March. More Like Itself
(This first part was written 2 days ago.)
It’s March again. 15 degrees this morning. All the water frozen in the coops, and up in the goose pen there was a 4 inch solid crust of ice on top of the 5 gallon water bucket. With last week’s weather up in the high 70’s, low 80’s it was the perfect time to reel in all the extension cords that had powered water heaters and heat bulbs etcetera, etcetera. Not so anymore. I’m just glad I held back on my urge to plant lettuce and snap peas and kale. I wonder what this has done to the tender fright wig blossoms on the young maples that were turning the forest pinkish red? “They’re toast,” a friend said at a party this weekend when we were speculating on the cold snaps that were sure to return. Richard’s been up to the pens and coops this morning Gunga Din-ing his cute little butt off, and contending with the ever cantankerous Shmuel who guards his harum with a flurry of fluffed up feathers, then a low snake approach of his neck, and a final sidelong glare, those wild blue eyes in a field of white feathers looking like Moby Dick’s, that warns of menace and mayhem should Richard step foot in the pen. I watched all of this from the safety of a kitchen window, a slight sore throat keeping me indoors. It was quite entertaining. And believe me, I’ve experienced every version of this behavior. Last week with pugs around, Shmuel pulled out the full Chinese New Year dragon routine with wings up Karate Kid fashion and a terrifying serpent head in the center, hissing for all get out. It’s very impressive theatre. And when it comes right down to it, that’s all he’s got as a defense strategy - theatre. Theatre and a good bite or two.
There’ve been 2 pair of Canada Geese battling for supremecy over our pond. Not the most ideal nesting place, though, since it’s still frozen. But last week with the warm weather, there were caws and aerial combat, chases, complaints, and through it all, I was so impressed by the calm of our three. Unlike years past, they didn’t look upset at all. The were like Switzerland, wisely sitting it out, swaddled in neutrality. I was pulling for the smaller, sweeter pair of Canada Geese to win out, but size seems to matter in this battle. Too bad, because the bigger pair seem more contrary and combative which won’t bode well if our geese ever want to take a swim. More will be revealed.
Complete change of subject.
Our statehouse. Okay, Vermont’s governmental set-up has to rank as one more of the reasons I love living here. Let’s say it’s reason 60. I’m still a novice when it comes to knowing the inner workings and all the ins and outs available, but upon first tour, it’s the paradigm of a people’s government. The legislature is in session now and topping the bill is the health care debate with Governor Shumlin’s hope that he’ll be able to forge, with the Senate and the House, a successful path to Vermont being the first state in the union to have Single Payer coverage for everyone in the state. Deb Richter, a new friend of mine, former family care physician and now full time advocate for Single Pay, shepherded me through the halls of the statehouse, part tour, part primer.
“They don’t have any offices.”
‘Who?’
“Any of the legislators.”
A pause to let this sink in.
‘So where do they do their work?’
“Deals are hammered out in the cafeteria. You’ll see at lunch. So if you want to talk something over with a legislator, you can go right up to him at lunch. And not only that, you have the right as a citizen to sit in on any meeting in any office. There is full transparency here.”
This was incredible to me. It had the ring of something unique and special, the resonating original intent of the founding fathers perhaps. Of course, it all depends on an educated populace that is interested enough to take part in their government to keep that original intent alive. And I admit that interest/duty/calling has been hibernating in me. There’s a stirring inside me, though, call it Spring, call it March going out like a lion, call it an awakening, I’m not really clear, but I’m following it, heeding its call. I’m interested in all this, there’s an excitement at being a student, in learning, aiming for expertise, intending that, especially when it comes to health care. Something about that speaks deeply to me.
My first tour continued, first day at school. Deb popped me into the main sessions of both the house and the senate (the senate chamber is very cozy, like Williamsburg, Virginia in miniature) where we saw citizens sitting in the back, observing the proceedings, hooray for them. And then we walked right into a small office where a “private” meeting of senators was being given a précis of the proposed set-up of the insurance exchange through Green Mountain Care that would be a forerunner to Single Payer Care. There were other citizens at the edges of the room, listening in. We were all treated like guests, the same handout that had been given to the senators was also passed out to us. I loved it. And I love that Vermont, little old Vermont, could very well be the first state to have the courage and wherewithal to try Single Pay. It’s doable. With a passionate Governor at the helm, it’s doeable. (I would meet Governor Shumlin later in the day. He seemed a consummate politician, present, alert, bright, making me seem like his full attention was on me for that moment even though he was in the midst of a reception for a major check having been given to the state for Hurricane Irene rebuilding.)
This morning
Since the tour the other day, I’ve embarked on a crash course about Single Pay. The idea of Single Pay has always intrigued me, it’s always seemed like the best choice, otherwise why would people be so LOUDLY against it, rolling out the old charges of socialism. That’s my first clue that this must be something really good for the common man. So I’ve been boning up on it. Deb and her husband Terry Doran have written 2 terrific books about health care in Vermont and I’m devouring Wendell Potter’s terrificly true “Deadly Spin” about his background as a senior executive and spinmeister for Humana and CIGNA before becoming a whistleblower and major advocate for Single Pay. I love unlikely heroes. You go, Wendell. More to be revealed. Very exciting.
