, it seems, to have a respite from the snow covered ground. Another group is up in the goose pen sprucing things up, snatching a little of the goose feed for themselves. A little tit for tat, the goose do the same thing to their food. Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Daphne (or is it Felicity?) are pretty vocal when I step out to check and see how they are. Not so much a belligerent cry from them as just "Yeah, we're here. We're right here. This is our territory, give us space and things will be just fine." And then a pure trumpety bray from Shmuel for no purpose at all other then to say "I'm alive!" A fine sound. And it stays clear and clear in the grey, white air.
Post mortem on the processing.
Richard told me to expect to be haunted for a while. And I am. Up on a treacherously snowy driving day Wednesday. A quick chase and corner and cage of the first 4 and then 5 to be taken. An hour and a half drive north on slippery surfaces with their eyes looking up toward me reflected in the rear view mirror, as they kept cluck calming themselves. I turned classical music on low for them, cooed, thanked them, trying to calm them and in the process, centering myself.
The Processor's had had a busy morning, but there was no one there when I pulled up. Cynthia, tough and leathery with clear blue eyes and a kind smile, directed me around back. Snow covered the ground which I chose to see as a blessing, the white covering up what must have been pools of blood. I was grateful that their were signs of animal life around to balance out the surroundings, Muscovy ducks poking around near the barn, a blonde stallion pacing its stall, and 2 brown mares frolicing back and forth between pastured enclosures and rolling around in the snow, standing back up, and shaking it all off in a full body shiver. I'd never seen that before. From what I had imagined from Richard's story of his trip here last year, I had expected a larger building where the killing took place, but it was really an old double horse trailer decked out for its new purpose: 3 galvanized cones attached to one wall an open gap down its front side (beneath the cones was a pile of what looked like hard white straw or porcupine needles doused in blood - on closer inspection, turkey feathers); across from the cones was a combination sink/plucking/cutting area with big plastic buckets beneath; to the back of the trailer, a galvanized trash can atop a sturdy propane burner, a cauldron of hot water in which to douse the carcasses before plucking, and to its left, a wide-mouthed plucking machine, looking like a huge cotton candy maker. Just outside the trailer was another tub of cold water to place the finished birds. I lifted the hatchback door and saw that despite my efforts to protect the the floor, the geese had made quite a mess. No matter. I lifted the cage out and onto the snow and cleaned the mess. They were calm, the birds. Skittish when I pulled them from their cage, but I held them, thanking them one more time, and passed them off to Cynthia, now having donned a long, brown rubber apron and gloves. Phil, a jovial helper, was already in the back of the trailer and Ralph, looking like an old cowboy right out of Lonesome Dove, sauntered around the back of the trailer. I introduced myself and then told him we'd made the classic mistake of naming all our geese.
"Just rename them Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc," he said.
"Don't look now," Cynthia told me, the first 2 geese upside down in the cones, the knife in her hand. But I felt I owed them and I watched every step.
I'm still not right with it, the taking of their lives. I've spoken of this before. Richard was right, it stays with you. And there was kindness, thoughtfulness from Cynthia and Ralph. They were good people, proficient at their job. I remember when it got down to the last goose, one of the youngest, a gander. He had been the loudest squawker whenever we'd come home, whenever a stranger passed on the road, whenever it was time to eat. He'd relaxed in the cage, he was sitting down, Cynthia needed to use her "chicken hook" to tug him gently from the cage. I held him, loved him a bit, and passed him off to Cynthia. I heard her coo softly "You were a good goose" before taking his life. And still ... still ...
I drove home, lonely. No image of them in my rear view mirror. Knowing now they would be holiday gifts to dear friends, that the next day one would grace the table of our Thanksgiving hosts. The thought of that helped. I had to call Richard to talk myself down, ground myself, to reach out to someone who had had the same experience. I didn't want to berate myself with some form of "get over it! C'mon! Your cousins have killed and dressed game from time immemorial!" I then called my sister, leaving a message, remembering the time when she, a nurse in training years ago, had witnessed her first autopsy and had called me to share the experience. Life here and gone, no matter what size the creature, matters.
A lot of activity out our back window. The chickens are doing their little scratch and peck dance all over the hill, happy, it seems, to have a respite from the snow covered ground. Another group is up in the goose pen sprucing things up, snatching a little of the goose feed for themselves. A little tit for tat, the goose do the same thing to their food. Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Daphne (or is it Felicity?) are pretty vocal when I step out to check and see how they are. Not so much a belligerent cry from them as just "Yeah, we're here. We're right here. This is our territory, give us space and things will be just fine." And then a pure trumpety bray from Shmuel for no purpose at all other then to say "I'm alive!" A fine sound. And it stays clear and clear in the grey, white air.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Please send this off.
Friends, followers, I include below a Facebook gripe, somewhat related to Vermont. I'm trying to get this out to as many venues as possible, hoping the proverbial spaghetti will stick somewhere and be heard, seen, heeded. Any help in this endeavor will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Dan
Faceoff with Facebook
My name is Dan Butler. I’m an actor and writer, among other things. You may have seen me around, on film, stage, or the tv show, Frasier. First, I’ll begin with the positive. Until September of this year, I have appreciated Facebook’s services. I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with old friends; been grateful to have a forum to get the word out on a varied mix of political, professional, and personal issues; been glad to wish others well on their birthdays, anniversaries, to support their endeavors, generally happy to have an additional way to stay connected to the world.
When it comes to a gripe about Facebook, I don’t have the name value of Salmon Rushdie, but people know who I am. I pull some weight. Granted I’ve never had death threats from Fundamentalitst Islamic hordes (that I know of); however, I suppose that my openly gay status really burns some American Fundamentalist soup.
On September 2nd, both my gmail and Facebook accounts were hacked by a money scheme conglomerate. You know the ones: “I’m in London/Madrid/Hackensack and I’ve lost all my money, please send via western union as soon as possible … etc.” Technically savvy these hacking folk, though their obtaining lucre schemes seem pretty transparent. They seized control of both accounts (I unwittingly had the same password on both gmail and Facebook), inundated my friends with the “I’m stranded, send money” scheme, and in the process changed my account from a …gmail to a …ymail account, trashing my account and my contacts, and then making it seem as if that account had never existed. After several frustrating days using the limited avenues both Facebook and gmail provided, I was able to regain control of my gmail account. How? I spoke to a customer service representative over the phone. A LIVE PERSON HELPING ME!!!! I still have no idea how this happened because I’d been pleading with them to provide that service for about 4 days to no avail. Even an employee friend of mine rather high up in the Google ascendancy was flabbergasted by my having spoken to a live human being. “That never happens,” he said. All obstacles to regaining my account which seemed insurmountably impossible over the past few days were erased in 10 short minutes. It was simple, easy. A connection with a customer service representative and almost immediate success. Go figure.
No such luck at Facebook. For over 2 months now I have attempted and reattempted every avenue they provide to address a hacking incident, which is scant. The exact description of my situation does not appear in their choice of selections – namely that my e-mail account has been altered and so my original e-mail does not show up as having ever been an account, no past passwords apply, and that the hackers have changed my security answers. There are no sites available in their “Help” area to file a report to include this new twist on things. All responses from Facebook are automatonic, seeming to come from a machine rather than a person. Twice I have attempted per their instructions to reclaim my account by choosing 3 friends from my contacts list, apprising Facebook of my choices, and then Facebook sends 3 separate security codes out to each friend, I phone them, get said codes and then enter them in provided spaces, send them off to verify I am who I am, and am given an opportunity to enter a new password. The first time, I did as instructed and when I entered the codes, I was told they couldn’t process this at this time, to try again later, and then later, for some unexplained reason, the codes and new password weren’t accepted. When I made a second attempt a week later using 3 new friends, it interrupted that process by bringing up my 3 original friend choices saying a security attempt was already in progress. Then both groups cancelled one another out. Living in Vermont as I do, lining up 3 people easily available to get security codes from is a time-consuming enterprise, and when it doesn’t go through TWICE, in rather drawn out episodes, it makes me question spending so much time trying to retrieve a convenience, a connection to a social network.
At every juncture, in every way I can think of, I’ve urged, cajoled, begged Facebook to provide a customer service rep to call or who could call me, citing how easily the problem was eradicated at Google given the same circumstances. Hearing nothing back regarding this from Facebook, I’ve combed the internet and have become aware that there are many people in the same boat asking for a representative at Facebook, a LIVE PERSON, to help out. These too are people who have employed every tool Facebook has provided to regain their accounts. It seems ironic to me that a social network whose main ethos is connection with other people is really showing through their actions that they are about disconnection, controllable distance, a cold remove. To hearken back to Mr. Rushdie, God I’d love to be given the opportunity to provide a passport or license to prove I am who I say I am and get my account back. To add insult to all this, lately I’ve been receiving countless invitations from Facebook to become a first time customer – sent to the e-mail account they no longer recognize as having an existing hacked account!! I would think Facebook would want contented customers and proponents. This is not working. Admit mistakes, make the service better.
Okay, a simple birthday wish. My birthday is this coming Friday, December 2nd. It would be amazing, fantastic to have my account back by that time and be able to receive birthday wishes from my many now disconnected friends. Don’t you think that would be possible?
Faceoff with Facebook
My name is Dan Butler. I’m an actor and writer, among other things. You may have seen me around, on film, stage, or the tv show, Frasier. First, I’ll begin with the positive. Until September of this year, I have appreciated Facebook’s services. I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with old friends; been grateful to have a forum to get the word out on a varied mix of political, professional, and personal issues; been glad to wish others well on their birthdays, anniversaries, to support their endeavors, generally happy to have an additional way to stay connected to the world.
When it comes to a gripe about Facebook, I don’t have the name value of Salmon Rushdie, but people know who I am. I pull some weight. Granted I’ve never had death threats from Fundamentalitst Islamic hordes (that I know of); however, I suppose that my openly gay status really burns some American Fundamentalist soup.
On September 2nd, both my gmail and Facebook accounts were hacked by a money scheme conglomerate. You know the ones: “I’m in London/Madrid/Hackensack and I’ve lost all my money, please send via western union as soon as possible … etc.” Technically savvy these hacking folk, though their obtaining lucre schemes seem pretty transparent. They seized control of both accounts (I unwittingly had the same password on both gmail and Facebook), inundated my friends with the “I’m stranded, send money” scheme, and in the process changed my account from a …gmail to a …ymail account, trashing my account and my contacts, and then making it seem as if that account had never existed. After several frustrating days using the limited avenues both Facebook and gmail provided, I was able to regain control of my gmail account. How? I spoke to a customer service representative over the phone. A LIVE PERSON HELPING ME!!!! I still have no idea how this happened because I’d been pleading with them to provide that service for about 4 days to no avail. Even an employee friend of mine rather high up in the Google ascendancy was flabbergasted by my having spoken to a live human being. “That never happens,” he said. All obstacles to regaining my account which seemed insurmountably impossible over the past few days were erased in 10 short minutes. It was simple, easy. A connection with a customer service representative and almost immediate success. Go figure.
No such luck at Facebook. For over 2 months now I have attempted and reattempted every avenue they provide to address a hacking incident, which is scant. The exact description of my situation does not appear in their choice of selections – namely that my e-mail account has been altered and so my original e-mail does not show up as having ever been an account, no past passwords apply, and that the hackers have changed my security answers. There are no sites available in their “Help” area to file a report to include this new twist on things. All responses from Facebook are automatonic, seeming to come from a machine rather than a person. Twice I have attempted per their instructions to reclaim my account by choosing 3 friends from my contacts list, apprising Facebook of my choices, and then Facebook sends 3 separate security codes out to each friend, I phone them, get said codes and then enter them in provided spaces, send them off to verify I am who I am, and am given an opportunity to enter a new password. The first time, I did as instructed and when I entered the codes, I was told they couldn’t process this at this time, to try again later, and then later, for some unexplained reason, the codes and new password weren’t accepted. When I made a second attempt a week later using 3 new friends, it interrupted that process by bringing up my 3 original friend choices saying a security attempt was already in progress. Then both groups cancelled one another out. Living in Vermont as I do, lining up 3 people easily available to get security codes from is a time-consuming enterprise, and when it doesn’t go through TWICE, in rather drawn out episodes, it makes me question spending so much time trying to retrieve a convenience, a connection to a social network.
At every juncture, in every way I can think of, I’ve urged, cajoled, begged Facebook to provide a customer service rep to call or who could call me, citing how easily the problem was eradicated at Google given the same circumstances. Hearing nothing back regarding this from Facebook, I’ve combed the internet and have become aware that there are many people in the same boat asking for a representative at Facebook, a LIVE PERSON, to help out. These too are people who have employed every tool Facebook has provided to regain their accounts. It seems ironic to me that a social network whose main ethos is connection with other people is really showing through their actions that they are about disconnection, controllable distance, a cold remove. To hearken back to Mr. Rushdie, God I’d love to be given the opportunity to provide a passport or license to prove I am who I say I am and get my account back. To add insult to all this, lately I’ve been receiving countless invitations from Facebook to become a first time customer – sent to the e-mail account they no longer recognize as having an existing hacked account!! I would think Facebook would want contented customers and proponents. This is not working. Admit mistakes, make the service better.
Okay, a simple birthday wish. My birthday is this coming Friday, December 2nd. It would be amazing, fantastic to have my account back by that time and be able to receive birthday wishes from my many now disconnected friends. Don’t you think that would be possible?
Monday, November 7, 2011
The Light on the hills this morning
On the tamaracks really, those miraculous trees up the rise, deciduous needled trees, turning yellow now, that greeted us the first time we looked at this house Thanksgiving week 5 years ago. I thought the whole bank of trees was dead, not a good omen for the place, but was educated to the contrary. Tamaracks. Eastern Larch. They lose their needles late autumn and then in the spring, tender lime green curlycues unfold like a slow magicians magic trick. "Nuthin' up my sleeve. Or should I say branch." And today, this morning, the tamaracks are one with the sun, basking their yellow skyward. Glorious. Bunched in together with a spruce and a couple fir, a choir of trees, posing for a picture, squeezing in from all sides for the best possible showing. I needed that view, caught in a frustrating search for lost glasses, putting too much energy toward that pursuit, needing a release from the grip of something petty and small and a release appeared just out the window. A small thing, taking time to take in the sun on the trees, which helped me see far better than bifocals would. And the glasses will show up, sooner or later - I'd prefer sooner - in the most unlikeliest of places probably, another lesson to be more aware (grrrr!).
The sun's creeping down the rise now. I'm going to go out and enjoy the day. 400 daffodils to plant.
The sun's creeping down the rise now. I'm going to go out and enjoy the day. 400 daffodils to plant.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Raining today
A little bit of the ole drear today. A day of rain, flood warnings in New Hampshire later in the afternoon. The big maple out my back window has been mostly stripped of its foliage. And that's how it will remain until May. Wow. The last remaining leaves fall like yellow tears. They held on for a long time, for a last bit of glory, but that's all she wrote, folks. Going out with a grand splash of color, in one's finest clothes. It seems like a big thank you to LIFE. Nature's fireworks display. Didn't William Blake die singing and applauding and laughing in bed? Yes, yes, yes. Saying YES to it all.
I was just back in Indiana visiting family and friends, a good visit, a bit wearing, as all family visits are, at least for me. On my last day I had one of those obligatory relative dinners, we went to Bob Evans - I deferred to their restaurant choice - and they had chicken fried steak buried in milk gravy with some deceased carrots on the side. I had a dead salad. Nothing against Bob Evans personally, but I don't think there wasn't an ounce of nutrition on the horizon. I was holding the place of "good cheer" at the table just to counterbalance a drear that they carried with them. It was raining that day too, but there was a continuum of drear they had with them that would've clouded a sunny day. It had heft and weight and tradition behind it. Most of the conversation was about how lousy life was. That growing old is for shit, that it's all down hill, that it's pain and aches and ... you get the picture. I held back the urge to say "if you say so" and just listened, nodding, trying my best not to judge as I watched spoonfuls of dead flour and milk shoveled mechanically into sullen mouths. But I thought it. If you say so. Words are powerful. They imprison. They manifest. We're so powerful, we humans, and what we say, we are; we define ourselves whether negative or positive. I've imprisoned myself many times, I'm sure I still do unwittingly, though I HOPE I can recognize and interupt it with a little more celerity than I have in the past. There've been times it's taken me 20 years to realize that what I've been saying blithely for years has formed a belief system on which so many other beliefs have been founded. Humbling to recognize it ONCE MORE, accept it, and start dismantling it all. Trips home are like hauntings. They're like the Ghost of Christmas yet to come pointing his boney finger from underneath that Ingmar Bergman death robe as if to say "You too can become this. You came from this. It's in your blood, it's in your bones, it has a pull, a power. There's work to be done or you too can become this! Beware!!"
And it's so easy to judge!! It's easy. IT'S EASY!!! It's easy getting angry. It's hard NOT being impatient. Visits are a workout. And I may be right in all my pronouncements about "them", but so what? So what? Maybe what they are, what they eat, what they say is the best they can do. This is them at their best. This is it. I shared that thought with Richard at one of the airports as I was heading home and he shouted the phrase I'd thought, but didn't allow myself to say. "It's NOT ENOUGH!!!!" We laughed. Oh it was good to laugh. It echoed through the corridors of the Detroit Airport where I was making a late connection back to Burlington. And it was raining out on the tarmack and also on the roads Richard was driving down on the other end of the line.
