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.
Monday, November 28, 2011
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!
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