Back to the geese.
I’m once again at the kitchen window, standing and typing on my Macbook pro. The geese are right outside the window, congregating around a 5 gallon white bucket filled with water. I love watching them. Shmuel submerges his neck, diving so deep into the bucket and then back out again. I can tell he’s so missing the pond because he tries to climb into the bucket, reaching his big orange feet up the sides of the bucket, trying to gain purchase, taking part in some magical thinking that maybe if he dives his neck deep enough in this water it will turn into pond. He’s such a water fowl. It’s who he is. So wonderful observing creatures be completely who they are.
Dear Felicity just gave a little cry. She’s been so game about her injury. It’s getting better, but she’ll probably always have a limp, always a little Long John Silver to her get along. Shmuel and Mary Ann leave her on her own a lot of the time, wandering away from her, which is sad to see. She just noticed they were gone – that’s what brought her cry, a plaintive “where are you?”, they’re flock birds after all – and she’s hobbled over to where they are, chewing grass along the way. She’ll get there and sit for awhile, maybe because of the pain, who knows. I mean, what is pain to her? Just a piece of what her life is now, not necessarily a setback, just what is. Tough it out.
Oh, 2 male Canada Geese are still battling it out up on the hill, both families still waiting for the pond to thaw and Spring to come.
I think I’ll plant some seeds inside today.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Spring News in Brief
EXTRA! This Just In!!
Felicity is still limping, but game about her recovery. Her balance is extraordinary. Literal, physical balance. She’s posing on one leg most of the time, tenderly touching earth with the other as if she’s checking the temperature of the soil. Heal! Heal!!
Temperatures are in the high 70’s today.
The skies have been filled with the calls of Canada geese in search of unfrozen ponds on which to nest. We have 4 Canada Geese visiting us, assessing the layout of our place. One pair arrived yesterday, another pair joined them this morning. We’re speculating whether or not they are part of the family from last year. All of them are on the smallish side. That call of theirs has a gulpy foreboding sound. I’m biased of course because I have an audio recall from last season when that sound was a harbinger of a coming attack aimed at our geese. Territoriality. That doesn’t seem to be in air this year. Ours and theirs are getting along quite nicely, thank you very much, fingers crossed. Our pond too is still covered with snow and ice, a thin layer I’m sure, but the Canada Geese walk around on it, perplexed, and not knowing what to make of 70’s temperature and icy water. More shall be revealed. They’re off checking out our neighbors pond right now.
As I’m writing this, a batch of Richard’s eggs are hatching in the laundry room, 3 brand new chicks are already out, drying off in a larger incubator, and 3 remaining eggs have pips in their shells and peeps from within. Also, Richard is “processing” one of our roosters. We call him the Dispatcher, the Dispassionate Dispatcher. The deceased was a handsome fellow, right off a Cornflakes box, but his eggs turned up infertile and he was a bit scrawny and pushy and we had to choose between him and 2 other roosters. Richard harvested a tough brahma rooster 2 days ago, leaving a very impressive and kind fellow to look over the flock of hens. Birth and death all around, always.
We had 4 goose eggs sent from Arkansas last Friday to fortify the blood line of our flock, but the last they were heard from was tracked to a post office in Fayetteville. They may be lost in space. Frustrating. It shall be rectified. I’m looking forward to seeing some goslings.
Green Mountain Film Festival in Montpelier continues through the week. If you’re in the area, go; it has a very impressive list of films from all over the world. The warm weather is keeping people away, but it so deserves everyone’s support. Go, go, go. It’s a fantastic event.
Lots of activity. I’m off for a walk mit muck boots. It’s slip slidey out there.
Happy Spring!
Felicity is still limping, but game about her recovery. Her balance is extraordinary. Literal, physical balance. She’s posing on one leg most of the time, tenderly touching earth with the other as if she’s checking the temperature of the soil. Heal! Heal!!
Temperatures are in the high 70’s today.
The skies have been filled with the calls of Canada geese in search of unfrozen ponds on which to nest. We have 4 Canada Geese visiting us, assessing the layout of our place. One pair arrived yesterday, another pair joined them this morning. We’re speculating whether or not they are part of the family from last year. All of them are on the smallish side. That call of theirs has a gulpy foreboding sound. I’m biased of course because I have an audio recall from last season when that sound was a harbinger of a coming attack aimed at our geese. Territoriality. That doesn’t seem to be in air this year. Ours and theirs are getting along quite nicely, thank you very much, fingers crossed. Our pond too is still covered with snow and ice, a thin layer I’m sure, but the Canada Geese walk around on it, perplexed, and not knowing what to make of 70’s temperature and icy water. More shall be revealed. They’re off checking out our neighbors pond right now.
As I’m writing this, a batch of Richard’s eggs are hatching in the laundry room, 3 brand new chicks are already out, drying off in a larger incubator, and 3 remaining eggs have pips in their shells and peeps from within. Also, Richard is “processing” one of our roosters. We call him the Dispatcher, the Dispassionate Dispatcher. The deceased was a handsome fellow, right off a Cornflakes box, but his eggs turned up infertile and he was a bit scrawny and pushy and we had to choose between him and 2 other roosters. Richard harvested a tough brahma rooster 2 days ago, leaving a very impressive and kind fellow to look over the flock of hens. Birth and death all around, always.