It was good getting on the plane for home. My spirit shifted just being on a plane I knew was either filled with Vermonters or people being pulled there for some reason. I could breathe more fully. I was going home. The plane landed at 11 pm and I had an hour and a half drive ahead of me. I had viewed that as an inconvenience, but once on the road, I welcomed it. I found a whole new reserve of energy and delight. It was a blast. I got a good cup of coffee from a Mobil station coffee urn - surprise, surprise for a self-proclaimed coffee snob. The road was wet, but there was no rain. And the moon, buried just behind the grey black clouds, gave out an eerie, wondrous sheen. I listened to the first part of Simon Russell Beale's production of "Hamlet" on the cd player, a fitting choice on such a blow about ghostly night in the wee hours and then I slapped on a language tape and practiced a little Italian. Lots of fun.
I just thought that drive home is emblematic of, let's say Reason 50 of why I love living in Vermont: a new perspective on aging. Granted I'm a young pup in the arena of aging, I'm just at the thresh hold, but I like looking at it as a drive home through a dark, late drive I had expected to be one way, but turns out to be something completely and surprisingly and unexpectedly rich and fun. Vermont's helped me re-examine any pronouncements I may have made about growing old, negative or positive, and to question them, to see where I stand now, and see how that serves me or not. I intend the rest of my life to be the 2nd Act of a really well constructed play, where the first act has set-up and planted the seeds in preparation of what's to come. And that doesn't have to be a rock em, sock em, WOW show, a big Billy Rose finish - though it would be fine if that's what happens - but to more fully appreciate everything about it. To celebrate it, give thanks for every bit of it, highs and lows. At least that's my intention. And I'm surrounded by plenty of models and teachers here that live life with a great deal of grace and humour and activity. There's a steadier, more grounded vitality, they're in it for the long haul.
I'll take that.
So bring on the rain.
I was just back in Indiana visiting family and friends, a good visit, a bit wearing, as all family visits are, at least for me. On my last day I had one of those obligatory relative dinners, we went to Bob Evans - I deferred to their restaurant choice - and they had chicken fried steak buried in milk gravy with some deceased carrots on the side. I had a dead salad. Nothing against Bob Evans personally, but I don't think there wasn't an ounce of nutrition on the horizon. I was holding the place of "good cheer" at the table just to counterbalance a drear that they carried with them. It was raining that day too, but there was a continuum of drear they had with them that would've clouded a sunny day. It had heft and weight and tradition behind it. Most of the conversation was about how lousy life was. That growing old is for shit, that it's all down hill, that it's pain and aches and ... you get the picture. I held back the urge to say "if you say so" and just listened, nodding, trying my best not to judge as I watched spoonfuls of dead flour and milk shoveled mechanically into sullen mouths. But I thought it. If you say so. Words are powerful. They imprison. They manifest. We're so powerful, we humans, and what we say, we are; we define ourselves whether negative or positive. I've imprisoned myself many times, I'm sure I still do unwittingly, though I HOPE I can recognize and interupt it with a little more celerity than I have in the past. There've been times it's taken me 20 years to realize that what I've been saying blithely for years has formed a belief system on which so many other beliefs have been founded. Humbling to recognize it ONCE MORE, accept it, and start dismantling it all. Trips home are like hauntings. They're like the Ghost of Christmas yet to come pointing his boney finger from underneath that Ingmar Bergman death robe as if to say "You too can become this. You came from this. It's in your blood, it's in your bones, it has a pull, a power. There's work to be done or you too can become this! Beware!!"
And it's so easy to judge!! It's easy. IT'S EASY!!! It's easy getting angry. It's hard NOT being impatient. Visits are a workout. And I may be right in all my pronouncements about "them", but so what? So what? Maybe what they are, what they eat, what they say is the best they can do. This is them at their best. This is it. I shared that thought with Richard at one of the airports as I was heading home and he shouted the phrase I'd thought, but didn't allow myself to say. "It's NOT ENOUGH!!!!" We laughed. Oh it was good to laugh. It echoed through the corridors of the Detroit Airport where I was making a late connection back to Burlington. And it was raining out on the tarmack and also on the roads Richard was driving down on the other end of the line.
It was good getting on the plane for home. My spirit shifted just being on a plane I knew was either filled with Vermonters or people being pulled there for some reason. I could breathe more fully. I was going home. The plane landed at 11 pm and I had an hour and a half drive ahead of me. I had viewed that as an inconvenience, but once on the road, I welcomed it. I found a whole new reserve of energy and delight. It was a blast. I got a good cup of coffee from a Mobil station coffee urn - surprise, surprise for a self-proclaimed coffee snob. The road was wet, but there was no rain. And the moon, buried just behind the grey black clouds, gave out an eerie, wondrous sheen. I listened to the first part of Simon Russell Beale's production of "Hamlet" on the cd player, a fitting choice on such a blow about ghostly night in the wee hours and then I slapped on a language tape and practiced a little Italian. Lots of fun.
I just thought that drive home is emblematic of, let's say Reason 50 of why I love living in Vermont: a new perspective on aging. Granted I'm a young pup in the arena of aging, I'm just at the thresh hold, but I like looking at it as a drive home through a dark, late drive I had expected to be one way, but turns out to be something completely and surprisingly and unexpectedly rich and fun. Vermont's helped me re-examine any pronouncements I may have made about growing old, negative or positive, and to question them, to see where I stand now, and see how that serves me or not. I intend the rest of my life to be the 2nd Act of a really well constructed play, where the first act has set-up and planted the seeds in preparation of what's to come. And that doesn't have to be a rock em, sock em, WOW show, a big Billy Rose finish - though it would be fine if that's what happens - but to more fully appreciate everything about it. To celebrate it, give thanks for every bit of it, highs and lows. At least that's my intention. And I'm surrounded by plenty of models and teachers here that live life with a great deal of grace and humour and activity. There's a steadier, more grounded vitality, they're in it for the long haul.
I'll take that.
So bring on the rain.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
New David Budbill poem
This is a poem found in a new collection from Vermont poet David Budbill that was sent to me from a friend in Middlebury who felt I had a similar pull between the country and the city. I like it a lot. Very true in its haiku spareness:
Contrasts
Off to the city
Everything so different
one place from the other.
Crowded and noisy streets
of the City, the solitude of
the quiet mountainside:
human-nonhuman, hectic-
calm, bright-dark, yang-yin
The sages say it’s all the same.
I don’t know; they sure seem
different to me. Each magnifies,
is better with, the other.
Contrasts
Off to the city
Everything so different
one place from the other.
Crowded and noisy streets
of the City, the solitude of
the quiet mountainside:
human-nonhuman, hectic-
calm, bright-dark, yang-yin
The sages say it’s all the same.
I don’t know; they sure seem
different to me. Each magnifies,
is better with, the other.
Death news
Death news
Well, what did you expect? It’s autumn. Death is going all around us. At the top of the Chippewa/Mt. Blueberry trail which I climbed yesterday, death looks quite becoming. A carpet of russet and gold and orange showing off all over the surrounding mountains and valleys. If you’re gonna a go, that’s the way to go, like a multi-colored nova. The leaves know what’s up. Here at home the garden’s slowly giving in to the season, with green still being the main color of its pallette. Earlier in the week, we harvested the acorn and butternut squash. The pole beans are still going strong as are the carrots, broccoli, celery, and kale. Even the tomatoes are giving death a good run for its money.
To be “of the season” Sofia just killed a chipmunk who for about a day now has been squeaking from its various hiding places beneath our kitchen cabinets, in the old wooden ice box we use to store newspapers to start our wood stove, and the utility room. One of the cats had brought it in, probably Sofia who’s the most feral of our cats, the huntress, a Vermont veteran who survived an entire winter outside when she was just a kitten. Over the years, she’s gifted us with all shapes and sizes of voles, moles, mice, a red-winged blackbird, countless grasshoppers, and a couple of chipmunks. I’m not particularly fond of chipmunks. I still have memories of their tent raids when I was a boy scout, ransacking any snacks I may have had in my pack. They especially were dexterous at unwrapping the plastic around my Kraft caramels. But this guy (or gal) I liked. He had pluck. We had tried to trap him overnight with a “have a heart” trap we placed in the kitchen, corralling the cats away in our guest room. No luck. We woke to an empty cage. Then we had kept the back door open and the rest of the house shut off for it to find its way back outside. Sofia, though, was outside roaming and when she returned she found the varmint. There ensued a wild squeaky dash and pursuit which I tried to break-up, but Sofia was not to be deterred. She caught it and trotted off with it in her mouth, a low snarly growl saying “It’s mine, mine!” By the time I loosened her jaw, it was glassy eyed, still. I shut the back door to Sofia’s wild keens and let the chipmunk lay there, sort of hoping he/she was playing possum. No such luck. Rats! Once more a lesson that really, we have no control over it.
And while we’re on the subject of things being “done in”, we’ve finally decided to whittle our goose family – 8 as we speak, 3 geese and 5 ganders - down to just Shmuel and Mary Ann for the winter. They’re devoted to one another AND will produce the best line of eggs next spring. We had debated keeping one of their daughters, but Richard chimed in that inbreeding brought some birth defects in the goslings like beak overbite that he hadn’t seen before and which he would expect would crop up again this year. It’s tough, though, contemplating getting rid of them. They’re a handful, yes, and it’s completely impractical. We feed them and keep them around simply for them. Watching them swim in formation on the pond is like a floating meditation. Every morning I smile walking up to their pen to let them out, hearing their low gossip crescendo to excited chatter and cries as they bump into each other, jockeying for the best position to get out. I also love arriving home and hearing their chorus of honks when we pull into the driveway – some stentorian and clear, some having an hysteric quality to them, and one a demanding and decidedly disagreeable tone as if he’s shouting “Where have you been?! Feed me! Now!!” The idea of “harvesting” or “processing” them is so difficult. I don’t go through this at all when chickens are the victims, but geese … it’s tough. We’re going to try our best to sell them, but even then we don’t know what will happen once they’re gone. It’s a dilemma of the heart. A little bit silly, I guess, but there you are. I’m a silly goose.
There are a couple roosters out back that have been pegged for processing. Death row. Well rolling death pen, actually. They’ve been in their separate enclosure for quite a while now, solitary confinement. Richard set up this arrangement because he said when they first got there, they would hump any hen in sight, and, sure enough, one day they made a break, these bad boys, these white trash birds, and they had their way with the whole flock, maybe twice, three times, before we were able to round them up and put them back in stir. I’d seen them facing off in the pen right outside the main coop earlier that day, working off excess energy, showing off, playing chicken (of course). I thought Richard had let them out for some reason, but no, they’d worked at a weak piece of fencing in their cage and forced themselves out to freedom. Like I said, we rounded them up – at gun point – and put them back into their refortified compound. They are something. Raspy, breathy crows in the morning. Real tough guys, challenging the air. We treat them humanely, moving their cage to fresh grass every day. They were “gifts” from our contractor who was really just wanting to get rid of them. Richard even kept them out several nights as fox food, but even the fox didn’t want them. They probably cornered the fox and roughed him up. It’s a jungle out there. Well, actually it’s a forest, but you know what I mean. We’re fattening the 2 of them up and soon they’ll be residing in freezer camp (Richard coined that phrase.)
Sofia’s on my lap now, stretched out sensuously on my flannel pj bottoms, making friends again as she grooms herself. “Forget about that chipmunk. Forget about death and autumn,” she purrs, pulling me into her worldview. “Focus on me. I’m alive. Be here now”
Well, what did you expect? It’s autumn. Death is going all around us. At the top of the Chippewa/Mt. Blueberry trail which I climbed yesterday, death looks quite becoming. A carpet of russet and gold and orange showing off all over the surrounding mountains and valleys. If you’re gonna a go, that’s the way to go, like a multi-colored nova. The leaves know what’s up. Here at home the garden’s slowly giving in to the season, with green still being the main color of its pallette. Earlier in the week, we harvested the acorn and butternut squash. The pole beans are still going strong as are the carrots, broccoli, celery, and kale. Even the tomatoes are giving death a good run for its money.
To be “of the season” Sofia just killed a chipmunk who for about a day now has been squeaking from its various hiding places beneath our kitchen cabinets, in the old wooden ice box we use to store newspapers to start our wood stove, and the utility room. One of the cats had brought it in, probably Sofia who’s the most feral of our cats, the huntress, a Vermont veteran who survived an entire winter outside when she was just a kitten. Over the years, she’s gifted us with all shapes and sizes of voles, moles, mice, a red-winged blackbird, countless grasshoppers, and a couple of chipmunks. I’m not particularly fond of chipmunks. I still have memories of their tent raids when I was a boy scout, ransacking any snacks I may have had in my pack. They especially were dexterous at unwrapping the plastic around my Kraft caramels. But this guy (or gal) I liked. He had pluck. We had tried to trap him overnight with a “have a heart” trap we placed in the kitchen, corralling the cats away in our guest room. No luck. We woke to an empty cage. Then we had kept the back door open and the rest of the house shut off for it to find its way back outside. Sofia, though, was outside roaming and when she returned she found the varmint. There ensued a wild squeaky dash and pursuit which I tried to break-up, but Sofia was not to be deterred. She caught it and trotted off with it in her mouth, a low snarly growl saying “It’s mine, mine!” By the time I loosened her jaw, it was glassy eyed, still. I shut the back door to Sofia’s wild keens and let the chipmunk lay there, sort of hoping he/she was playing possum. No such luck. Rats! Once more a lesson that really, we have no control over it.
And while we’re on the subject of things being “done in”, we’ve finally decided to whittle our goose family – 8 as we speak, 3 geese and 5 ganders - down to just Shmuel and Mary Ann for the winter. They’re devoted to one another AND will produce the best line of eggs next spring. We had debated keeping one of their daughters, but Richard chimed in that inbreeding brought some birth defects in the goslings like beak overbite that he hadn’t seen before and which he would expect would crop up again this year. It’s tough, though, contemplating getting rid of them. They’re a handful, yes, and it’s completely impractical. We feed them and keep them around simply for them. Watching them swim in formation on the pond is like a floating meditation. Every morning I smile walking up to their pen to let them out, hearing their low gossip crescendo to excited chatter and cries as they bump into each other, jockeying for the best position to get out. I also love arriving home and hearing their chorus of honks when we pull into the driveway – some stentorian and clear, some having an hysteric quality to them, and one a demanding and decidedly disagreeable tone as if he’s shouting “Where have you been?! Feed me! Now!!” The idea of “harvesting” or “processing” them is so difficult. I don’t go through this at all when chickens are the victims, but geese … it’s tough. We’re going to try our best to sell them, but even then we don’t know what will happen once they’re gone. It’s a dilemma of the heart. A little bit silly, I guess, but there you are. I’m a silly goose.
There are a couple roosters out back that have been pegged for processing. Death row. Well rolling death pen, actually. They’ve been in their separate enclosure for quite a while now, solitary confinement. Richard set up this arrangement because he said when they first got there, they would hump any hen in sight, and, sure enough, one day they made a break, these bad boys, these white trash birds, and they had their way with the whole flock, maybe twice, three times, before we were able to round them up and put them back in stir. I’d seen them facing off in the pen right outside the main coop earlier that day, working off excess energy, showing off, playing chicken (of course). I thought Richard had let them out for some reason, but no, they’d worked at a weak piece of fencing in their cage and forced themselves out to freedom. Like I said, we rounded them up – at gun point – and put them back into their refortified compound. They are something. Raspy, breathy crows in the morning. Real tough guys, challenging the air. We treat them humanely, moving their cage to fresh grass every day. They were “gifts” from our contractor who was really just wanting to get rid of them. Richard even kept them out several nights as fox food, but even the fox didn’t want them. They probably cornered the fox and roughed him up. It’s a jungle out there. Well, actually it’s a forest, but you know what I mean. We’re fattening the 2 of them up and soon they’ll be residing in freezer camp (Richard coined that phrase.)
Sofia’s on my lap now, stretched out sensuously on my flannel pj bottoms, making friends again as she grooms herself. “Forget about that chipmunk. Forget about death and autumn,” she purrs, pulling me into her worldview. “Focus on me. I’m alive. Be here now”
Monday, September 12, 2011
Woke in a cloud this morning
Woke in a cloud this morning, everything hazy white, opaque outside, just the silhouettes of the coops and the garden. A big comforter blanket around our house. Up with chores, the squawks and clucks all about. As Richard fed the chickens, I dodged the geese who were demanding grub which we’re low on. Then to the garden where I did a quick once over all the tomatoe vines for hornworms – the past few days I’ve sent 7 to their squirmy maker – then to the pole beans where webbed leaves semaphored that bean beetles were about. 7 of them are now at the bottom of a jar of sudsy water. I wonder if it being autumn, with leaves just beginning to turn in the woods, signals the predators to come out and feast on the first signs of decay? Everything in the garden is still craning for life, that last big burst, dodging frost warnings. We have about 12 good sized butternut squash swaddled amid those huge African looking leaves. Blossoms are still trumpeting out, bright, bold orange. Life! Life! Life! We have about 8 or so acorn squash. The tomatoe vines are teeming with fruit and we’ve already made 2 big batches of green tomatoe chutney that we canned in pint Ball jars. There are pole beans and broccoli, celery, a couple cantelope and about 6 small watermelon, all yearning for warm days. Not a whole lot of those in Vermont’s short growing season. I’m so proud of the garden, it looks grand.