We had 4 goose eggs sent from Arkansas last Friday to fortify the blood line of our flock, but the last they were heard from was tracked to a post office in Fayetteville. They may be lost in space. Frustrating. It shall be rectified. I’m looking forward to seeing some goslings.
Green Mountain Film Festival in Montpelier continues through the week. If you’re in the area, go; it has a very impressive list of films from all over the world. The warm weather is keeping people away, but it so deserves everyone’s support. Go, go, go. It’s a fantastic event.
Lots of activity. I’m off for a walk mit muck boots. It’s slip slidey out there.
Happy Spring!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
PUGNACIOUS
I’m with my neighbor Royce, Pugs aren’t my favorite dogs in the world. These 2 orphans glommed onto me during my morning walk. The sky was clear and blue, streams cascading fresh and full, shimmering the air with sound, a slight scent of pine. Glorious. I was reading a favorite book of mine and had stopped to write a bit in a notebook I was also carrying, when these miscreants came snorting up to me, one larger, maybe the papa or older brother, a plastic collar and packet around his neck and the other more diminutive, a punk. Both were beige with wrinkled smooshed faces. Every time a vehicle would pass, they would tear off on a short legged gallop, barking and snapping at the wheels then return with bluster and sneezes. After a few moments of this, my i-phone alarm went off telling me I needed to turn around and come home. It was 10 am and we’d be leaving by 11. I set off and they followed. I tried discouraging them, shooing them, but they’d have none of it. They were valdiree-valdirahing right beside me. Okay, whatever, they’ll turn back, sometime. Well, they didn’t. Long story short, they followed me home, then avoided being caught and instead gave chase to our chickens and geese, laming Felicity, causing a great deal of havoc. Richard got pissed, we argued, 11 o’clock came, he had to take off without me while I continued with this fruitless corralling. I needed a new idea. Finally, at a loss, I got in my outback and slowly drove/led them back to the crossroads I’d found them about a mile away, they yipping and barking beside me. I’d have to let them rest every once and awhile. I was so trying to rise above all this, trying to see the positive opportunity, but it was hard. My back had rewrenched itself giving chase, my patience was thin. I kept imagining our neighbor Dennis’s satisfaction when he allegedly gunned down a husky that had been killing chickens up and down our road a few years back, but I don’t think that could be classified as a positive, could it? The one “rise above” thought that stuck was these pugs want to go home, everyone appreciates home, no place like home, so I tried to hold that in mind as I crept the car along and watched them zig zagging in my back and side mirrors. These are creatures that want to get home. And then a navy blue car began following me and the pugs. I pulled over, so did she, I parked the car and got out, and as this spry older woman with straight white hair in a bowl cut stooped out of her car, I asked if these dogs were hers. She looked like a central casting fairy tale character, not quite a witch, but … “Yep!” she snapped as she clawed at them up, snatching them up. “You little brats, c’mere.” ‘They followed me home and spooked our chickens and geese.’ She could’ve cared less. She gave a sidelong glance and a semblance of a smile and then went on with her business. I got in the car and drove off, looking for a turn around. Well, I did my duty. The dogs were my responsibility – okay, I could argue that in court, they were THE WITCH’S RESPONSIBILITY!! But they followed me home. I should’ve been more insistent with my shooing. And now Felicity was limping and in pain, and Richard and I were pissed at one another and, and, and … whatever. I turned the car around and headed home and as I passed back by the hobgoblin’s car, I saw her ripping some kind of meat product from a cardboard box perched on her trunk, her smile had a touch of the maniacal.
And I never exaggerate.
And I never exaggerate.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
New Ideas
New ideas
Shmuel trumpets with great abandon these days. No holding back, his call is bold, clear, LOUD, tantarah-ing that he’s the man, he’s the protector, the father, and he’s BY GOD doing his job!! Richard and I have an air purifier going in our bedroom, so his morning blasts at around 6 are muffled somewhat. Still he cuts through the drone of white noise as if to say “I’m real! I have a need here! Wake up and tend to it, PRONTO, because I’m not stopping this caterwauling until you unlatch this gate!” And so one of us hops to and is out the door to serve our master.
After the other day, we should’ve known why he was stirring up so much commotion. Geese lay eggs only during a 2 month period each year and both Mary Ann and Felicity have begun to nest. Last year they did most of their laying up in the goose house, a piece of plywood tented against one of the side walls giving them privacy. It’s to be expected that they will lay an errant egg or 2 over at Royce’s or in some grassy surround, but the lion’s share will be laid in one area. The other morning both Richard and I were witness to Mary Ann walking over to the side porch where our riding mower and wagon are stored for the winter, hopping up to where there had been a dainty spill of straw from the bales we also had stored there, and methodically pulling and placing everything in a suitable nest. It was like being present at the nativity, sans angels – we were the shepherds and, okay, the wise men. Shmuel stood and then, when Mary Ann later settled in to lay, sat very nearby, the quiet protector and watcher. He is devoted to her. Felicity sat calmly farther out in the grass and would later go up to fashion her own nest next to Mary Ann’s. Richard and I shared a look. It was all so beautiful and right. They were going to be the designators of where the perfect nest would be. It was going to be their decision. After all, they’re their eggs, they know better. And so we watched. And this morning, Shmuel was crying and crying out in a demanding way and the moment Richard let them out, they all three made a calm and steady bee-line for the side porch. Richard had put up a little plywood ramp to accommodate Mary Ann, but she didn’t need it. She paused briefly, taking in the situation, calculating the energy needed, and then she easily flapped twice and was there on her nest. Every other day is usually how it goes with the laying cycle. And today we got one from Mary Ann and a little bit later another from Felicity. Miraculous.
It dipped to just below freezing last night, but common wisdom is that maple sap season is over for the year due to the warm temperatures. For the uninitiated, ideal sapping weather is above freezing during the day and below freezing during the night. A friend of ours, Dylan, stopped his truck beside me during my dusk to dark night walk last evening and we spoke of sap and other things. It was fitting since the back of his pick-up was sinking low under the weight of a large squatty plastic vat 2/3 full of sap. Dylan is a major tree person, he and his friend Ben, an arborist, helped thin and clear some huge dead pines from our land beside our pond last winter. He agreed that sap season was over. I asked if he’d ever seen a winter like this; he had, though he hadn’t been sapping then. He didn’t invoke climate change which I appreciated since I’m trying to eradicate it from my vocabulary because in my case it tends to aspire to the level of constant complaint. I’d rather talk of solution or new idea. He reminded me that last year had been a fantastic year for sap, lasting almost to April. I asked him if we returned to a cold snap after this spate of warm weather would the sap come back. He didn’t think it would happen given the weather reports, and he continued that though it was possible, when it warms the budding mechanism has been set into motion so the sap, if present at all, would probably not taste good. Learn something every day. I hope so at least. Plenty of ideas floating around just waiting to be embraced and brought to life.
Richard’s been out in full joy, trimming up the apple tree branches. He looks like Michelangelo out there, sculpting master pieces. He’ll cut and trim, sometimes up in the big branches, and then he’ll climb down and stand back to take in the shape. His work has paid off with great tasting apples last year, the perfect balance between tart and sweet. Delectable.
Muck boots are a God send this time of year. Mud season may not be that long because the frost wasn’t too deep, but right now there’s a lot of slip slidey stuff all around whether your on foot or in a car. As I mentioned, I set off on a 4 mile walk yesterday evening just as the sun was reaching the top of our tree line. Knowing that it would be pitch black by the time I got home, I packed a mesh reflector vest to put over my black fleece and flashlight into my small backpack, along with an apple and some seltzer, a book, a large steno notebook and pen, and my Nook, just in case. I had a tureen of coffee for the beginning of the walk and it was a fine jaunt through both the mucky and the dry areas. Just another season in Vermont.
The grass is beige brown, the trees are bare, the snow is melting away, only existent in the back of our house where the sun’s light doesn’t spend a lot of time. I planted a whole bunch of daffodils last autumn, so those should be peaking up in a couple weeks or so. The trees will be budding soon, their bark blushing pink/red before they do. The pond’s starting to melt, so we should have a pair of Canada Geese flying in soon. I hope our geese and they will get along this year, but that’s to be revealed. For now, the soil and the air, everything is alive with ideas of growth and blossom and birth and green.
Shmuel trumpets with great abandon these days. No holding back, his call is bold, clear, LOUD, tantarah-ing that he’s the man, he’s the protector, the father, and he’s BY GOD doing his job!! Richard and I have an air purifier going in our bedroom, so his morning blasts at around 6 are muffled somewhat. Still he cuts through the drone of white noise as if to say “I’m real! I have a need here! Wake up and tend to it, PRONTO, because I’m not stopping this caterwauling until you unlatch this gate!” And so one of us hops to and is out the door to serve our master.
After the other day, we should’ve known why he was stirring up so much commotion. Geese lay eggs only during a 2 month period each year and both Mary Ann and Felicity have begun to nest. Last year they did most of their laying up in the goose house, a piece of plywood tented against one of the side walls giving them privacy. It’s to be expected that they will lay an errant egg or 2 over at Royce’s or in some grassy surround, but the lion’s share will be laid in one area. The other morning both Richard and I were witness to Mary Ann walking over to the side porch where our riding mower and wagon are stored for the winter, hopping up to where there had been a dainty spill of straw from the bales we also had stored there, and methodically pulling and placing everything in a suitable nest. It was like being present at the nativity, sans angels – we were the shepherds and, okay, the wise men. Shmuel stood and then, when Mary Ann later settled in to lay, sat very nearby, the quiet protector and watcher. He is devoted to her. Felicity sat calmly farther out in the grass and would later go up to fashion her own nest next to Mary Ann’s. Richard and I shared a look. It was all so beautiful and right. They were going to be the designators of where the perfect nest would be. It was going to be their decision. After all, they’re their eggs, they know better. And so we watched. And this morning, Shmuel was crying and crying out in a demanding way and the moment Richard let them out, they all three made a calm and steady bee-line for the side porch. Richard had put up a little plywood ramp to accommodate Mary Ann, but she didn’t need it. She paused briefly, taking in the situation, calculating the energy needed, and then she easily flapped twice and was there on her nest. Every other day is usually how it goes with the laying cycle. And today we got one from Mary Ann and a little bit later another from Felicity. Miraculous.