We called in the owls over the weekend. Our friend Susan came with a cassette recording that she played over and over in the moonlit night as we sat around in lawn chairs, wrapped in fleece and flannel. It was a cold night. We all behaved, followed her instructions, sat still, didn’t say a word. We sat for a good half hour, the only sound the click and whirl of the rewind of the recording on her cassette player. Nothing. I could tell she was getting discouraged and a few of our stalwarts were getting cold. But then the moment we began talking, we heard a big hoot in a nearby tree. Like disobedient school kids chastened, we sat down and bit our tongues. Why, I don’t know, because it was our chatter that had attracted it. Again, Susan played the recording. She had said that once they came they would begin a chatter reminiscent of monkeys to display their territorial disgust that a foreigner was in their midst. Jingoism in the animal kingdom. And sure enough, after another break where we began talking to one another, another owl showed up in a nearby tall pine and began a breathy hoot and howl chatter. I was back by our goose enclosure when this was happening and they were stirred up and whispering to one another, their white coats like crook-necked ghost bobbing about. I agree with Richard when he said: “Isn’t it wonderful at our age to get a group together like this and do something completely new.” Yes, yes, yes!
A correction from a blog a few days ago. We went to Middlebury over the weekend and went to the Folklife Center there where the photographic and audio offering was of a drag club that had been in Dummerston, Vt. until 2004. Dummerston is the site of a famous annual Apple Pie contest, the town’s down near Brattleboro in the southern part of the state. My mom and I went one year and though it took awhile to get there we finally found this quaint little town nestled in the woods, tents set up with vanilla ice cream and pies, pies, pies and most of the town populated with leather clad motorcycle riders! Most of whom were 35 plus years old. Very funny, very incongruous, very Vermont. Of course this place would have a famous once a month drag show with Mama and Kitty and Sophie and Chloe. The photos were wonderful and the interviews telling and insightful. My favorite quote: “Everyone has their own drag. It’s their ‘if only I could …’. Fill in the blank and that’s your drag.”
The sun is out. Daphne, one of our loudest geese, just answered one of the roosters crows. It’s time for me to get out and paint a little primer and the newly clapboarded east side of our house.
Have a great day!
We called in the owls over the weekend. Our friend Susan came with a cassette recording that she played over and over in the moonlit night as we sat around in lawn chairs, wrapped in fleece and flannel. It was a cold night. We all behaved, followed her instructions, sat still, didn’t say a word. We sat for a good half hour, the only sound the click and whirl of the rewind of the recording on her cassette player. Nothing. I could tell she was getting discouraged and a few of our stalwarts were getting cold. But then the moment we began talking, we heard a big hoot in a nearby tree. Like disobedient school kids chastened, we sat down and bit our tongues. Why, I don’t know, because it was our chatter that had attracted it. Again, Susan played the recording. She had said that once they came they would begin a chatter reminiscent of monkeys to display their territorial disgust that a foreigner was in their midst. Jingoism in the animal kingdom. And sure enough, after another break where we began talking to one another, another owl showed up in a nearby tall pine and began a breathy hoot and howl chatter. I was back by our goose enclosure when this was happening and they were stirred up and whispering to one another, their white coats like crook-necked ghost bobbing about. I agree with Richard when he said: “Isn’t it wonderful at our age to get a group together like this and do something completely new.” Yes, yes, yes!
A correction from a blog a few days ago. We went to Middlebury over the weekend and went to the Folklife Center there where the photographic and audio offering was of a drag club that had been in Dummerston, Vt. until 2004. Dummerston is the site of a famous annual Apple Pie contest, the town’s down near Brattleboro in the southern part of the state. My mom and I went one year and though it took awhile to get there we finally found this quaint little town nestled in the woods, tents set up with vanilla ice cream and pies, pies, pies and most of the town populated with leather clad motorcycle riders! Most of whom were 35 plus years old. Very funny, very incongruous, very Vermont. Of course this place would have a famous once a month drag show with Mama and Kitty and Sophie and Chloe. The photos were wonderful and the interviews telling and insightful. My favorite quote: “Everyone has their own drag. It’s their ‘if only I could …’. Fill in the blank and that’s your drag.”
The sun is out. Daphne, one of our loudest geese, just answered one of the roosters crows. It’s time for me to get out and paint a little primer and the newly clapboarded east side of our house.
Have a great day!
Thursday, September 8, 2011
What's in store the next few days ...
We trek over to our friends in Middlebury tomorrow -- all the way up to Burlington and then back down around the Green Mtns since all the scenic roads over them have been pretty well crippled by Irene. (It's still amazing to see what the storm has done to people in this state.) While there we'll see a new play by a friend of ours which uses letters written by Vermonters, soldiers and their families, during the Civil War to tell the state's personal history of the conflict. One little historical tidbit: Vermont contributed more soldiers per capita than any other state in the union.
The following day in the morning we'll visit the Folk Art museum there that has impressive audio archives of people from the state encompassing many different issues and themes, very reminiscent to me of Story Corps. They have some unique exhibit going on there about a drag Cowboy bar that used to be in existence in Bennington (???) and was quite famous in its day. Ah Vermont Folk lore.
Then home in the evening to host a potluck dinner with friends where Susan Mann, our friend and sister of our neighbor Royce - both of whom grew up in our house - has promised to "call in the owls" from the woods. She is supposed to be incredibly good at it. Can't wait.
Sunday is Richard's 51st birthday and there will be a party at our dear friend, Charlotte's home in Hanover and I think earlier in the day, to pay homage to those who died 10 years ago, I'll visit St. Thomas's Episcopal Church in Hanover where they are slated to perform Mozart's Requiem.
Good news today -- probably old news to others, but new news to me: Phish, the famous Vermont rock band that disbanded before we moved here, has slated a concert to raise Flood Relief Funds! Way to go Boys!! I wish you great and abundant success!!
The following day in the morning we'll visit the Folk Art museum there that has impressive audio archives of people from the state encompassing many different issues and themes, very reminiscent to me of Story Corps. They have some unique exhibit going on there about a drag Cowboy bar that used to be in existence in Bennington (???) and was quite famous in its day. Ah Vermont Folk lore.
Then home in the evening to host a potluck dinner with friends where Susan Mann, our friend and sister of our neighbor Royce - both of whom grew up in our house - has promised to "call in the owls" from the woods. She is supposed to be incredibly good at it. Can't wait.
Sunday is Richard's 51st birthday and there will be a party at our dear friend, Charlotte's home in Hanover and I think earlier in the day, to pay homage to those who died 10 years ago, I'll visit St. Thomas's Episcopal Church in Hanover where they are slated to perform Mozart's Requiem.
Good news today -- probably old news to others, but new news to me: Phish, the famous Vermont rock band that disbanded before we moved here, has slated a concert to raise Flood Relief Funds! Way to go Boys!! I wish you great and abundant success!!
Back home after 2 months
Back home after 2 months in the city. I reacquaint myself with everything, settle back into the pace, the quiet. I like it. There doesn’t seem to be such a struggle this time.
Well, there has been a tussle, a left over from the city. My gmail and Facebook were hacked on September 2nd, contacts stolen, e-mails erased, a fairly transparent money scam saying I was stranded in Madrid sent out to all. After 5 days I have regained possession of my old gmail address, but not Facebook yet. Despite my disdain for anything that smacks of techno computereze and my utter frustration that a LIVE customer service representative is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on either site to help shepherd one through the morass, I have not run away. I’ve stayed at it. I’ve walked away, come back. Gone a bit overboard, seen the error of my ways, dallied with black and white thinking ie “That’s it!! I’m quitting all these sites! I’m getting rid of my iphone. They’re all a sign of group speak, addictions disguised as conveniences! I’m becoming a part of the pack. It’s madness, Madness, MADNESS!” But for the most part, I’ve been able to keep a balance. To see how unimportant it is while still trying to rectify the situation. Maybe there’s been a change in me. Maybe it’s the effect of being back here, back with Richard, back with the green and the animals and the space. A little bit of everything.
Little things make me smile, petting the cats, for instance. This morning, Delilah, our big girl, looked up at me and launched into her morning ritual of “pet me, pet me, pet me …” a stuck record, her meow a monotone, insistent crabbiness, like Selma Diamond in fur. But once you bend down and begin to stroke her coat, she transforms into a kind of princess, rubenesque still, yes, but so graceful and sweet, her face full of pleasure, paws clutching in, then stretching out, her purr, a marvelous motor idling. The whole thing becomes a meditation, it’s poetry, it grounds me.
Drippy and grey today, the last remnants of Hurricane Lee taking a New England visit. We dodged a bullet a week ago when Irene splattered through. The eye of the storm went right over our house stopping the rain and wind as if a faucet had been shut off up in the sky. Strange and wonderful. We were completely unaware of the flash flooding and damage all around us until the calls of concern came in from friends around the world. Our state, our dear state.
On with the day. Just wanted to make a check in after almost 3 months.
And if anyone has a tip about getting back on Facebook after having been hacked, that would be great.
Well, there has been a tussle, a left over from the city. My gmail and Facebook were hacked on September 2nd, contacts stolen, e-mails erased, a fairly transparent money scam saying I was stranded in Madrid sent out to all. After 5 days I have regained possession of my old gmail address, but not Facebook yet. Despite my disdain for anything that smacks of techno computereze and my utter frustration that a LIVE customer service representative is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND on either site to help shepherd one through the morass, I have not run away. I’ve stayed at it. I’ve walked away, come back. Gone a bit overboard, seen the error of my ways, dallied with black and white thinking ie “That’s it!! I’m quitting all these sites! I’m getting rid of my iphone. They’re all a sign of group speak, addictions disguised as conveniences! I’m becoming a part of the pack. It’s madness, Madness, MADNESS!” But for the most part, I’ve been able to keep a balance. To see how unimportant it is while still trying to rectify the situation. Maybe there’s been a change in me. Maybe it’s the effect of being back here, back with Richard, back with the green and the animals and the space. A little bit of everything.
Little things make me smile, petting the cats, for instance. This morning, Delilah, our big girl, looked up at me and launched into her morning ritual of “pet me, pet me, pet me …” a stuck record, her meow a monotone, insistent crabbiness, like Selma Diamond in fur. But once you bend down and begin to stroke her coat, she transforms into a kind of princess, rubenesque still, yes, but so graceful and sweet, her face full of pleasure, paws clutching in, then stretching out, her purr, a marvelous motor idling. The whole thing becomes a meditation, it’s poetry, it grounds me.
Drippy and grey today, the last remnants of Hurricane Lee taking a New England visit. We dodged a bullet a week ago when Irene splattered through. The eye of the storm went right over our house stopping the rain and wind as if a faucet had been shut off up in the sky. Strange and wonderful. We were completely unaware of the flash flooding and damage all around us until the calls of concern came in from friends around the world. Our state, our dear state.
On with the day. Just wanted to make a check in after almost 3 months.
And if anyone has a tip about getting back on Facebook after having been hacked, that would be great.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Showdown at Goose Island!!
Did the White Gander and his dames take back the pond from the Dastardly Pair from up north with their 5 new offspring OR is the swimming hole still off limits to Pilgrims and full steam ahead for Canooks?
FLASH! Newborns on Goose Island. The claim that the Canadians have hatched quintuplets has been corroborated by a sighting of the 2 adults and 5 shrimpy little fur balls on the banks of the pond at approximately 11:57 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time. “These Canadians like to get their young out on the water pronto,” I’m quoting myself here. “If they could figure out a way to float those eggs and hatch their young right into the drink, they’d be happy.”
Enough of the Sam Spade/Walter Winchell imitation.
Richard and I have been wondering whether the animosity between our geese and the Canadians would be eased once the eggs hatched. Today was the testing ground.
But first, a precursor.
Yesterday morning, Richard decided to bring our baby gosling out into the front yard to play in the grass and being the imp that I can be I decided to “stir up a little trouble” and see what would happen if I brought the babies around back where our brood was resting in the shade of the back porch. Faster than Richard could say “Are you happy now?” I got my answer because at the first sighting of the babes, Shmuel and the girls rose as one and began coming toward me at a good waddling clip, eyes glazed, babbling some goose incantation. Richard, smiling and a little glaze-eyed himself, wanted me to put the babies down on the grass. “Not on your life,” I spat out, clutching them to my breast and running away from the hellhounds like Eliza on the ice. “It must be instinct,” Richard yelled out in between laughs, running after me to the front yard. We put the babes back in their box and stole them inside, while Shmuel and the girls kept circling the house in search of them, calling out. Who knows whether they were saying “Come here, babies!” or “Kill them! KILL THEM!!” Either scenario would’ve been plausible. It took them about 15 minutes to calm down.
Okay, background information over, smash cut to today. Seeing the Canadians out on the pond with their babies piqued our brood’s interest. Shmuel was transfixed, standing, staring over across the road, as if on point. So again I thought I’d stir things up and headed over to the pond with my cup of afternoon coffee, hoping our group would follow. And they did, curious, wanting to inspect. On their way over they were harassed by a male red winged blackbird who hangs around on the power line, literally watching over a nest of his and his mate’s in the tall ferns near the edge of the pond. “Will our geese never get a break?” I thought as this little flying pipsqueak (And I like Redwing Blackbirds! Ask anyone at the Audobon Society!) darted and jabbed and tried his best to hiss, which sounded like a flea exhaling loudly. He gave it a good shot.
So we’re at the shore, all 5 of us, me and my geese, but they’re a gun shy, having been chased off the pond repeatedly and violently by the Canada Geese and they’ve spotted them across the way on the far side of the pond on the shoreline with their young. I walk to the end of the pier to nudge our gang into the water. It does the trick, with Shmuel leading they all walk into the water. No swimming, though, they just stick to shore, digging around underwater with their bills. Nothing wrong with that, but I know they’re cowed, they can’t hide it. So I decide to take the kayak out. A few days prior Richard and I had done the same thing to encourage them and they’d stuck close, braving the waves, as if the kayak were a big brother to help with the bullies. (Of course, when we pulled the kayak out and left, the Canadians attacked them again. But I digress.)
I paddle toward the other side of the pond and turn back to see that Shmuel and the girls are following behind in sure steady strokes of their feet. The Canadians head their young to tall grass; I can’t see the babies anymore, just the curve of the adult heads, like periscopes. So I stop, giving them their space. But Shmuel keeps going! As do the girls. They walk up on land. They start challenging the Canooks. “Come on, Shmuel! Let’s go!” I say, but though a part of me is chickening out for our geese’s sake, I love the build up of drama, I wonder what’s going to happen next. The Canada male has been shivering his back feathers in warming and Shmuel and the girls all answer back with shivers of their own and continue to move steadily in on them. The Canada pair’s heads look like serpents now. They begin bobbing up and down, hissing like cobras. And then the male attacks! He goes after Daphne who flies into the middle of the pond, then veers back towards me, begging for help. It does the trick. Daphne flies to shore behind me and the male Canook veers off to the left and rejoins his family. Shmuel and the other girls are still crying out and join Daphne on shore.
Now wait – I’ve left out a bit chronologically. Before the showdown – the FIRST showdown, that is – I paddled over to goose island to have a look see, see if I could spot any shell pieces etc., relics of the birth. I rounded the island and could see down feathers in profusion, whitening the straw, as if someone had just had a pillow fight. There was a piece of an egg, I thought, and as I came around the back of the island, I saw movement in the nest. There was another gosling in there! Covered with flies, a little loopy, heavy headed, but there was another gosling! Was he injured? Was he too weak to take the pond? And there was another egg beside it. That makes 7 potential offspring. But why had they left this one back on the island?
Back to the present. I paddle away, urging Shmuel to do the same. Well, swim away. I can see the Canada geese are leading their young across a far log into the brush in the swamp area, choosing, I suppose, to hide their young from the threat of both our Pilgrims and this big orange floating creature with paddles. Shmuel starts to swim away, but wait, he’s not headed for the pier and home, no. They’re headed for Goose Island and the nest and the baby. “C’mon Shmuel! C’mon!” No good. Drama, drama. What’s going to happen? No sign of the Canadians. Shmuel is at the island. Shmuel is walking onto the island! Now the girls!! What’re they gonna do to the baby? Kill it? What about the egg? Will they try to eat it? I can hear shivers of tail feathers and quiet hissing and goose conversation. “C’mon guys!” Are they just going to stay there and wait for the Canadians to return? Oh, this is good! And I’m wondering if the father protector is kicking in in Shmuel? There’s an abandoned young one, has he taken it on as his issue? Is this instinct now? I wait alongside the island for maybe 10 minutes. I paddle over to where I last saw the Canadians. There’s a little stirring of brush, but no sound. They’re laying low. And wait … wait … Shmuel’s in the water, ladies and gentlemen!! He’s leaving the island!! The girls are following. They seem calm, resolute, like they’ve done a good deed. They’ve fought the good fight. I pull up alongside the pier, hop out, quickly drag the kayak out to make room for them and one by one they climb up out of the pond like returning champions. One by one they flap their wings to the silent acclaim. Heroes. Is the pond theirs again? Who knows? I run over to write this as they primp and prune their feathers in preparation for the laying on of the laurel wreath ceremony.
BUT WAIT AGAIN!! As I began the above paragraph, the Canadians came out of the brush with their young, swam to their island, and disappeared. Our guys stood up and took to the water themselves and swam directly to the island. What was going to happen now?! Were they going to go ashore?! A fight for custody? A fight to the finish? They murmured something in goose to the Canadians. Then Shmuel gave a defiant cry “What’s going on in there?!” I saw movement. The Canadian male took to the water. And he came after everyone – Daphne first, of course – then Felicity. Shmuel and he faced off. Lots of squawky cacophony. Daphne submerged and surfaced crying out, paddling madly for shore. Shmuel cried out “Regroup! Regroup!” And it was over. The Canada guy splashed off as if he were washing off after a successful fight, a gladiator duel. And the Pilgrims came out, still proud, wings fluttering. To add insult to injury, though, the little blackbird came down to add his 2 cents of harassment. They batted at him with their wings, open billed, as if he were some infuriating insect.