It dipped to just below freezing last night, but common wisdom is that maple sap season is over for the year due to the warm temperatures. For the uninitiated, ideal sapping weather is above freezing during the day and below freezing during the night. A friend of ours, Dylan, stopped his truck beside me during my dusk to dark night walk last evening and we spoke of sap and other things. It was fitting since the back of his pick-up was sinking low under the weight of a large squatty plastic vat 2/3 full of sap. Dylan is a major tree person, he and his friend Ben, an arborist, helped thin and clear some huge dead pines from our land beside our pond last winter. He agreed that sap season was over. I asked if he’d ever seen a winter like this; he had, though he hadn’t been sapping then. He didn’t invoke climate change which I appreciated since I’m trying to eradicate it from my vocabulary because in my case it tends to aspire to the level of constant complaint. I’d rather talk of solution or new idea. He reminded me that last year had been a fantastic year for sap, lasting almost to April. I asked him if we returned to a cold snap after this spate of warm weather would the sap come back. He didn’t think it would happen given the weather reports, and he continued that though it was possible, when it warms the budding mechanism has been set into motion so the sap, if present at all, would probably not taste good. Learn something every day. I hope so at least. Plenty of ideas floating around just waiting to be embraced and brought to life.
Richard’s been out in full joy, trimming up the apple tree branches. He looks like Michelangelo out there, sculpting master pieces. He’ll cut and trim, sometimes up in the big branches, and then he’ll climb down and stand back to take in the shape. His work has paid off with great tasting apples last year, the perfect balance between tart and sweet. Delectable.
Muck boots are a God send this time of year. Mud season may not be that long because the frost wasn’t too deep, but right now there’s a lot of slip slidey stuff all around whether your on foot or in a car. As I mentioned, I set off on a 4 mile walk yesterday evening just as the sun was reaching the top of our tree line. Knowing that it would be pitch black by the time I got home, I packed a mesh reflector vest to put over my black fleece and flashlight into my small backpack, along with an apple and some seltzer, a book, a large steno notebook and pen, and my Nook, just in case. I had a tureen of coffee for the beginning of the walk and it was a fine jaunt through both the mucky and the dry areas. Just another season in Vermont.
The grass is beige brown, the trees are bare, the snow is melting away, only existent in the back of our house where the sun’s light doesn’t spend a lot of time. I planted a whole bunch of daffodils last autumn, so those should be peaking up in a couple weeks or so. The trees will be budding soon, their bark blushing pink/red before they do. The pond’s starting to melt, so we should have a pair of Canada Geese flying in soon. I hope our geese and they will get along this year, but that’s to be revealed. For now, the soil and the air, everything is alive with ideas of growth and blossom and birth and green.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
That Time of Year
Shmuel hissed at Richard when he entered the goose pen this morning which he thought was odd, it hadn’t happened in awhile. But when he stepped back to think for a moment, he had an inkling of what was going on and sure enough, about a half hour later, he looked out the kitchen window up the hill to the pen and Shmuel was humping Mary Ann while Felicity was in a “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” screaming panic, circling with her wings up all around the pen. Don’t worry Felicity, you’ll get yours very soon. Probably later today. It’s that time of year. Goose eggs should be popping out in about 2 weeks.
I’m getting this update from far away since I’ve been in NYC since February 1st for a job seeking professional stay which should stretch to the beginning of March. Whenever I come here, I go through my own inner Ellis Island, feeling displaced from my homeland. Actually I’m an immigrant to Vermont as well, and I’ve felt a little bit like an immigrant or outsider wherever I’ve lived my whole life. I wasn’t able to get a good night’s sleep for 4 days running when I first got here and the fatigue fed my displacement. It greyed the way I was looking at everything – the city, my career, my life. Even nature felt off: 62 degree weather at the beginning of February, daffodils blossoming in Central Park, no one really that concerned about the climatic shift. (Of course, I’m not a mind reader, so who knows, they could have been screaming inside, like Felicity.) Through it all, though, Vermont has never been far away from my thoughts. I’d sit down to write, starting out with pithy titles like: “Vermont Removed” or “Vermont Once Removed” or “Vermont Ramble” but my wherewithal would wane, possibly due to an early bout of Spring fever, and I’d maroon these attempts into “draft” status. Here’s a bit from February 3rd:
I know there are signs of Vermont all around me. For instance, the evening I arrived, my host told me that Patricia Newray, a famous opera singer who won a Tony Award for playing Mother Abbess in the original "Sound of Music" on Broadway died at the age of 92 last week. After her singing days were over, she moved to Vermont to live with her husband, and not just Vermont, East Corinth, Vermont, which is 5 miles down the road from us! This Saturday MOMA is showing a 1963 documentary about Robert Frost with a lot of footage of him roaming his homestead shortly before his demise. The woman at the cash register where I got my herbal sleep tonic yesterday, very much an urban girl, smiled when I mentioned Vermont, said she'd lived near Cabot, VT for awhile. "It gets a bit separate there," she said. And later in the day I went to a matinee of "A Separation" - a fantastic Iranian film which hands down is the best film I've seen this year and I've seen some really good ones -- and the woman accompanying my host and me was in town visiting from Burlington. The state, the state of mind maybe, is reaching out to me, keeping itself stoked within, good and steady and warm, like our Jodul wood stove warming our kitchen.