Now our 4 are gathered in the shade at the side of the pond. The Canadians stay behind the protection of the dogwood bush in bloom on their island. It’s nearing 7. Every once in a while Shmuel lets loose with a trumpet call. “We’re still here!” it announces to the surrounding forest and pond. It never lets up here near Goose Island. Thrills and spills a plenty. I for one am proud of our geese. They conducted themselves handsomely. What will happen tomorrow? Stay tuned.
BUT WAIT AGAIN, AGAIN. PS!! When I pulled the binocs out to watch the young take to the island, I could’ve sworn I saw SIX offspring. SIX in the water, ONE and an EGG in the nest. THAT’S EIGHT GEESE, TEN COUNTING THE ADULTS, FOURTEEN COUNTING OURS, AND SIXTEEN INCLUDING THE GOSLING IN THE ATTACK!! YOWZA!
FLASH! Newborns on Goose Island. The claim that the Canadians have hatched quintuplets has been corroborated by a sighting of the 2 adults and 5 shrimpy little fur balls on the banks of the pond at approximately 11:57 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time. “These Canadians like to get their young out on the water pronto,” I’m quoting myself here. “If they could figure out a way to float those eggs and hatch their young right into the drink, they’d be happy.”
Enough of the Sam Spade/Walter Winchell imitation.
Richard and I have been wondering whether the animosity between our geese and the Canadians would be eased once the eggs hatched. Today was the testing ground.
But first, a precursor.
Yesterday morning, Richard decided to bring our baby gosling out into the front yard to play in the grass and being the imp that I can be I decided to “stir up a little trouble” and see what would happen if I brought the babies around back where our brood was resting in the shade of the back porch. Faster than Richard could say “Are you happy now?” I got my answer because at the first sighting of the babes, Shmuel and the girls rose as one and began coming toward me at a good waddling clip, eyes glazed, babbling some goose incantation. Richard, smiling and a little glaze-eyed himself, wanted me to put the babies down on the grass. “Not on your life,” I spat out, clutching them to my breast and running away from the hellhounds like Eliza on the ice. “It must be instinct,” Richard yelled out in between laughs, running after me to the front yard. We put the babes back in their box and stole them inside, while Shmuel and the girls kept circling the house in search of them, calling out. Who knows whether they were saying “Come here, babies!” or “Kill them! KILL THEM!!” Either scenario would’ve been plausible. It took them about 15 minutes to calm down.
Okay, background information over, smash cut to today. Seeing the Canadians out on the pond with their babies piqued our brood’s interest. Shmuel was transfixed, standing, staring over across the road, as if on point. So again I thought I’d stir things up and headed over to the pond with my cup of afternoon coffee, hoping our group would follow. And they did, curious, wanting to inspect. On their way over they were harassed by a male red winged blackbird who hangs around on the power line, literally watching over a nest of his and his mate’s in the tall ferns near the edge of the pond. “Will our geese never get a break?” I thought as this little flying pipsqueak (And I like Redwing Blackbirds! Ask anyone at the Audobon Society!) darted and jabbed and tried his best to hiss, which sounded like a flea exhaling loudly. He gave it a good shot.
So we’re at the shore, all 5 of us, me and my geese, but they’re a gun shy, having been chased off the pond repeatedly and violently by the Canada Geese and they’ve spotted them across the way on the far side of the pond on the shoreline with their young. I walk to the end of the pier to nudge our gang into the water. It does the trick, with Shmuel leading they all walk into the water. No swimming, though, they just stick to shore, digging around underwater with their bills. Nothing wrong with that, but I know they’re cowed, they can’t hide it. So I decide to take the kayak out. A few days prior Richard and I had done the same thing to encourage them and they’d stuck close, braving the waves, as if the kayak were a big brother to help with the bullies. (Of course, when we pulled the kayak out and left, the Canadians attacked them again. But I digress.)
I paddle toward the other side of the pond and turn back to see that Shmuel and the girls are following behind in sure steady strokes of their feet. The Canadians head their young to tall grass; I can’t see the babies anymore, just the curve of the adult heads, like periscopes. So I stop, giving them their space. But Shmuel keeps going! As do the girls. They walk up on land. They start challenging the Canooks. “Come on, Shmuel! Let’s go!” I say, but though a part of me is chickening out for our geese’s sake, I love the build up of drama, I wonder what’s going to happen next. The Canada male has been shivering his back feathers in warming and Shmuel and the girls all answer back with shivers of their own and continue to move steadily in on them. The Canada pair’s heads look like serpents now. They begin bobbing up and down, hissing like cobras. And then the male attacks! He goes after Daphne who flies into the middle of the pond, then veers back towards me, begging for help. It does the trick. Daphne flies to shore behind me and the male Canook veers off to the left and rejoins his family. Shmuel and the other girls are still crying out and join Daphne on shore.
Now wait – I’ve left out a bit chronologically. Before the showdown – the FIRST showdown, that is – I paddled over to goose island to have a look see, see if I could spot any shell pieces etc., relics of the birth. I rounded the island and could see down feathers in profusion, whitening the straw, as if someone had just had a pillow fight. There was a piece of an egg, I thought, and as I came around the back of the island, I saw movement in the nest. There was another gosling in there! Covered with flies, a little loopy, heavy headed, but there was another gosling! Was he injured? Was he too weak to take the pond? And there was another egg beside it. That makes 7 potential offspring. But why had they left this one back on the island?
Back to the present. I paddle away, urging Shmuel to do the same. Well, swim away. I can see the Canada geese are leading their young across a far log into the brush in the swamp area, choosing, I suppose, to hide their young from the threat of both our Pilgrims and this big orange floating creature with paddles. Shmuel starts to swim away, but wait, he’s not headed for the pier and home, no. They’re headed for Goose Island and the nest and the baby. “C’mon Shmuel! C’mon!” No good. Drama, drama. What’s going to happen? No sign of the Canadians. Shmuel is at the island. Shmuel is walking onto the island! Now the girls!! What’re they gonna do to the baby? Kill it? What about the egg? Will they try to eat it? I can hear shivers of tail feathers and quiet hissing and goose conversation. “C’mon guys!” Are they just going to stay there and wait for the Canadians to return? Oh, this is good! And I’m wondering if the father protector is kicking in in Shmuel? There’s an abandoned young one, has he taken it on as his issue? Is this instinct now? I wait alongside the island for maybe 10 minutes. I paddle over to where I last saw the Canadians. There’s a little stirring of brush, but no sound. They’re laying low. And wait … wait … Shmuel’s in the water, ladies and gentlemen!! He’s leaving the island!! The girls are following. They seem calm, resolute, like they’ve done a good deed. They’ve fought the good fight. I pull up alongside the pier, hop out, quickly drag the kayak out to make room for them and one by one they climb up out of the pond like returning champions. One by one they flap their wings to the silent acclaim. Heroes. Is the pond theirs again? Who knows? I run over to write this as they primp and prune their feathers in preparation for the laying on of the laurel wreath ceremony.
BUT WAIT AGAIN!! As I began the above paragraph, the Canadians came out of the brush with their young, swam to their island, and disappeared. Our guys stood up and took to the water themselves and swam directly to the island. What was going to happen now?! Were they going to go ashore?! A fight for custody? A fight to the finish? They murmured something in goose to the Canadians. Then Shmuel gave a defiant cry “What’s going on in there?!” I saw movement. The Canadian male took to the water. And he came after everyone – Daphne first, of course – then Felicity. Shmuel and he faced off. Lots of squawky cacophony. Daphne submerged and surfaced crying out, paddling madly for shore. Shmuel cried out “Regroup! Regroup!” And it was over. The Canada guy splashed off as if he were washing off after a successful fight, a gladiator duel. And the Pilgrims came out, still proud, wings fluttering. To add insult to injury, though, the little blackbird came down to add his 2 cents of harassment. They batted at him with their wings, open billed, as if he were some infuriating insect.
Now our 4 are gathered in the shade at the side of the pond. The Canadians stay behind the protection of the dogwood bush in bloom on their island. It’s nearing 7. Every once in a while Shmuel lets loose with a trumpet call. “We’re still here!” it announces to the surrounding forest and pond. It never lets up here near Goose Island. Thrills and spills a plenty. I for one am proud of our geese. They conducted themselves handsomely. What will happen tomorrow? Stay tuned.
BUT WAIT AGAIN, AGAIN. PS!! When I pulled the binocs out to watch the young take to the island, I could’ve sworn I saw SIX offspring. SIX in the water, ONE and an EGG in the nest. THAT’S EIGHT GEESE, TEN COUNTING THE ADULTS, FOURTEEN COUNTING OURS, AND SIXTEEN INCLUDING THE GOSLING IN THE ATTACK!! YOWZA!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Mutiny!
It was touch and go there, let me tell you.
I went down to Ron and Tabitha’s pond last evening around 6 to gather the geese and bring them home, a not uncommon chore. Ever since the Canada geese took possession of our pond across the road and given chase whenever our group gets near, Shmuel and the girls have daily taken an afternoon trek down the road a quarter mile, waddled through Ron’s pasture, and then down the meadowed hill to a clearing and the pond. Last night I’d finished all my chores and needed to get a move on to be able to catch a 7:00 film down in White River Junction, 37 miles away. If I was lucky, I’d look out my window and the geese would already have arrived, as they had the day before at this time. I looked, no such luck today. I will not rush, I told myself. It was a marvelous day, bold blue sky, clear, in the 70’s, dropping a bit. I crunched down our gravel road in shorts, braving the flies without Skin So Soft slathered on. And they left me alone, whataya know. It was the perfect time of day.
So down the road, past Ron’s house – I could make out his silhouette in his kitchen, sitting, listening to jazz, his doors open in front and back to cool the house. His lawn was freshly mowed and he’d cut a path all the way down the hill. For the geese, I thought. And at the bottom of the hill, at the far end of the pond, in shade, there they sat, the great white goose and his harem. They must’ve seen me coming, but they didn’t move, I came on slow. I began to favor the pond’s edge, getting in between them and the water, just in case they Dunkirked out away from me. And may I just say, I was gathering them not just because of a movie date, but a fox had been sighted in the area last night by our neighbors, Royce and Andy. They stopped by to tell us. And I didn’t trust that our geese would be safe coming home and putting themselves up on their own leaving their gate open and inviting.
I was nearly on them now and they began to stir, a slight complaint, sounding like kids being asked to come in from summer play after the sun’s gone down. They stood with a ruffle and Shmuel gave his familiar “I’m the man, so back off” shiver. That ritual over, we began the trek back home, slow and steady, me following and shepherding them forward, no fuss, no muss.
And then they stopped.
They just stopped.
They wouldn’t move.
I urged them on, waving my arms forward, this usually did the trick. No go. They stood their ground. And with every “Please” or “C’mon guys” they jabbered back, like their own mini-version of a town villager rabble or an old fashioned strike at the plant. Shmuel seemed to want to move, but the girls stood their ground, they were not going anywhere. Mary Ann seemed to be the main instigator, her tough, bass monotone gave a murmuring foundation to the mutiny. “Don’t give in, girls. He’s got nuthin’. Look, he’s sweatin’. He’s got no power. We’ve got him.”
So I surrendered. I gave in. I threw in the towel. And, satisfied, they all did a fluff and fold on their feathers. Now I do love watching that, this nibbling spruce up they do all over their bodies with clackering bills, necks craning like contortionists at a Cirque de Soleil summer retreat. A thorough going over, the works. And it was beautiful by the stream’s edge, the perfect time of day, green, calm, quiet. “Turn it into a meditation” I told myself. Okay, okay. And I thought – “So what next? What do I do now?” Very meditative, very turning it over.
And then they started moving. For no reason at all. “Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.” But at the bottom of the hill, they stopped again. This was different then the revolt. They seemed wary to be near the woods and the mown path I was guiding them towards edged right alongside it. I looked into the overgrowth wondering if there might be something in there. The fox? So I gave in again. I let go my insistence on the path and they immediately veered, no, scampered into the taller grass in the open field. And they took the at a good steady, athletic clip. I expected a chorus of “Val-de-ree, Val-de-rah!!” They are like hearty Canadians or Europeans. Not in great shape in a cosmetic American fashion; they’re of a heartier, peasant stock. There’s still an elegance in them, especially in Mary Ann, a touch of regal standing in Shmuel, but Daphne and Felicity, definitely, earthy, working class, their big behinds swaying back and forth as if to say “Yeah, I got a big ass, it’s a great ass. I’m beautiful as is.”
We were at the road. A quarter mile to go and then up to their house. Still I fought back the rush to move things along. I wanted to go their pace. So I focused on the strum of their padding, like an army of dwarves at boot camp, like bean bag pebbles being rolled along. Their feet are miraculous, pliable, tough, this orange stretch of membrane over a backward triangle, like lizard skin kites. And the horny nails, 3 in front and 1 hooked down on the back of the leg, are reminders of dinosaur ancestry swimming around in their DNA. That might be where the whole mutiny idea stemmed. “We’ll be led today, but who knows what’ll happen tomorrow. This is just the beginning, buster.”
I have such deep affection for our geese. Why is that? It gave me such sweet satisfaction guiding them home, letting them take up the whole road, stopping off for a moment to have a munch on a tall dandelion stalk that caught their eye, watching Shmuel lean over and rub necks with Mary Ann “How you doin’, baby? This pace okay with you, baby?” and her no nonsense, stoic replies. They are so dear to me. Funny. Such grace in such clumsy packages. Walking, waddling meditations.
I coaxed them gently into our drive at the mailbox, thanking them again for letting me lead them home and we continued up through the old orchard to their house and pen. No showdown with Shmuel at the gate, that’s gone by the wayside ever since the end of egg laying time. He did turn for a face-off, to make sure I latched them in correctly, and then as I meandered down the hill, I could hear them murmur to one another, Shmuel’s breathy comments a little higher than the others. (When he converses like that it always reminds me of Jiminy Cricket.) There were no complaints from any of them, they seemed glad to be home. Content. I could hear them drinking, that long dip down into the bucket, followed by a tilting back to let the liquid down their long necks, as if they’re teaching us how to fully appreciate a drink of water. And then they were sprucing up again, a once over on the feathers after travel, getting the dust out, preparing for a nice lay down in the grass. Have to keep up appearances wherever you are.
I don’t know if I shared with you that we have 2 baby goslings. They had been nabbed from the goose’s nest and were hatched in Richard’s incubator last weekend. They are adorable and are residing upstairs in a heat lamp warmed box in our attic. 1 gander, 1 goose. Richard and I are firmly imprinted on them, but we’re determined not to get too attached to them because they are already promised to the man who delivers our top soil. He wants them as guard geese, he’s already got a pen built, and he’s looking forward to sharing them with his grandkids. He definitely does NOT want them for meat birds which makes Richard feel better about parting with them. But it’s hard, it’s hard. There’s a little rebellion inside both of us and if we don’t watch it, we can feel the first signs of caving. It starts with little whisperings like “Oh, they’re so cute!” and then “Oh, what would 2 more geese hurt?” and soon it will be open rebellion against common sense. An uprising of the heart. Mustn’t cave. Mustn’t mutiny against the plan.
So now, to wean ourselves, instead of long cuddles on the couch with the goslings craning in for warmth under our chins, us braving little squirts on our sweatshirts, we try, TRY mind you, to come into the attic, greet them at their box, take in their adorable squeezebox tweets and their push for affection, and then, instead of a prolonged cuddle, we simply touch. And go.
I went down to Ron and Tabitha’s pond last evening around 6 to gather the geese and bring them home, a not uncommon chore. Ever since the Canada geese took possession of our pond across the road and given chase whenever our group gets near, Shmuel and the girls have daily taken an afternoon trek down the road a quarter mile, waddled through Ron’s pasture, and then down the meadowed hill to a clearing and the pond. Last night I’d finished all my chores and needed to get a move on to be able to catch a 7:00 film down in White River Junction, 37 miles away. If I was lucky, I’d look out my window and the geese would already have arrived, as they had the day before at this time. I looked, no such luck today. I will not rush, I told myself. It was a marvelous day, bold blue sky, clear, in the 70’s, dropping a bit. I crunched down our gravel road in shorts, braving the flies without Skin So Soft slathered on. And they left me alone, whataya know. It was the perfect time of day.
So down the road, past Ron’s house – I could make out his silhouette in his kitchen, sitting, listening to jazz, his doors open in front and back to cool the house. His lawn was freshly mowed and he’d cut a path all the way down the hill. For the geese, I thought. And at the bottom of the hill, at the far end of the pond, in shade, there they sat, the great white goose and his harem. They must’ve seen me coming, but they didn’t move, I came on slow. I began to favor the pond’s edge, getting in between them and the water, just in case they Dunkirked out away from me. And may I just say, I was gathering them not just because of a movie date, but a fox had been sighted in the area last night by our neighbors, Royce and Andy. They stopped by to tell us. And I didn’t trust that our geese would be safe coming home and putting themselves up on their own leaving their gate open and inviting.
I was nearly on them now and they began to stir, a slight complaint, sounding like kids being asked to come in from summer play after the sun’s gone down. They stood with a ruffle and Shmuel gave his familiar “I’m the man, so back off” shiver. That ritual over, we began the trek back home, slow and steady, me following and shepherding them forward, no fuss, no muss.
And then they stopped.
They just stopped.
They wouldn’t move.