Since writing the above Vermont has continued to insinuate itself. References to Vermont popped up in the pages of John Lithgow’s wonderful book “Drama.” There was an article on All Things Considered the moment I turned on the program the other night about High Mowing seeds, an organic seed company in Hardwick, VT, reporting that they’d had to raise the temperatures on their planting instructions because of climate shifts. I bumped into a young writer and his actor partner at a play, the young writer grew up near Lake Champlain. I noticed in the paper that Annie Baker, a wonderful playwright from Vermont, has a new adaptation of a Chekhov play about to begin rehearsal. And on and on.
I don’t know where all this is heading. Probably just getting back into action. Getting the sap running again. Checking in. Letting you know I’m still here. Letting ME know I’m still here, alive and well.
The other night I walked from W. 4th back up to where I’m staying at W. 88th. I’d just seen a spirit enlivening dress rehearsal of “The Illiad” and buoyed by the experience I launched out on the trek. I grabbed a quick falafel on St Mark’s Place for fuel. The walk was so fun. A still indigo night, clear and starlit, the perfect chill in the air. I used Broadway as my main thoroughfare. There was barely anyone out. I’ve been reading Pete Hamill’s terrific “Downtown – My Manhattan,” a loving history of New York and its main players – a chunk of whom had ties to Vermont, of course - and it felt as if he was alongside me pointing out various sites, whispering to pay attention, see, notice. I was so happy to feel buoyed and energized and grateful, effortlessly so, after having force fed myself gratitude and affirmations to buck up from the day I arrived. And as I walked I marveled on all the memories this great city has brought into my life, all the experiences, the people, the highs and lows, the lessons learned (I hope), the chance encounters (I look up to think about what I’m writing and notice one of the 2 women who just sat down at the table next to me a couple minutes ago is Angelica Huston.) I think I could have walked all the way to the Cloisters that night, I was on air. The next morning when I told my host of my walk the night before she told me “That comes out to about 4 miles” which is almost exactly the distance of my daily walk when I’m back, home down Fuller Road to North Road and back. A simple connection, but it’s what came up.
So things are all right. I’m walking around New York, writing, living large, and Shmuel’s humping his harem up in Vermont. And I feel connected to both. Not bad.
Have a great day.
I’m getting this update from far away since I’ve been in NYC since February 1st for a job seeking professional stay which should stretch to the beginning of March. Whenever I come here, I go through my own inner Ellis Island, feeling displaced from my homeland. Actually I’m an immigrant to Vermont as well, and I’ve felt a little bit like an immigrant or outsider wherever I’ve lived my whole life. I wasn’t able to get a good night’s sleep for 4 days running when I first got here and the fatigue fed my displacement. It greyed the way I was looking at everything – the city, my career, my life. Even nature felt off: 62 degree weather at the beginning of February, daffodils blossoming in Central Park, no one really that concerned about the climatic shift. (Of course, I’m not a mind reader, so who knows, they could have been screaming inside, like Felicity.) Through it all, though, Vermont has never been far away from my thoughts. I’d sit down to write, starting out with pithy titles like: “Vermont Removed” or “Vermont Once Removed” or “Vermont Ramble” but my wherewithal would wane, possibly due to an early bout of Spring fever, and I’d maroon these attempts into “draft” status. Here’s a bit from February 3rd:
I know there are signs of Vermont all around me. For instance, the evening I arrived, my host told me that Patricia Newray, a famous opera singer who won a Tony Award for playing Mother Abbess in the original "Sound of Music" on Broadway died at the age of 92 last week. After her singing days were over, she moved to Vermont to live with her husband, and not just Vermont, East Corinth, Vermont, which is 5 miles down the road from us! This Saturday MOMA is showing a 1963 documentary about Robert Frost with a lot of footage of him roaming his homestead shortly before his demise. The woman at the cash register where I got my herbal sleep tonic yesterday, very much an urban girl, smiled when I mentioned Vermont, said she'd lived near Cabot, VT for awhile. "It gets a bit separate there," she said. And later in the day I went to a matinee of "A Separation" - a fantastic Iranian film which hands down is the best film I've seen this year and I've seen some really good ones -- and the woman accompanying my host and me was in town visiting from Burlington. The state, the state of mind maybe, is reaching out to me, keeping itself stoked within, good and steady and warm, like our Jodul wood stove warming our kitchen.
Since writing the above Vermont has continued to insinuate itself. References to Vermont popped up in the pages of John Lithgow’s wonderful book “Drama.” There was an article on All Things Considered the moment I turned on the program the other night about High Mowing seeds, an organic seed company in Hardwick, VT, reporting that they’d had to raise the temperatures on their planting instructions because of climate shifts. I bumped into a young writer and his actor partner at a play, the young writer grew up near Lake Champlain. I noticed in the paper that Annie Baker, a wonderful playwright from Vermont, has a new adaptation of a Chekhov play about to begin rehearsal. And on and on.