I urged them on, waving my arms forward, this usually did the trick. No go. They stood their ground. And with every “Please” or “C’mon guys” they jabbered back, like their own mini-version of a town villager rabble or an old fashioned strike at the plant. Shmuel seemed to want to move, but the girls stood their ground, they were not going anywhere. Mary Ann seemed to be the main instigator, her tough, bass monotone gave a murmuring foundation to the mutiny. “Don’t give in, girls. He’s got nuthin’. Look, he’s sweatin’. He’s got no power. We’ve got him.”
So I surrendered. I gave in. I threw in the towel. And, satisfied, they all did a fluff and fold on their feathers. Now I do love watching that, this nibbling spruce up they do all over their bodies with clackering bills, necks craning like contortionists at a Cirque de Soleil summer retreat. A thorough going over, the works. And it was beautiful by the stream’s edge, the perfect time of day, green, calm, quiet. “Turn it into a meditation” I told myself. Okay, okay. And I thought – “So what next? What do I do now?” Very meditative, very turning it over.
And then they started moving. For no reason at all. “Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.” But at the bottom of the hill, they stopped again. This was different then the revolt. They seemed wary to be near the woods and the mown path I was guiding them towards edged right alongside it. I looked into the overgrowth wondering if there might be something in there. The fox? So I gave in again. I let go my insistence on the path and they immediately veered, no, scampered into the taller grass in the open field. And they took the at a good steady, athletic clip. I expected a chorus of “Val-de-ree, Val-de-rah!!” They are like hearty Canadians or Europeans. Not in great shape in a cosmetic American fashion; they’re of a heartier, peasant stock. There’s still an elegance in them, especially in Mary Ann, a touch of regal standing in Shmuel, but Daphne and Felicity, definitely, earthy, working class, their big behinds swaying back and forth as if to say “Yeah, I got a big ass, it’s a great ass. I’m beautiful as is.”
We were at the road. A quarter mile to go and then up to their house. Still I fought back the rush to move things along. I wanted to go their pace. So I focused on the strum of their padding, like an army of dwarves at boot camp, like bean bag pebbles being rolled along. Their feet are miraculous, pliable, tough, this orange stretch of membrane over a backward triangle, like lizard skin kites. And the horny nails, 3 in front and 1 hooked down on the back of the leg, are reminders of dinosaur ancestry swimming around in their DNA. That might be where the whole mutiny idea stemmed. “We’ll be led today, but who knows what’ll happen tomorrow. This is just the beginning, buster.”
I have such deep affection for our geese. Why is that? It gave me such sweet satisfaction guiding them home, letting them take up the whole road, stopping off for a moment to have a munch on a tall dandelion stalk that caught their eye, watching Shmuel lean over and rub necks with Mary Ann “How you doin’, baby? This pace okay with you, baby?” and her no nonsense, stoic replies. They are so dear to me. Funny. Such grace in such clumsy packages. Walking, waddling meditations.
I coaxed them gently into our drive at the mailbox, thanking them again for letting me lead them home and we continued up through the old orchard to their house and pen. No showdown with Shmuel at the gate, that’s gone by the wayside ever since the end of egg laying time. He did turn for a face-off, to make sure I latched them in correctly, and then as I meandered down the hill, I could hear them murmur to one another, Shmuel’s breathy comments a little higher than the others. (When he converses like that it always reminds me of Jiminy Cricket.) There were no complaints from any of them, they seemed glad to be home. Content. I could hear them drinking, that long dip down into the bucket, followed by a tilting back to let the liquid down their long necks, as if they’re teaching us how to fully appreciate a drink of water. And then they were sprucing up again, a once over on the feathers after travel, getting the dust out, preparing for a nice lay down in the grass. Have to keep up appearances wherever you are.
I don’t know if I shared with you that we have 2 baby goslings. They had been nabbed from the goose’s nest and were hatched in Richard’s incubator last weekend. They are adorable and are residing upstairs in a heat lamp warmed box in our attic. 1 gander, 1 goose. Richard and I are firmly imprinted on them, but we’re determined not to get too attached to them because they are already promised to the man who delivers our top soil. He wants them as guard geese, he’s already got a pen built, and he’s looking forward to sharing them with his grandkids. He definitely does NOT want them for meat birds which makes Richard feel better about parting with them. But it’s hard, it’s hard. There’s a little rebellion inside both of us and if we don’t watch it, we can feel the first signs of caving. It starts with little whisperings like “Oh, they’re so cute!” and then “Oh, what would 2 more geese hurt?” and soon it will be open rebellion against common sense. An uprising of the heart. Mustn’t cave. Mustn’t mutiny against the plan.
So now, to wean ourselves, instead of long cuddles on the couch with the goslings craning in for warmth under our chins, us braving little squirts on our sweatshirts, we try, TRY mind you, to come into the attic, greet them at their box, take in their adorable squeezebox tweets and their push for affection, and then, instead of a prolonged cuddle, we simply touch. And go.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The Sounds of .... something other than silence.
It sounds as if our pond - or some water creature just below the surface of the pond – is having major dental work done. “And … spit.” There’s a continuous sucking emanating from across the road. I know from whence it comes, it comes from the standing pipe Richard and I opened up yesterday afternoon in order to lower the level of the pond 10 inches because the constant flow of water down the overflow has made a Mekong Delta amid our grove of very beautiful and tall pines next to the pond and jeopardizes their future health. So this sucking shall past BUT it wreaks havoc with a sense of pastoral bliss.
But hark … the sucking just stopped.
It does that every once and awhile which gives me hope that it won’t be a constant once the level of the pond is down to its top.
And now Royce decided to chain saw.
That’s okay. Might as well make a list of sounds greeting us this morning.
Unfortunately there’s a wheezing sound from one of our Copper Blue Marrans which breaks both our hearts. And she’s one of our best layers, a sweet, beautiful bird. There’ve been a lot of deaths lately in our ranks and since Richard is usually the dispatcher, my heart goes out to him. He loves his birds so much. As do I. Most of the time. Richard was beating himself up yesterday feeling he was the cause of this malady. There’d been an infestation of mites in the coop accompanying the damp, damp weather we’ve been having lately, and Richard felt so proud that he’d gone out and gotten organic mite powder to sprinkle throughout the coop after he’d scooped out the old straw and pine shavings and replaced it with dryer stock and then he’d powdered each bird individually. He learned afterwards that holding a hen upside down when administering the powdering – as he had done successfully with other powders he’d put on them – could lead to respiratory ailments should they inhale it. Ugh, ugh, ugh. So we’ve been giving her some antibiotics – a last resort for us – both as a hypo and orally. She did insist on laying an egg today, what a trooper, but is she getting better? Our fingers are crossed.
More hopeful, happy sounds? The squeezebox tweet of the 2 goslings which cracked into this world over the weekend. One boy, one girl. They’re adorable and have firmly and joyfully imprinted on both of us. They have 4 newly hatched chicks in the box with them and they’re all having a ball together. It’s going to be hard getting rid of them. So fun to pick them up and feel that lighter than air, fluff ball nothing of them in your arms as they nibble your chin and give their squeezebox tweets of delight.
Writer’s Almanac. Garrison Keillor’s basso monotone telling me that it’s Walt Whitman’s birthday today. Way to go, Walt; many happy returns. I’ll have to pull out his Brooklyn Ferry poems today. What a sucker I am for his time travelly pieces. You rock, Walt. Song of Yourself, baby.
Birdsong. What a variety. The calm, comforting clucks from our hens and roosters. Red Barber’s proud crow. Bomanitious’s neck stretched gobble (he’s our Tom), sounding like some sort of goofy wind instrument constantly tuning up, never quite getting it right, wanting to give it another try. Shmuel’s demanding trumpet blast of a bray “Let us out NOW!” as I near the fence and the rest of the girls – Mary Ann, Daphne, and Felicity – crescendo into a panicked chaos of jabber. The lazy buzz and brass, then sweet call of the red wing blackbird, reminding of hotter days to come. Thrushes deep in the cool, cool woods with their sad echoey siren song as if saying “Come find me, you won’t get lost, come find me deep, deep in the woods. I’m waiting for you.”
Oh, the chain saw just went off. And no sucking sound from the pond. Bird calls code the air. And the soft liquid massage of a stream nearby, our pond emptying down the path that will soon be its only stream, landscaped, green, of the woods. Our doing.
There’s a far off murmur of a truck grumbling somewhere.
The wind doing its invisible act through the rustle of leaves on the magnolia.
Here come our geese walking single file past the screened porch, Shmuel, 3rd in line, giving high wheezy murmurs that sound as if he’s talking to himself. Or whispering sweet nothings to Mary Ann. They always look like the Snow family from “Carousel” when they walk in formation like that.
A jet high, high above, sounding extra terrestrial, incongruous, not of this world. A ghost’s inhalation.
The cats are all sleeping somewhere, conked out, but earlier I had Oliver’s almost understandable “Turn the faucet on, I need a drink” complete with body language; Sofia’s shameless, seductive Salome “Oh, baby, I’ll do anything for you if you just feed me. Feed me, baby. NOW!” ; Astrid’s brief little keens “My heart is always breaking, but I keep it together for you, for you, for you.” And Miss Crab, Delilah. She’s really not crabby, she just sounds like that, this harsh, raspy Selma Diamond complaining sound when she begs for food or attention. If she were human, I see her in curlers and a robe, a drink in one hand, a cigarette dangling from her lips, the town gossip. Richard calls the Mrs. Kravitz of cats.
And now there is a silent sound urging me to take a walk, one of those walks where I may write along the way or read or just take in all the sights and sounds along the way.
But hark … the sucking just stopped.
It does that every once and awhile which gives me hope that it won’t be a constant once the level of the pond is down to its top.
And now Royce decided to chain saw.
That’s okay. Might as well make a list of sounds greeting us this morning.
Unfortunately there’s a wheezing sound from one of our Copper Blue Marrans which breaks both our hearts. And she’s one of our best layers, a sweet, beautiful bird. There’ve been a lot of deaths lately in our ranks and since Richard is usually the dispatcher, my heart goes out to him. He loves his birds so much. As do I. Most of the time. Richard was beating himself up yesterday feeling he was the cause of this malady. There’d been an infestation of mites in the coop accompanying the damp, damp weather we’ve been having lately, and Richard felt so proud that he’d gone out and gotten organic mite powder to sprinkle throughout the coop after he’d scooped out the old straw and pine shavings and replaced it with dryer stock and then he’d powdered each bird individually. He learned afterwards that holding a hen upside down when administering the powdering – as he had done successfully with other powders he’d put on them – could lead to respiratory ailments should they inhale it. Ugh, ugh, ugh. So we’ve been giving her some antibiotics – a last resort for us – both as a hypo and orally. She did insist on laying an egg today, what a trooper, but is she getting better? Our fingers are crossed.
More hopeful, happy sounds? The squeezebox tweet of the 2 goslings which cracked into this world over the weekend. One boy, one girl. They’re adorable and have firmly and joyfully imprinted on both of us. They have 4 newly hatched chicks in the box with them and they’re all having a ball together. It’s going to be hard getting rid of them. So fun to pick them up and feel that lighter than air, fluff ball nothing of them in your arms as they nibble your chin and give their squeezebox tweets of delight.
Writer’s Almanac. Garrison Keillor’s basso monotone telling me that it’s Walt Whitman’s birthday today. Way to go, Walt; many happy returns. I’ll have to pull out his Brooklyn Ferry poems today. What a sucker I am for his time travelly pieces. You rock, Walt. Song of Yourself, baby.
Birdsong. What a variety. The calm, comforting clucks from our hens and roosters. Red Barber’s proud crow. Bomanitious’s neck stretched gobble (he’s our Tom), sounding like some sort of goofy wind instrument constantly tuning up, never quite getting it right, wanting to give it another try. Shmuel’s demanding trumpet blast of a bray “Let us out NOW!” as I near the fence and the rest of the girls – Mary Ann, Daphne, and Felicity – crescendo into a panicked chaos of jabber. The lazy buzz and brass, then sweet call of the red wing blackbird, reminding of hotter days to come. Thrushes deep in the cool, cool woods with their sad echoey siren song as if saying “Come find me, you won’t get lost, come find me deep, deep in the woods. I’m waiting for you.”
Oh, the chain saw just went off. And no sucking sound from the pond. Bird calls code the air. And the soft liquid massage of a stream nearby, our pond emptying down the path that will soon be its only stream, landscaped, green, of the woods. Our doing.
There’s a far off murmur of a truck grumbling somewhere.
The wind doing its invisible act through the rustle of leaves on the magnolia.
Here come our geese walking single file past the screened porch, Shmuel, 3rd in line, giving high wheezy murmurs that sound as if he’s talking to himself. Or whispering sweet nothings to Mary Ann. They always look like the Snow family from “Carousel” when they walk in formation like that.
A jet high, high above, sounding extra terrestrial, incongruous, not of this world. A ghost’s inhalation.
The cats are all sleeping somewhere, conked out, but earlier I had Oliver’s almost understandable “Turn the faucet on, I need a drink” complete with body language; Sofia’s shameless, seductive Salome “Oh, baby, I’ll do anything for you if you just feed me. Feed me, baby. NOW!” ; Astrid’s brief little keens “My heart is always breaking, but I keep it together for you, for you, for you.” And Miss Crab, Delilah. She’s really not crabby, she just sounds like that, this harsh, raspy Selma Diamond complaining sound when she begs for food or attention. If she were human, I see her in curlers and a robe, a drink in one hand, a cigarette dangling from her lips, the town gossip. Richard calls the Mrs. Kravitz of cats.
And now there is a silent sound urging me to take a walk, one of those walks where I may write along the way or read or just take in all the sights and sounds along the way.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A Nature Give and Take
I walked to the top of our rise this morning, a grey, drippy morning, slight chill to the air, enough to warrant a warm wood fire inside. My head was down, I was musing about what to write, coffee in hand. Quiet. I like to get to the top of the rise without having looked back, so that when I turn the expanse of the Green Mountains in the background and the ever changing landscape is always a surprise. As I neared the crest, I brought my head up to look over to the left where Richard and I had felled 2 large ailing birch trees the other day. It had opened up the forest and the view of the far hill nicely. I turned my head straight ahead and I saw them. 3 young deer, grazing. I stopped still in my tracks, silent, and gazed. “Oh, Richard would love this,” I thought. The 2 farther up the hill turned to look at me, curious, as if they were focusing in on an eye chart, while the 1 closest to me continued to munch on grass with relaxed purposefulness. He raised his head and looked my way, and with a start and breathy snort, turned and hopped for cover in the trees, the other 2 following suit, their white behinds and upturned tails so gorgeous, like 19th century frocks. How wonderful!
And a little gift from nature was just what I needed for I, we, have been on the horns of a dilemma lately, namely what to do about the pair of Canada Geese on our pond. This is not a new phenomenon. For the 5 years we’ve resided here, this time of year has meant a pair of Canada Geese – we’re told that usually it’s the same pair every year, or at least one of the offspring – has come to our pond to lay eggs, raise their young (usually 4 gosling), teach them to fend for themselves and fly, and after flying lessons are completed to their satisfaction they leave for another year. This annual visit hasn’t been without issue. The prodigious amounts of goose poop around the edges of our pond, especially when added to our geese’s contribution, has been a gnarly topic. The past 3 years we’ve had our own domestic flock of geese and each year they’ve cobbled together an understanding of co-habitation with the Canadians. Last year it helped that both groups had offspring. This year, however, it’s gotten very contentious. When our geese get anywhere near the pond, they are dive bombed. They really battered and bruised Felicity the other day, she had to submerge and swim underwater most of the pond to get away from them, while I heaved stones from the shore to keep them off.
Compounding all of this is that we think the Canadians whole cycle is off due to the late ice covering on our pond which lasted until 2 weeks ago. If they did lay eggs, they’re no where to be found. When these attacks escalated in ferocity, we decided to discourage them from being here, and went after their eggs, but there are none anywhere near where they nest. Maybe they layed them and the weasel that’s around the pond nabbed them. It wouldn’t’ve been difficult to do. Or they haven’t laid yet and now it’s too late. There’s some frustration in the cycle. But what to do about our geese, that’s my main concern. They love the pond and now they’ve been spooked off it, they’re terrified and pent up, sometimes driven off the pond into the woods and I have to shepherd them back, concerned about them being easy prey for predators in the forest.
As I said, we’ve been trying to discourage the Canadians and run them off. We’ve chased them. Richard’s done some chain sawing of trees over near the pond, a chore he needed and wanted to do, and he discovered that they didn’t like that at all. We’ve taken to getting our .22 out and shooting above and below them. This works to a certain extent, but most of the time now they just sort of hop to another location. We don’t want to shoot them. I feel weird having a gun in my hand to just scare them. And if we got VINS to come relocate them, nothing is preventing another pair from coming in. So … hmmmmmmmmmm? In the grand scheme of things, this is a small concern, but there you have it. Nature.
Have a great day. And any suggestions about what to do are welcome.
And a little gift from nature was just what I needed for I, we, have been on the horns of a dilemma lately, namely what to do about the pair of Canada Geese on our pond. This is not a new phenomenon. For the 5 years we’ve resided here, this time of year has meant a pair of Canada Geese – we’re told that usually it’s the same pair every year, or at least one of the offspring – has come to our pond to lay eggs, raise their young (usually 4 gosling), teach them to fend for themselves and fly, and after flying lessons are completed to their satisfaction they leave for another year. This annual visit hasn’t been without issue. The prodigious amounts of goose poop around the edges of our pond, especially when added to our geese’s contribution, has been a gnarly topic. The past 3 years we’ve had our own domestic flock of geese and each year they’ve cobbled together an understanding of co-habitation with the Canadians. Last year it helped that both groups had offspring. This year, however, it’s gotten very contentious. When our geese get anywhere near the pond, they are dive bombed. They really battered and bruised Felicity the other day, she had to submerge and swim underwater most of the pond to get away from them, while I heaved stones from the shore to keep them off.
Compounding all of this is that we think the Canadians whole cycle is off due to the late ice covering on our pond which lasted until 2 weeks ago. If they did lay eggs, they’re no where to be found. When these attacks escalated in ferocity, we decided to discourage them from being here, and went after their eggs, but there are none anywhere near where they nest. Maybe they layed them and the weasel that’s around the pond nabbed them. It wouldn’t’ve been difficult to do. Or they haven’t laid yet and now it’s too late. There’s some frustration in the cycle. But what to do about our geese, that’s my main concern. They love the pond and now they’ve been spooked off it, they’re terrified and pent up, sometimes driven off the pond into the woods and I have to shepherd them back, concerned about them being easy prey for predators in the forest.
As I said, we’ve been trying to discourage the Canadians and run them off. We’ve chased them. Richard’s done some chain sawing of trees over near the pond, a chore he needed and wanted to do, and he discovered that they didn’t like that at all. We’ve taken to getting our .22 out and shooting above and below them. This works to a certain extent, but most of the time now they just sort of hop to another location. We don’t want to shoot them. I feel weird having a gun in my hand to just scare them. And if we got VINS to come relocate them, nothing is preventing another pair from coming in. So … hmmmmmmmmmm? In the grand scheme of things, this is a small concern, but there you have it. Nature.
Have a great day. And any suggestions about what to do are welcome.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Dilettante Gardener
Dilettante gardener
High mowing organic seed packets spread across the table top, the pictures on the packets shine with anticipation. I think I can hear an insistent whisper “Plant me, plant me, plant me” coming from within. The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible waits calmly in the willow magazine rack by our “grandfather” chair, edging its spine out above the other magazines and books – it wants to be noticed, as I pass by it chants “Pull me out, pull me out.” Many of our friends have started seeds already, that’s the April activity here. I still may. My intentions are there, but the flesh is weak. So many other dazzling little distractions. Let’s face it, I’m an inveterate dilettante when it comes to gardening. I balk at the planning it entails, the prep work, and I don’t know if I could ever be one to take the temperature of the soil, keep soil journals, ph level charts, graphs, autographed pictures of Wendell Berry nearby. I say this possibly to get my balking reluctance out of my system and then I’ll go and do it. Maybe that’s the purpose of this particular installment of my blog. I like the idea of gardening. I know I’m a hard worker. I can be very committed. And for the past few years we have had a garden – haphazard, random, but weeded, watched over, watered. And I’ve/we’ve absorbed and put into action good advice from our neighbor Royce, namely to mound rather than burrow our rows. This practice is taken to even greater lengths in the Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. So I feel behind – especially when it comes to things like tomatoes and onions, but – but – but
Enough already, here are my aims and goals for the garden this year:
Raised beds 3’ by 15’ up in the garden area. Approximately 18” high, filled with compost and top soil, built with hemlock, tiered in rows to correct the slope of our garden and cut back on weeding. The rows inbetween the raised beds will have newspaper and straw
There may be square raised beds, mini-towers, among the flower garden just outside the kitchen windows where herbs and other things – lettuces perhaps – may thrive and be in proximity to cooking.
Plant an asparagus bed.
Plant a garlic bed in the fall.
Cover our replanted blueberry bushes with netting.
Get tomatoes and onions in planting trays and pots inside before the end of April.
Plant a whole bunch of thyme on our “bad soil” bank
That’s good. That's a starter.
Okay, some quick embarrassing admissions: Last year we had an excellent green bean crop, but I neglected to pick them, most of them. They dried on the vine. I didn’t think they’d be so bountiful. Silly, silly.
As an experiment, we added very little fertilizer/compost to our garden last year and the yield was pure. Sugar snap peas and pumpkins thrived, as well as some parsnips and carrots and radishes – and those beans I let dry to a crisp – but other than that, no go.
Alright, I'm purging my system. I'm up for a fun challenge. I'm in it for the whole ride.
High mowing organic seed packets spread across the table top, the pictures on the packets shine with anticipation. I think I can hear an insistent whisper “Plant me, plant me, plant me” coming from within. The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible waits calmly in the willow magazine rack by our “grandfather” chair, edging its spine out above the other magazines and books – it wants to be noticed, as I pass by it chants “Pull me out, pull me out.” Many of our friends have started seeds already, that’s the April activity here. I still may. My intentions are there, but the flesh is weak. So many other dazzling little distractions. Let’s face it, I’m an inveterate dilettante when it comes to gardening. I balk at the planning it entails, the prep work, and I don’t know if I could ever be one to take the temperature of the soil, keep soil journals, ph level charts, graphs, autographed pictures of Wendell Berry nearby. I say this possibly to get my balking reluctance out of my system and then I’ll go and do it. Maybe that’s the purpose of this particular installment of my blog. I like the idea of gardening. I know I’m a hard worker. I can be very committed. And for the past few years we have had a garden – haphazard, random, but weeded, watched over, watered. And I’ve/we’ve absorbed and put into action good advice from our neighbor Royce, namely to mound rather than burrow our rows. This practice is taken to even greater lengths in the Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. So I feel behind – especially when it comes to things like tomatoes and onions, but – but – but
Enough already, here are my aims and goals for the garden this year:
Raised beds 3’ by 15’ up in the garden area. Approximately 18” high, filled with compost and top soil, built with hemlock, tiered in rows to correct the slope of our garden and cut back on weeding. The rows inbetween the raised beds will have newspaper and straw
There may be square raised beds, mini-towers, among the flower garden just outside the kitchen windows where herbs and other things – lettuces perhaps – may thrive and be in proximity to cooking.
Plant an asparagus bed.
Plant a garlic bed in the fall.
Cover our replanted blueberry bushes with netting.
Get tomatoes and onions in planting trays and pots inside before the end of April.
Plant a whole bunch of thyme on our “bad soil” bank
That’s good. That's a starter.
Okay, some quick embarrassing admissions: Last year we had an excellent green bean crop, but I neglected to pick them, most of them. They dried on the vine. I didn’t think they’d be so bountiful. Silly, silly.
As an experiment, we added very little fertilizer/compost to our garden last year and the yield was pure. Sugar snap peas and pumpkins thrived, as well as some parsnips and carrots and radishes – and those beans I let dry to a crisp – but other than that, no go.
Alright, I'm purging my system. I'm up for a fun challenge. I'm in it for the whole ride.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
April
Vermont’s version of Spring calls for patience. It’s part of the whole pattern here. Not to be rushed, all part of the package, it will happen when it happens. Mud season has passed. Sure, there are plenty of potholes and chuck holes (it is “holy week” after all) and there are long washboarded stretches of road that send your teeth to rattling no matter how solid your shocks are. But the deep ruts that gave the Grand Canyon a run for its money have been graded and filled and “smoothed.” There are dandruff patches of snow still hidden under the firs and spruce on the hills and the ice has a tenuously slushy foothold on the pond, to the consternation of the Canada Geese who are itching to lay some eggs. However, this too shall pass, this too is passing as I write. I can’t tell you how grand it is for the spirit to see the white of winter disappearing. I don’t care that what’s underneath is brown and beige. The green speaks to me. The green is coming. All the daffodils we planted with our friend Jean last autumn are shark finning up through the soil, all along the stonewall and around the edge of the pond. The crocus, my very favorite harbingers, are up and cupping - purples and yellows and white and lavender – like colorful robin baby mouths.
The smaller trees have all made it through the snow without any girdling. I surrounded them with hardware cloth in October and it worked like a charm. And good thing too, because the yard is gophered through with squiggly vole burrows. Soon the cats will be out which means Sofia's daily offering of yet another squinty vole baby at our feet. The seasonal vying for territory between our geese and the Canadians has begun. Poor Daphne got separated from the other 3 and was being attacked by the Canada pair back in the swamp area. Lots of dive bombing and wing flapping and outraged squawking. I ran back and scared the Canadians off. Daphne was hunched forward in the water, her back to them, a few feathers askew. After a moment of paralysis, she realized that the coast was clear and slowly, carefully made her way through the swamp sedge and cattails to shore. She wandered about the forest, seeking safety and I lent a hand to get her past a patch of old barbed wire before she was reunited with Shmuel and the rest of the gang who gossiped the air, catching each other up on the dramatic goings on. It was interesting watching the threesome while the attack on Daphne was happening. They just stood there, stoic, listening, not riled, not upset at all, just a detached sense of what will be, will be.
After a stunner of a sun-filled day yesterday, we’ve got a 180 degreer this morning. Grey, drippy, periods of pouring, and then a still, white-grey sky, and a landscape that’s doing a November imitation. That’s April, the cruelest month here in Vermont. Cruel? Well, a big tease. An in between month, a barrier, a buffer, work is being done, spring preparation, but the resurrections don’t come fully until May. Until then we suffice with crocus mouths, maybe daffodils, pussy willows are almost gone, the final bits of thaw, ever warmer temperatures, a bit of a soggy slog. It takes faith and patience and an invitation to enjoy the way, whatever the way may be. Let nature be.
The smaller trees have all made it through the snow without any girdling. I surrounded them with hardware cloth in October and it worked like a charm. And good thing too, because the yard is gophered through with squiggly vole burrows. Soon the cats will be out which means Sofia's daily offering of yet another squinty vole baby at our feet. The seasonal vying for territory between our geese and the Canadians has begun. Poor Daphne got separated from the other 3 and was being attacked by the Canada pair back in the swamp area. Lots of dive bombing and wing flapping and outraged squawking. I ran back and scared the Canadians off. Daphne was hunched forward in the water, her back to them, a few feathers askew. After a moment of paralysis, she realized that the coast was clear and slowly, carefully made her way through the swamp sedge and cattails to shore. She wandered about the forest, seeking safety and I lent a hand to get her past a patch of old barbed wire before she was reunited with Shmuel and the rest of the gang who gossiped the air, catching each other up on the dramatic goings on. It was interesting watching the threesome while the attack on Daphne was happening. They just stood there, stoic, listening, not riled, not upset at all, just a detached sense of what will be, will be.
After a stunner of a sun-filled day yesterday, we’ve got a 180 degreer this morning. Grey, drippy, periods of pouring, and then a still, white-grey sky, and a landscape that’s doing a November imitation. That’s April, the cruelest month here in Vermont. Cruel? Well, a big tease. An in between month, a barrier, a buffer, work is being done, spring preparation, but the resurrections don’t come fully until May. Until then we suffice with crocus mouths, maybe daffodils, pussy willows are almost gone, the final bits of thaw, ever warmer temperatures, a bit of a soggy slog. It takes faith and patience and an invitation to enjoy the way, whatever the way may be. Let nature be.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
I've been wanting
I’ve been wanting to tell you about mud season and the deep chasmy ruts swamping our road, more numerous and slip-slidey treacherous than any year yet. Then the cold snap hit defying the vernal equinox, not an out of the ordinary occurrence in Vermont, and I’d then wanted to tell you about the chill, the snow replacing what had melted, halting the tease of Spring, more white upon white upon white, relentless, erasing any memory of green . And I want to tell you of the geese, of Shmuel the protector, the fierce, the proud, and of the almost daily pile up of eggs that we’ve been snatching unbeknownst to he and the girls (we think) and then mailing them to people desirous of their own flock of Pilgrims. And I want to tell you how proud and colorful and erect our Tom Turkey is, our 2 Toms actually, for one of the ones we were sure was a hen popped out its tail feathers one afternoon and its head turned deep purple and red and prehistoric. And can we talk about their waddle (is that it?) that organ just north of its beak that goes from looking like a small unicorn’s horn, slightly pale and purple, to, when excited, long and red yet flaccid, hanging over and down below its beak, engorged with blood as it feathers itself out fully in proud male regalia. It’s a bit of an erection in reverse, longer, yes, but flaccid when excited, erect yet smaller when at rest. Also, the waddle’s length grows and diminishes when the turkey’s eating because it gets in the way. One of them swallowed it one day and had to cough it up. Fascinating. I know this is a grab bag of things, but I’ve been wanting and I thought it was high time to share.
I’m in Banff, Canada at the moment, but still connected to VPR and I’m hearing winter storm warnings. Going out like a lion, is March. I’m forgetting, did it really come in like a lamb? And did the groundhog really see its shadow? Vermont is much chillier than Banff, and we’re at a much higher altitude. Don’t know if that’s a sign of pride, but there it is. Wowee-zowee.
Happy April, everyone. Go ahead and be foolish. It’s good for all of us.
I’m in Banff, Canada at the moment, but still connected to VPR and I’m hearing winter storm warnings. Going out like a lion, is March. I’m forgetting, did it really come in like a lamb? And did the groundhog really see its shadow? Vermont is much chillier than Banff, and we’re at a much higher altitude. Don’t know if that’s a sign of pride, but there it is. Wowee-zowee.
Happy April, everyone. Go ahead and be foolish. It’s good for all of us.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Anything Green'll do!
Anything Green'll do
I've got green on the mind, in my dreams, in my wishes and yearnings - I'm even drinking out of a green Dirt Cowboy "to go" mug as I write. So it's grand that it's St. Patrick's Day and I can wallow in green all day. I'll wrap myself in swaths of green cotton and wool and stride around so nature gets the message. I'll give a good Irish keen for the end of winter, I'll mourn it's passing and set some reverse psychology in motion to hurry the change of season along. We've had the time change (a bit rushed for me), we've sprung ahead, the equinox is just around the corner. 50 degrees today! Yes! Let's melt that thick comforter of remaining snow. Let that sap flow, bring on mud season, bring it, bring it, in all it's slip slidey sloppy glory. I'm ready. I can't even remember green, can't quite imagine it on our hills out back, it's been a white, clean slate for so long. It's Time for some nature painting class. Time for bold color. C'mon Demeter, do your thing. Hey Persephone! Time to pop up out of the underworld for another Spring fling. Shamrock a little magic our way, show off, be shameless. We'll all dance a jig of gratitude and quaff a brew to you. It'll be grand, grand, grand.
I've got green on the mind, in my dreams, in my wishes and yearnings - I'm even drinking out of a green Dirt Cowboy "to go" mug as I write. So it's grand that it's St. Patrick's Day and I can wallow in green all day. I'll wrap myself in swaths of green cotton and wool and stride around so nature gets the message. I'll give a good Irish keen for the end of winter, I'll mourn it's passing and set some reverse psychology in motion to hurry the change of season along. We've had the time change (a bit rushed for me), we've sprung ahead, the equinox is just around the corner. 50 degrees today! Yes! Let's melt that thick comforter of remaining snow. Let that sap flow, bring on mud season, bring it, bring it, in all it's slip slidey sloppy glory. I'm ready. I can't even remember green, can't quite imagine it on our hills out back, it's been a white, clean slate for so long. It's Time for some nature painting class. Time for bold color. C'mon Demeter, do your thing. Hey Persephone! Time to pop up out of the underworld for another Spring fling. Shamrock a little magic our way, show off, be shameless. We'll all dance a jig of gratitude and quaff a brew to you. It'll be grand, grand, grand.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
I say JOY! (and other things)
I say Joy
I walked to the top of our rise this morning, the first time for months. The crust of the snow was solid and it shimmered like diamonds, like tiny constellations in a white sky. The geese were all in a flutter watching me trek by (translation: "Hey, what's going on?! What's this?! Hold it, hold it! Wait up! Well, let us join in some of this ... what do you call it ... fun?" And so on.) and I left them gabbling as I continued on up, up, up. Oh, it was glorious. Good to see that the snowmobilers have all stayed on the trail this year. Good to be up there alone with only bird song and the lonely baying of some hound dogs waaaay off in the distance. I reached the top and found myself smack dab in the middle of an expansive meditation, in communion with the Green Mountains off to the west. A quiet joy. And I send joy to my friends struggling with their various challenges. To Japan and the immeasureable hardship and heartache. To all of us being buffeted about in these unsettled, unsure, doubt and fear filled times. I say Joy. Joy when it's least appropriate or expected. Joy loud and soft, brazen and humble. Joy for the hell of it. Joy, joy, joy. Joy to the World.
It is now 1 in the afternoon and 40 degrees out, sunny, melting. I'm sure the snow's crust could not hold me now. The geese and chickens are out, enjoying the weather. We've had our first 2 goose eggs. Shmuel has been doing his siring duties overtime and it shows on our girls heads and necks. Poor babies, rode hard and put away wet. Daphne's pink head is bare of feathers on top and in back and at profile she looks as if she's recovering from some sort of brain surgery. She should be walking around in a white terry cloth robe, carting an IV pole beside her. When Shmuel has one of the girls other than Mary Ann down on the ground, wrenching their necks and heads down to keep them in place, Mary Ann bites them from the sidelines. Talk about piling on! If I had a referee's flag I'd be tossing it into the air constantly.
Soon all of the coops and pens will need cleaning out. Dry straw to replace all the thawing, soiled straw now there. A fit chore for the change of seasons.
I'm just back from a quick trip to Indiana, my home state, where I spent some quality time with family and friends and the last 10 miles driving home over dirt roads let me know that mud season is here, not the season of deep chasms of ruts yet, but the rivulets take your tires where they want the tires to go. A challenge of shimmying and swerving as if gremlins are taking over your car's navigational system.
Still, still it's invigorating and bracing and I'm thinking GREEN is on its way. Yours in mud season and joy! Be well.