I don’t know where all this is heading. Probably just getting back into action. Getting the sap running again. Checking in. Letting you know I’m still here. Letting ME know I’m still here, alive and well.
The other night I walked from W. 4th back up to where I’m staying at W. 88th. I’d just seen a spirit enlivening dress rehearsal of “The Illiad” and buoyed by the experience I launched out on the trek. I grabbed a quick falafel on St Mark’s Place for fuel. The walk was so fun. A still indigo night, clear and starlit, the perfect chill in the air. I used Broadway as my main thoroughfare. There was barely anyone out. I’ve been reading Pete Hamill’s terrific “Downtown – My Manhattan,” a loving history of New York and its main players – a chunk of whom had ties to Vermont, of course - and it felt as if he was alongside me pointing out various sites, whispering to pay attention, see, notice. I was so happy to feel buoyed and energized and grateful, effortlessly so, after having force fed myself gratitude and affirmations to buck up from the day I arrived. And as I walked I marveled on all the memories this great city has brought into my life, all the experiences, the people, the highs and lows, the lessons learned (I hope), the chance encounters (I look up to think about what I’m writing and notice one of the 2 women who just sat down at the table next to me a couple minutes ago is Angelica Huston.) I think I could have walked all the way to the Cloisters that night, I was on air. The next morning when I told my host of my walk the night before she told me “That comes out to about 4 miles” which is almost exactly the distance of my daily walk when I’m back, home down Fuller Road to North Road and back. A simple connection, but it’s what came up.
So things are all right. I’m walking around New York, writing, living large, and Shmuel’s humping his harem up in Vermont. And I feel connected to both. Not bad.
Have a great day.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Miscellanea
Richard and I have decided to invest in half a pig.
A dead one, that is, not a live one. That’s silly. He’d fall right over.
I was expecting things like investing in half an animal would happen after our dear friends Chris and Emily bequeathed us an unused freezer of theirs right around Christmas. It resides in our garage now, waiting with open arms for anything we'd like stored within its frigid domain. Having decided on the purchase, we then had to fill out a form which asks how we want the various parts of the pig carved, whether we want those parts smoked or fresh, ground or linked, how many servings per package. Most of these parts of the pig were easily recognized; however, we were both perplexed over the term “picnic shoulder.” When I phoned Larry Scott, the pig raiser, to inquire on what he meant, I was given an unbidden anatomical tour of the entire animal which included the location of the loin (back), pork chops (vertebrae), ham (hip), bacon (stomach), spare ribs (self explanatory). Of course the picnic shoulder is the shoulder. "That's right," said Richard after I hung up, reeling a bit from imagining the various parts being sliced and chopped," we're eating muscle. Muscle and veins and arteries." Lovely, thank you. I tried to tune him out, but the damage had been done. My nascent vegan wannabe me had been conjured and he hovered in front of me, frozen in its version of Klimt scream. "You're purchasing half a PIG?!!” it wailed, “What do you think you’re doing?!!" I tried to talk sense to him and replied, calmly, ‘It'll be very economical buying bulk like this. It comes to about $3.25 a pound.’ The Klimt vegan wannabee screamed back "AHHHHHHH!" I continued, reassuringly, ‘The pig was raised very humanely …’ “HALF A PIG!! SAWED DOWN THE MIDDLE!!” I continued, ignoring the outburst, ‘ … fed grass and organic vegetables. He gamboled freely in pastures during his lifetime and will be humanely slaughtered. By now the Klimt screamer was writhing on our carpet, gnashing its teeth and foaming at the mouth. I’d had it. ‘Oh come on!’ I snapped, ‘I'll become vegan right after I chomp into this BLT. Right after my Easter ham! Right after this pork roast dinner!!’ And as the moaning and keening faded into so much white noise, the cold hard facts settled in and I looked into a mirror. Oh God, I'm a carnivore, a blood thirsty, flesh eating consumer of corpses. Yep. That's what I am.
Oh well.
Richard and I have just come off a 9 day cleanse so I'm hungry for ANYTHING. And the pig won't be ready until the end of March so anything could happen between now and then. So I won’t think about any more of this now, I’ll think about this tomorrow. Because tomorrow is another day.
IT’S COLD
Yesterday morning was chilly, at least 10 below. When I went out to give the geese their daily allotment of greens, I looked off to the far hills and even the firs and spruce seemed bent in upon themselves, bundled up against the frigid air. I had some kale and iceberg lettuce for the geese and Shmuel made it very clear by his half-hearted gnaw and then side mouthed spit that he thought the kale was crap and that I’d better give him the iceberg if I knew what was good for me. He looked like a goose version of Leo Gorcey. I complied. The snow in front of their house had a coating of ice on it and they were slip-sliding around as they tried to gain purchase craning for grub. Shmuel tried to act tough, but his big orange feet going every which way beneath him like a Barnum and Bailey clown destroyed the effect. A little homage to Emmet Kelly with all the lettuce leaves around. Or were they cabbage leaves he used? Whatever. After feeding them, I lay down some additional straw on top of the ice to allow them a little better traction.