I walked to the top of our rise this morning, the first time for months. The crust of the snow was solid and it shimmered like diamonds, like tiny constellations in a white sky. The geese were all in a flutter watching me trek by (translation: "Hey, what's going on?! What's this?! Hold it, hold it! Wait up! Well, let us join in some of this ... what do you call it ... fun?" And so on.) and I left them gabbling as I continued on up, up, up. Oh, it was glorious. Good to see that the snowmobilers have all stayed on the trail this year. Good to be up there alone with only bird song and the lonely baying of some hound dogs waaaay off in the distance. I reached the top and found myself smack dab in the middle of an expansive meditation, in communion with the Green Mountains off to the west. A quiet joy. And I send joy to my friends struggling with their various challenges. To Japan and the immeasureable hardship and heartache. To all of us being buffeted about in these unsettled, unsure, doubt and fear filled times. I say Joy. Joy when it's least appropriate or expected. Joy loud and soft, brazen and humble. Joy for the hell of it. Joy, joy, joy. Joy to the World.
It is now 1 in the afternoon and 40 degrees out, sunny, melting. I'm sure the snow's crust could not hold me now. The geese and chickens are out, enjoying the weather. We've had our first 2 goose eggs. Shmuel has been doing his siring duties overtime and it shows on our girls heads and necks. Poor babies, rode hard and put away wet. Daphne's pink head is bare of feathers on top and in back and at profile she looks as if she's recovering from some sort of brain surgery. She should be walking around in a white terry cloth robe, carting an IV pole beside her. When Shmuel has one of the girls other than Mary Ann down on the ground, wrenching their necks and heads down to keep them in place, Mary Ann bites them from the sidelines. Talk about piling on! If I had a referee's flag I'd be tossing it into the air constantly.
Soon all of the coops and pens will need cleaning out. Dry straw to replace all the thawing, soiled straw now there. A fit chore for the change of seasons.
I'm just back from a quick trip to Indiana, my home state, where I spent some quality time with family and friends and the last 10 miles driving home over dirt roads let me know that mud season is here, not the season of deep chasms of ruts yet, but the rivulets take your tires where they want the tires to go. A challenge of shimmying and swerving as if gremlins are taking over your car's navigational system.
Still, still it's invigorating and bracing and I'm thinking GREEN is on its way. Yours in mud season and joy! Be well.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Green blues
Snowing this morning, woke to it, after hearing staticy taps on our bedroom window most of the morning which I thought bespoke sleet, ice, not snow. But snow it was, snow it is, drifty AND heavy, beautiful and disheartening at the same time. I'm a little sick of white, it's enough already, especially after a two-day tease of rain and temperatures in the 40's. Snow. Snow. Snow. And it's still coming down. Astrid, black as the snow is white, seems mezmerized by the steady fall outside our windows. She stares, still. She's been hanging around me a lot the past fews days, crying if a door is shut to her, up on my lap, communicating in a brief, heartbreaking whine. I can't tell whether she needs the attention and warmth or she intuitively knows that I need it, an extra bit of grounding on my lap when writing or meditating. I'm glad she's around, she's a treasure beyond worth.
My heart is in a yearning ache, an ache for something indescribable. Spring, green, growing things, something other than dormancy. And yet, this is what is, this snow, this white, this blank slate, this staying indoors, this reflection, this time to myself, this combatting of impatience, this attempting to be present. This this.
And breathe.
There's a hush hum from the refridgerator, a muffled tick of a clock in another room somewhere, reminding me of the wind up alarm clock we used to wrap in a towel and lay beside orphaned kittens to fool them into thinking it was their mother's heartbeat; an infrequent and soft metal clank from the jotul wood stove as it stretches its kinks out. And what sound does the snow make? It's anti-sound, the opposite of sound, falling, falling, a muffler to all other sound. Sometimes you can hear it land, like fairy feet, on the already established drifts, but often that sound is upstaged - like this morning - by the howl of the wind in the treetops, its cold shiver and shake, a wild rumpus, showing off "I'm the wind! Do you hear me?!! I'M THE WIND!! I CAN UPROOT TREES! I RIP OUT BRANCHES! I WHIP LEAVES INTO A SWIRL TO BRIEFLY GIVE MY POWER SHAPE ! I AM INVISIBLE AND INVINCIBLE!!"
And the snow keeps falling. Steady, a slight slant, re-covering what had started appearing again through the melt the past few days - stumps, small trees, the three large granite slabs in back of our house that Richard can't stand. The pond's edges had melted yesterday, a promising sign. And the newly thinned grove of prodigious conifers beside the pond looks sharp and fresh, the sawdust of their recent spruce up scattered on the snow. Gone are several tall ghosts, left standing for years, an uprooted leaner gone too, as well as several gnarly old maples, some ash, 2 dead cherries. The downed wood will give us at least 2 1/2 cords of firewood for next year once Spring arrives and we get a chance to process, stack, and dry the downed trunks. We'll also go in and down more saplings, open up the grove even more, and, most importantly, put a standing pipe in to lower the level of our pond and cut off constant use of our pond's over flow which, channel-less, deltas out among the tall trees and jeopardizes their future. The standing pipe out flow will form a stream around which we can landscape, bridge, plant, who knows. And that stream bed and overflow area, when fully dried, can be dug out more fully with our neighbor Dale's nifty and compact excavator later this summer. Also in the works will be planting some more trees, probably spruce, along the fence row past the pasture on the other side of the tall grove of trees. Richard also wants to figure a use for that pasture - grazing for goats, sheep, or a goose raising area. All green endeavors.
That's it. Green seems so far away. Unimaginable. Leaves? Grass? Plants? What are you talking about? Seasons. All to be embraced, accepted, sometimes white knuckled. It's what is. Still. And the green in the green mountain state is a long time coming. End of April usually. "Now are the times that try men's souls." Mine anyway. Not a revolutionary thought as originally intended by Mr. Paine, but it certainly has a Valley Forge look to things outside.
Think Green. Be well. Delight in something today.
My heart is in a yearning ache, an ache for something indescribable. Spring, green, growing things, something other than dormancy. And yet, this is what is, this snow, this white, this blank slate, this staying indoors, this reflection, this time to myself, this combatting of impatience, this attempting to be present. This this.
And breathe.
There's a hush hum from the refridgerator, a muffled tick of a clock in another room somewhere, reminding me of the wind up alarm clock we used to wrap in a towel and lay beside orphaned kittens to fool them into thinking it was their mother's heartbeat; an infrequent and soft metal clank from the jotul wood stove as it stretches its kinks out. And what sound does the snow make? It's anti-sound, the opposite of sound, falling, falling, a muffler to all other sound. Sometimes you can hear it land, like fairy feet, on the already established drifts, but often that sound is upstaged - like this morning - by the howl of the wind in the treetops, its cold shiver and shake, a wild rumpus, showing off "I'm the wind! Do you hear me?!! I'M THE WIND!! I CAN UPROOT TREES! I RIP OUT BRANCHES! I WHIP LEAVES INTO A SWIRL TO BRIEFLY GIVE MY POWER SHAPE ! I AM INVISIBLE AND INVINCIBLE!!"
And the snow keeps falling. Steady, a slight slant, re-covering what had started appearing again through the melt the past few days - stumps, small trees, the three large granite slabs in back of our house that Richard can't stand. The pond's edges had melted yesterday, a promising sign. And the newly thinned grove of prodigious conifers beside the pond looks sharp and fresh, the sawdust of their recent spruce up scattered on the snow. Gone are several tall ghosts, left standing for years, an uprooted leaner gone too, as well as several gnarly old maples, some ash, 2 dead cherries. The downed wood will give us at least 2 1/2 cords of firewood for next year once Spring arrives and we get a chance to process, stack, and dry the downed trunks. We'll also go in and down more saplings, open up the grove even more, and, most importantly, put a standing pipe in to lower the level of our pond and cut off constant use of our pond's over flow which, channel-less, deltas out among the tall trees and jeopardizes their future. The standing pipe out flow will form a stream around which we can landscape, bridge, plant, who knows. And that stream bed and overflow area, when fully dried, can be dug out more fully with our neighbor Dale's nifty and compact excavator later this summer. Also in the works will be planting some more trees, probably spruce, along the fence row past the pasture on the other side of the tall grove of trees. Richard also wants to figure a use for that pasture - grazing for goats, sheep, or a goose raising area. All green endeavors.
That's it. Green seems so far away. Unimaginable. Leaves? Grass? Plants? What are you talking about? Seasons. All to be embraced, accepted, sometimes white knuckled. It's what is. Still. And the green in the green mountain state is a long time coming. End of April usually. "Now are the times that try men's souls." Mine anyway. Not a revolutionary thought as originally intended by Mr. Paine, but it certainly has a Valley Forge look to things outside.
Think Green. Be well. Delight in something today.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The First Day of March
The first day of March, Town Meeting Day in most New England towns and though the temperature is still in the 20's the sun is melting the snow on the roads, pooling up great inland seas, giving birth to ruts, and reminding us that not only is Spring just around the corner, but so is mud season. The ole Subaru Outback shimmied and slid and sloshed it's way around the roads and survived unscathed. The sugar shacks are stoking up, saps being gathered into galvanized pails or through those ugly, life support plastic tubes, and soon trucks will be transporting the white nectar up and down the road to be boiled down to lovely, multi-colored syrups. Yum. The sun is bright and hopeful, giving the land and the snow and Shmuel (most specifically Shmuel as I peer out the back windows) a promising, self satisfied glow.
Speaking of Shmuel, he's been going through a transformation of late which I think is part of the whole siring cycle. The other day a friend came by to bid on some tree removal over by our pond and he let his 3 year old dog out for a good run. The dog has a lot of tearing about puppy energy in him and it was only a matter of time until his curiosity got the best of him and he ventured up to give the geese a look see. Now the geese are pretty well penned up, no one can get in and they can't get out. The dog trotted up to their pen and Shmuel, after getting the girls to the back of the pen, came out like a Chinese Warlord, wings spread high and wide and in the midst of this display a fierce, hissing head. Very impressive. Great theatre. And it did the trick. The dog high tailed it away in short order. I was very proud. But Shmuel gave me a bit of that Karate Kid display just about an hour ago when I went up to fill their grower pellet feed can and clean their pen. Egg laying is going to be taking place very soon now and this has to be the grand protector coming out in him. I've been catching him hopping on the girls. There will be a squawk and stir from the pen and I rush to make sure a predator's not about and there's Shmuel on top of someone - can't make out who - wrenching their neck into position with his beak and then mounting them like some Wagnerian Goose Prince. It's very weird and clumsy and wonderful, all at the same time. I'm not sure whether or not the 2 times I've seen him/them "do it" that it's been successful, but the girl gets up from being flattened and flaps her wings. Does that mean "it was good for me" in goose? I guess.
I'm gonna grab a coffee and take a little walk in the slowly dying light before shepherding the turkeys back to their pen. Be of good cheer!!
Speaking of Shmuel, he's been going through a transformation of late which I think is part of the whole siring cycle. The other day a friend came by to bid on some tree removal over by our pond and he let his 3 year old dog out for a good run. The dog has a lot of tearing about puppy energy in him and it was only a matter of time until his curiosity got the best of him and he ventured up to give the geese a look see. Now the geese are pretty well penned up, no one can get in and they can't get out. The dog trotted up to their pen and Shmuel, after getting the girls to the back of the pen, came out like a Chinese Warlord, wings spread high and wide and in the midst of this display a fierce, hissing head. Very impressive. Great theatre. And it did the trick. The dog high tailed it away in short order. I was very proud. But Shmuel gave me a bit of that Karate Kid display just about an hour ago when I went up to fill their grower pellet feed can and clean their pen. Egg laying is going to be taking place very soon now and this has to be the grand protector coming out in him. I've been catching him hopping on the girls. There will be a squawk and stir from the pen and I rush to make sure a predator's not about and there's Shmuel on top of someone - can't make out who - wrenching their neck into position with his beak and then mounting them like some Wagnerian Goose Prince. It's very weird and clumsy and wonderful, all at the same time. I'm not sure whether or not the 2 times I've seen him/them "do it" that it's been successful, but the girl gets up from being flattened and flaps her wings. Does that mean "it was good for me" in goose? I guess.
I'm gonna grab a coffee and take a little walk in the slowly dying light before shepherding the turkeys back to their pen. Be of good cheer!!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Oscar Night in Montpelier
I'm sitting at our kitchen table listening to VPR, sipping coffee while our hefty, yet loving Maine Coon, Delilah, spreads wide on my lap. My legs are slowly going to sleep. She's cutting off circulation to some vital part of my body, but I haven't the heart to scoot her on. She's purring up a storm and when I look down at her she looks back at me with a slightly drugged haze in her eyes. She's in ecstacy. Or she's taken Ecstacy. If I bring my chin close to her face she gives me a warm, emory board lick, so that makes it all fine. She can stay.
The other animals are all watered and fed and cleaned up after. It's sleet/snowing outside, snare drumming the back windows whenever the wind picks up. There's a fine beech wood fire to my right cozying up the indoors.
I went to the Oscars last night at the Savoy Theatre in Montpelier. No kleig lights, no paparazzi, but there was a red carpet downstairs where a bobbed blue haired fellow in a light blue tux commented on what everyone was wearing. I had been told to show up an hour before the doors opened at 7 by Donald Rae, the head of the upcoming Green Mountain Film Festival (The Festival is one of my 100 reasons for loving living in Vermont!), because inside sources had told them there would be a line and seating was limited (50 seats - 1 couch, 8 tall bar stools, 12 theatre seats, and the rest black bean bag chairs). Well, let's just say "a line" is a relative term. The ceremony was downstairs in what had been until recently the video store (with an impressively large library) and now has been transformed to a smaller theatre with a bar, very den-like and comfortable. It was a good time.
But I've got to backtrack for one of these uncanny and wonderful Vermont connections that continue to keep cropping up. When I got to the theatre at 6, there was no line at all. Just me, Donald, and Sonia, Donald's wife, so we retired to the Green Mountain Film Festival offices, ideally located just above the theatre, and over a glass of wine discussed the upcoming festival while keeping an ear out to any line forming sounds from below. (None were forthcoming.) Somewhere in the discussion of films being screened we spoke of various themes cropping up this year, one of which is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Now growing up I had been a history nerd, my particular area of expertise, passion and undying love was anything having to do with the American Civil War. We visited battlefields, I collected paraphernalia, antiques, newspapers. I remember going down to our library and checking out the 20 reel silent film "Birth of a Nation" and screening it on our home movie projector and screen. Donald said he'd had a rich collection of Civil War material to choose from, early and impressive silent films he offered to loan me in the near future. And that's when it came to me. There had been a wonderful Civil War movie called "The Raid" starring Van Heflin, made in the '50's sometime, about the confederate raid on St. Albans, VT. I'd happened upon it on some late movie program years and years ago, probably in the '60's growing up in Indiana, and I hadn't seen it since. I had just begun telling Donald about the movie when he interrupted me with:
"We're showing "The Raid" on Sunday, March 20th."
I couldn't believe it! It made me so happy! Like hearing a long lost friend was coming to visit! But I had to ground myself with a little reality.
'Oh, it must be such a B movie. I've probably romanticized it terribly.'
"It's quite good, actually," Donald countered. "Strong performances, good taut story. Holds up extremely well."
Well, blow me down.
I can't wait. I'm pretty sure Lee Marvin's in it too. Or Richard Boone. Wait, both of them are.
I just accessed Green Mountain's site for more info -- There's a great schedule of films this year!! - - and I see that "The Raid" was made in the year of my birth, 1954, and also stars a young Anne Bancroft. I'm so jazzed. The Civil War and Vermont. All together.
Now that I think about it the entire evening was about reunion last night. Coming back together with the movie "The Raid" (About the Civil War which was reunifying the nation. That's a reunion too, don't you think? Okay, I'll drop it.) Watching the Oscars, broadcast from my old home, and where Richard is visiting. Feeling distant and close to the event, to movies, to all of the places and times of my life. Now and then all blended, a constant reunion, reunifying. I like it. Life feels like a lot of movies strung together. It's nice to pop up on a screen every once and awhile and see if they're really the way we remember them, if we have romanticized them, or if it's better than we're giving it credit. Memory serves. A good night.
The other animals are all watered and fed and cleaned up after. It's sleet/snowing outside, snare drumming the back windows whenever the wind picks up. There's a fine beech wood fire to my right cozying up the indoors.
I went to the Oscars last night at the Savoy Theatre in Montpelier. No kleig lights, no paparazzi, but there was a red carpet downstairs where a bobbed blue haired fellow in a light blue tux commented on what everyone was wearing. I had been told to show up an hour before the doors opened at 7 by Donald Rae, the head of the upcoming Green Mountain Film Festival (The Festival is one of my 100 reasons for loving living in Vermont!), because inside sources had told them there would be a line and seating was limited (50 seats - 1 couch, 8 tall bar stools, 12 theatre seats, and the rest black bean bag chairs). Well, let's just say "a line" is a relative term. The ceremony was downstairs in what had been until recently the video store (with an impressively large library) and now has been transformed to a smaller theatre with a bar, very den-like and comfortable. It was a good time.
But I've got to backtrack for one of these uncanny and wonderful Vermont connections that continue to keep cropping up. When I got to the theatre at 6, there was no line at all. Just me, Donald, and Sonia, Donald's wife, so we retired to the Green Mountain Film Festival offices, ideally located just above the theatre, and over a glass of wine discussed the upcoming festival while keeping an ear out to any line forming sounds from below. (None were forthcoming.) Somewhere in the discussion of films being screened we spoke of various themes cropping up this year, one of which is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Now growing up I had been a history nerd, my particular area of expertise, passion and undying love was anything having to do with the American Civil War. We visited battlefields, I collected paraphernalia, antiques, newspapers. I remember going down to our library and checking out the 20 reel silent film "Birth of a Nation" and screening it on our home movie projector and screen. Donald said he'd had a rich collection of Civil War material to choose from, early and impressive silent films he offered to loan me in the near future. And that's when it came to me. There had been a wonderful Civil War movie called "The Raid" starring Van Heflin, made in the '50's sometime, about the confederate raid on St. Albans, VT. I'd happened upon it on some late movie program years and years ago, probably in the '60's growing up in Indiana, and I hadn't seen it since. I had just begun telling Donald about the movie when he interrupted me with:
"We're showing "The Raid" on Sunday, March 20th."
I couldn't believe it! It made me so happy! Like hearing a long lost friend was coming to visit! But I had to ground myself with a little reality.
'Oh, it must be such a B movie. I've probably romanticized it terribly.'
"It's quite good, actually," Donald countered. "Strong performances, good taut story. Holds up extremely well."
Well, blow me down.
I can't wait. I'm pretty sure Lee Marvin's in it too. Or Richard Boone. Wait, both of them are.
I just accessed Green Mountain's site for more info -- There's a great schedule of films this year!! - - and I see that "The Raid" was made in the year of my birth, 1954, and also stars a young Anne Bancroft. I'm so jazzed. The Civil War and Vermont. All together.
Now that I think about it the entire evening was about reunion last night. Coming back together with the movie "The Raid" (About the Civil War which was reunifying the nation. That's a reunion too, don't you think? Okay, I'll drop it.) Watching the Oscars, broadcast from my old home, and where Richard is visiting. Feeling distant and close to the event, to movies, to all of the places and times of my life. Now and then all blended, a constant reunion, reunifying. I like it. Life feels like a lot of movies strung together. It's nice to pop up on a screen every once and awhile and see if they're really the way we remember them, if we have romanticized them, or if it's better than we're giving it credit. Memory serves. A good night.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Snowy Day Shots
Here are a few shots of a snowy day at the old Vermont homestead. I let the turkeys out for a stretch and, as you can see, Tom was in full feather, his face flushed purple, protecting his babes. You can make Shumuel off in the distance in his coop, watching over his harum. And there are a few shots of the snowy chicken coops with our neighbor Royce's barn in the distance. That's where the turkeys reside, on the second floor.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Sing a song of praises!
Back in from morning chores. A reminder, I'm taking over Richard's chore run while he's in southern California, so the various birds and I have a much deeper relationship than we usually do. We're not just passing in the hall, but we're engaging in conversations in depth with topics ranging from feed grade to feces freezing (a decided coup in winter) to territorialness or as Shmuel's behavior if translated would say: "Get the fuck out of our house!" It's beautiful out today, clear, a foot of new fallen snow shimmering on the surface of things. Gives the day a sparkle.
It's high time for some more reasons I love living here. I don't really know exactly where we are on the 100 reasons list, but let's say 46:
46) Hardwicke, Vermont. Just getting to know a little about this town that has turned itself around from derelict status to being a model for the way we look at food. Bringing back individual responsibility, a local focus, a respect and honoring of the land, cutting back our addiction to fossil fuels, all with an eye on entrepreneurship and extending these practices out to the common man. Read "The Town That Food Saved" very inspiring stuff. Makes me proud to be a Vermonter.
47) Richard. My husband. A proud Vermonter himself. Though I planted the seed to move here, he was the one that followed the dream with blazing speed, taking the lead, listening to his intuition, and now with a whole flock of various birds, coops he's designed and built, an array of new knowledge surrounding the care of his aviary, being a member of the town planning board, active in many varied and creative pursuits around the area, Richard has transformed himself into a Vermonter of the highest order, involved, proud, and knowledgeable. And loved by me.
48) High Mowing Seeds. Our local organic seed company. Very near Hardwicke. Grand catalogues, thorough instructions and stats all fueled by a firm belief in the larger picture, the good that they're doing. Very inspired and inspiring. Another reason I'm proud to be a Vermonter.
49) Single Payer Health Care. Granted, it's just in the discussion stage right now, but at least there's a discussion, there's an aim. I'm proud of Governor Shumlin for making this a priority. Vermont once more can lead the way - as they did with same sex marriage - to make our lives richer, more equitable. We can be the model that makes clear that Single Payer is the best way to go. Health Care is everyone's right. Added to that, I have a personal feeling that individual responsibility needs to be factored into this. Single Payer should not be a dependency relationship. When it comes to taking care of one's own body and one's health, the main responsibility should be ours by how we eat, how much, how we treat our body, how we honor it. I feel issues like obesity are many times indulgent individual issues whose "cure" should not be taken on by any insurance deal. I'm off my soap box now.
50) Newbury road care. I love our road crew. The way they tend and groom our roads is exceptional. I see our tax money at work. Especially impressive on our back roads in the boonies. High thumbs up.
51) VPR Both classical and news. I'm proud to be a contributor and listener.
52) Local libraries. I am absolutely blown away by the libraries in small towns in Vermont. I had expected there to be stacks and stacks of books from the nineteenth century, but the shelves are well stocked with current releases. They are rich, rich boons to every community, many times offering extra-curricular activities like book groups, sometimes facilitated by a member of the Vermont Department of the Humanities, and chock full of vital, curious, and passionate people. Terrific!
53) A Young Elder. This is a model I've experienced here. Maybe it's New England stock, but whatever the reason, I'm so fond of the 70 and above crowd here, all very engaged in life, wanting to learn more, staying active and vital and ALIVE in so many ways. They seem to have a firm and honored place in people's hearts and minds here and it's inspired a glow in the path ahead for me.
Have a great day!!
It's high time for some more reasons I love living here. I don't really know exactly where we are on the 100 reasons list, but let's say 46:
46) Hardwicke, Vermont. Just getting to know a little about this town that has turned itself around from derelict status to being a model for the way we look at food. Bringing back individual responsibility, a local focus, a respect and honoring of the land, cutting back our addiction to fossil fuels, all with an eye on entrepreneurship and extending these practices out to the common man. Read "The Town That Food Saved" very inspiring stuff. Makes me proud to be a Vermonter.
47) Richard. My husband. A proud Vermonter himself. Though I planted the seed to move here, he was the one that followed the dream with blazing speed, taking the lead, listening to his intuition, and now with a whole flock of various birds, coops he's designed and built, an array of new knowledge surrounding the care of his aviary, being a member of the town planning board, active in many varied and creative pursuits around the area, Richard has transformed himself into a Vermonter of the highest order, involved, proud, and knowledgeable. And loved by me.
48) High Mowing Seeds. Our local organic seed company. Very near Hardwicke. Grand catalogues, thorough instructions and stats all fueled by a firm belief in the larger picture, the good that they're doing. Very inspired and inspiring. Another reason I'm proud to be a Vermonter.
49) Single Payer Health Care. Granted, it's just in the discussion stage right now, but at least there's a discussion, there's an aim. I'm proud of Governor Shumlin for making this a priority. Vermont once more can lead the way - as they did with same sex marriage - to make our lives richer, more equitable. We can be the model that makes clear that Single Payer is the best way to go. Health Care is everyone's right. Added to that, I have a personal feeling that individual responsibility needs to be factored into this. Single Payer should not be a dependency relationship. When it comes to taking care of one's own body and one's health, the main responsibility should be ours by how we eat, how much, how we treat our body, how we honor it. I feel issues like obesity are many times indulgent individual issues whose "cure" should not be taken on by any insurance deal. I'm off my soap box now.
50) Newbury road care. I love our road crew. The way they tend and groom our roads is exceptional. I see our tax money at work. Especially impressive on our back roads in the boonies. High thumbs up.
51) VPR Both classical and news. I'm proud to be a contributor and listener.
52) Local libraries. I am absolutely blown away by the libraries in small towns in Vermont. I had expected there to be stacks and stacks of books from the nineteenth century, but the shelves are well stocked with current releases. They are rich, rich boons to every community, many times offering extra-curricular activities like book groups, sometimes facilitated by a member of the Vermont Department of the Humanities, and chock full of vital, curious, and passionate people. Terrific!
53) A Young Elder. This is a model I've experienced here. Maybe it's New England stock, but whatever the reason, I'm so fond of the 70 and above crowd here, all very engaged in life, wanting to learn more, staying active and vital and ALIVE in so many ways. They seem to have a firm and honored place in people's hearts and minds here and it's inspired a glow in the path ahead for me.
Have a great day!!
Monday, February 21, 2011
With Feathers
"What do you think you're doing?!"
"Why I never!"
"Who do you think you are!!!"
Just a sampling of the hum of effrontery I get when I reach below the feathered, nether regions of our hens and search through the warm straw for an egg (or 2 or 5. They've been laying really well lately.) Some peck, some squawk and scatter, a few take it in stride, but no measure of "thank you" or "you're beautiful" from me seems to mollify them. It's an intrusion. And I understand. They're trapped, literally cooped up, no where to go. Today I took an extra measure of appreciation when I went out to the coops to visit them. Why? I'll tell you later. I stood and watched, tip-toed about when I had to get to gathering.
We have a hen inside our utility room, Jasmine, I think, whose tending to 2 new chicks. They're residing temporarily inside a plastic pet carrying case, and about once a day, maybe every other day if one is lucky, Jasmine "messes" her cage and you have to extract the chicks and place them in a way station (not too hard) and then take Jasmine out (for some reason this was tricky today) and clean her cage. The smell was so potent it made me squint. Well, she'd been savin' it up, sitting there all day. I cleaned the cage, quick, laced the air with a few pine shavings, and put them back in. It's incredible when you think about it. Her stillness in there. A swami would be envious. Chicken meditation. The assuring clucks. Richard goes in there and sits on the stool in front of the cage and watches like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons, a study in joy. The Chicken Channel. I tried it a little today and sure enough the chicks came out for a peak, one chirping it's way around the backside of his mother and then standing and studying me, taking me in, while the other surfaced right in the middle of a black sea of feathers. Jasmine's a surrogate mom, black feathered, sweet as can be, and the chicks are pale yellow. So when the one chick kept bobbing up and down for a look see there was no mistaking where she was.
I just took the geese up some celery and cilantro, our stores of old lettuce and cabbage from a local market that we usually have on hand having run low. Loved it. All posturing and neck lowering bravado from Shmuel disappears when he sees that I have some leafy grub. Suddenly we're best friends. Though I can't help thinking that the way he chomps into a stalk of celery is probably how he'd like to be chomping into my finger. Oh, he's a good gander!!
With the warm weather the other day, we let the turkeys and the geese out to roam around. Well our Tom and Shmuel had a bit of a showdown in our graveled parking area. Both had their attendant ladies at hand watching on. I didn't witness it first hand, but Richard told me our Tom puffed out his chest feathers and showed the whole deck of cards behind and went after Shmuel like a possessed Ninja warrior. Shmuel didn't know what hit him. No wounds, unless you count his pride. I came out just after the battle and tried to offer Shmuel some salutary savoy cabbage, but he just gave it a forlorn sniff and walked back up the snow bank with one of his daughters to the safety of their coop. Poor guy. I didn't want his spirit to be broken. And I think he shook it off. He got to the top of the slope and called out to the 2 remaining girls, a proud, protective bray, to come home, to safety. Mary Ann, his mate, flew up right away, while Daphne bothered around, taking her good sweet time. It was good to see them all up in their place together, putting the turkey encounter behind them. He's a good gander!
I was away in NYC over the weekend. It was supposed to be a one-day there, one-day back affair, but the winds were so high down there on Saturday, topping off at 55 mph, that a Cape Air 9 seat Cessena hadn't a chance of taking off. So I went back into town, taking in the drop of temperature from 66 on Friday to 20 on Saturday. Roller coaster. Richard said he was out tending the chickens when there arose such a racket at the goose pen. He ran out and peered up and saw Shmuel mounting Mary Ann to the shock and awe of their 2 daughters. They didn't know WHAT was going on. This is yet another thing I haven't witnessed first hand, but by Richard's account, it's a clumsy affair, with Shmuel hefting himself up onto a flattened goose and then situating himself just right. I trust this experience of seeing their parents "doing it" doesn't traumatize the girls for life. Wait'll Shmuel starts mounting them. The therapy bills. Oy!
I've got poultry on the mind today because Richard's leaving for 4 or 5 days at the end of the week and I will be taking over the full duties of care. After various conversations about this upcoming event I went out with a heightened awareness to their coops this morning. Richard takes great pride in them. He's set a structure for the beginning of each day which revolves around their care. He loves it, he loves them. It gives a foundation to his life here. I have come to an appreciation - and yes, love - second hand. Over our 4 years here there have been times I've grumbled about the mess and the havoc they create, I've sought to control aspects of it all, but the plus column of their being a part of our lives far outweighs the minuses. It continues to teach me a lot about myself. So I look forward to this week. I'll miss Richard. Of course. And if work unexpectedly carries me away, I have it covered. But it'll be me and the cats and the birds cooped up together for a few days.
And making the best of it.
"Why I never!"
"Who do you think you are!!!"
Just a sampling of the hum of effrontery I get when I reach below the feathered, nether regions of our hens and search through the warm straw for an egg (or 2 or 5. They've been laying really well lately.) Some peck, some squawk and scatter, a few take it in stride, but no measure of "thank you" or "you're beautiful" from me seems to mollify them. It's an intrusion. And I understand. They're trapped, literally cooped up, no where to go. Today I took an extra measure of appreciation when I went out to the coops to visit them. Why? I'll tell you later. I stood and watched, tip-toed about when I had to get to gathering.
We have a hen inside our utility room, Jasmine, I think, whose tending to 2 new chicks. They're residing temporarily inside a plastic pet carrying case, and about once a day, maybe every other day if one is lucky, Jasmine "messes" her cage and you have to extract the chicks and place them in a way station (not too hard) and then take Jasmine out (for some reason this was tricky today) and clean her cage. The smell was so potent it made me squint. Well, she'd been savin' it up, sitting there all day. I cleaned the cage, quick, laced the air with a few pine shavings, and put them back in. It's incredible when you think about it. Her stillness in there. A swami would be envious. Chicken meditation. The assuring clucks. Richard goes in there and sits on the stool in front of the cage and watches like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons, a study in joy. The Chicken Channel. I tried it a little today and sure enough the chicks came out for a peak, one chirping it's way around the backside of his mother and then standing and studying me, taking me in, while the other surfaced right in the middle of a black sea of feathers. Jasmine's a surrogate mom, black feathered, sweet as can be, and the chicks are pale yellow. So when the one chick kept bobbing up and down for a look see there was no mistaking where she was.
I just took the geese up some celery and cilantro, our stores of old lettuce and cabbage from a local market that we usually have on hand having run low. Loved it. All posturing and neck lowering bravado from Shmuel disappears when he sees that I have some leafy grub. Suddenly we're best friends. Though I can't help thinking that the way he chomps into a stalk of celery is probably how he'd like to be chomping into my finger. Oh, he's a good gander!!
With the warm weather the other day, we let the turkeys and the geese out to roam around. Well our Tom and Shmuel had a bit of a showdown in our graveled parking area. Both had their attendant ladies at hand watching on. I didn't witness it first hand, but Richard told me our Tom puffed out his chest feathers and showed the whole deck of cards behind and went after Shmuel like a possessed Ninja warrior. Shmuel didn't know what hit him. No wounds, unless you count his pride. I came out just after the battle and tried to offer Shmuel some salutary savoy cabbage, but he just gave it a forlorn sniff and walked back up the snow bank with one of his daughters to the safety of their coop. Poor guy. I didn't want his spirit to be broken. And I think he shook it off. He got to the top of the slope and called out to the 2 remaining girls, a proud, protective bray, to come home, to safety. Mary Ann, his mate, flew up right away, while Daphne bothered around, taking her good sweet time. It was good to see them all up in their place together, putting the turkey encounter behind them. He's a good gander!
I was away in NYC over the weekend. It was supposed to be a one-day there, one-day back affair, but the winds were so high down there on Saturday, topping off at 55 mph, that a Cape Air 9 seat Cessena hadn't a chance of taking off. So I went back into town, taking in the drop of temperature from 66 on Friday to 20 on Saturday. Roller coaster. Richard said he was out tending the chickens when there arose such a racket at the goose pen. He ran out and peered up and saw Shmuel mounting Mary Ann to the shock and awe of their 2 daughters. They didn't know WHAT was going on. This is yet another thing I haven't witnessed first hand, but by Richard's account, it's a clumsy affair, with Shmuel hefting himself up onto a flattened goose and then situating himself just right. I trust this experience of seeing their parents "doing it" doesn't traumatize the girls for life. Wait'll Shmuel starts mounting them. The therapy bills. Oy!
I've got poultry on the mind today because Richard's leaving for 4 or 5 days at the end of the week and I will be taking over the full duties of care. After various conversations about this upcoming event I went out with a heightened awareness to their coops this morning. Richard takes great pride in them. He's set a structure for the beginning of each day which revolves around their care. He loves it, he loves them. It gives a foundation to his life here. I have come to an appreciation - and yes, love - second hand. Over our 4 years here there have been times I've grumbled about the mess and the havoc they create, I've sought to control aspects of it all, but the plus column of their being a part of our lives far outweighs the minuses. It continues to teach me a lot about myself. So I look forward to this week. I'll miss Richard. Of course. And if work unexpectedly carries me away, I have it covered. But it'll be me and the cats and the birds cooped up together for a few days.
And making the best of it.
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