This morning there were 2 new inches of snow on the ground, fine and dusty, the kind that would drift were we in blizzard conditions. Again, I brought the kale and lettuce. Shmuel didn’t even have to try the kale, he dismissed it at first sight. Next! But the girls, thank you very much, enjoyed the kale and appreciated the extra effort it takes to chew it. So fuck you, Shmuel. (Not really.)
The new snow sheened up the hillside with a sparkly shimmer. To borrow one of my mom’s favorite sayings, it was picture perfect. It did look like a postcard out there. I couldn’t help but smile.
My friend John and I plan to climb Smarts Mountain on Sunday, about 5 hours round trip. It should be fun, bracing. It’ll be the first time I try out my new pair of micro-spikes. They’re a criss-cross collection of spikes connected by tiny metal chains woven into a rubber framework that stretches right over the sole of your shoe or boot. John’s wife Faith calls the spikes “shoe jewelry.” Our friend Dennis down the road recommended them, saying they served him well when he made a hike up the icy slopes of Mt. Moosilauke on New Years Day. This’ll be my first winter hike up a mountain. I think it’ll be grand. Glad I can get it in before I take off for New York City.
Nothing against New York, because I do love it so, but I’m going to miss this place when I’m gone. That’s a good thing.
CHICKEN NEWS
To Richard and my surprise, egg production is UP!! Oft times cold weather clamps up the hen’s behinds, at least that’s been our experience over the past few years, especially with some breeds (I may get an editorial correction from Richard on this after he reads it), but we’re getting up to 13 eggs a day from our crew! Keep it up, girls!
We had a little rooster cleansing over the past week. 3 brothers bit the dust. Just too many roosters in that coop, 6 in total before the 3 met the hatchet. Richard had been hemming and hawing about when to do it. He knew he had to do it, and he wanted to, but he couldn’t settle on a firm date. Then in the middle of a walk we were taking the other day, he stopped, decided ‘this is the day, now is the moment’ and he turned around and headed back for home. I gave a half hearted call after him, ‘Need any help?’ secretly hoping he wouldn’t, probably coloring my request with that hope. “Nope, thanks!” Score! Then he added “It’ll probably all be over by the time you get back!” And he was gone.
When I returned from my 4 miles about an hour later and walked up our driveway to the garage through the fresh, white, pristine snow, I noticed a small patch of bright red right right in front of the closed garage door. There in a pool of gore lay the 3 severed rooster heads, eyes shut. Lovely. It looked like a warning to all recalcitrant roosters. “This is what you got coming to you if you don’t watch out, so shape up!!”
I thought of the beheadings of traitors in Elizabethan London and wondered why Richard hadn’t skewered the rooster heads on spikes. That would’ve been a nice touch. I opened the back door and then the door from the entryway into into the abattoir, uh, excuse me, garage, and there squatted Richard, surrounded all the gruesome tools of his trade: a steaming cauldron of hot water; a spread of wet, blood spattered newspapers; and various hatchets, knives, and what nots covered with wet feathers. He’d been an efficient killer. “I’m getting good at this!” he chimed cherrily as I walked in. True to his word he’d done in, plucked, and gutted all 3 and now was ready for me to wrap them up in plastic to be stored in the freezer. The freezer where the pig half will go soon. Was that a scream I heard from inside the house?
ONE MORE THING
An interesting chicken/rooster tidbit. Richard came in the other morning a bit peeved with himself. “I should’ve known better,” he said scolding himself. When I asked ‘about what?’, he explained that a piece of our main rooster Red Vestey’s crest had turned black due to the icy temperatures. The black means that that piece of crest had been frost-bitten and was now dead and would eventually fall off. You can prevent this from happening on the crests and “waddles”, if that’s the chicken term for the sometime skin beneath their beak, by slathering on a goodly cover of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. ‘Who knew?’ “I did,” Richard harrumphed.
OKAY, ONE MORE THING.
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the light this time of year is something to behold. The other day I went out to grab a walk down our road before nightfall. It was about 4, the setting sun was to my back, and at one point I looked up and there stood this grove of trees, basking in this rich blast of reflected vanilla light. They looked as if they were as surprised as I was, frozen, still, like pilgrims witnessing some miraculous event. As I walked on and caught other trees looking back, pinks began filtering in, subtly altering the quality of the light, this warm, inviting, enchantment. When I reached my favorite point of the walk, where the forest opens to my right and sweeps this stunning far off view of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the last little bit of reddish light was hitting the crest of a nearby hill and the trees seemed as if they were on their tiptoes, craning for that last catch of light. Oh, man. So wonderful.
I trekked back home, dusk now, the light still in the sky, a pale white grey backdrop, and as the back of our land came into view, I marveled at the sight of the line of our maples bordering the eastern side our old orchard, the silhouettes of the branches against the light looked like delicate tendril tree fingers open in a final farewell to the day.
I like this place.
A dead one, that is, not a live one. That’s silly. He’d fall right over.
I was expecting things like investing in half an animal would happen after our dear friends Chris and Emily bequeathed us an unused freezer of theirs right around Christmas. It resides in our garage now, waiting with open arms for anything we'd like stored within its frigid domain. Having decided on the purchase, we then had to fill out a form which asks how we want the various parts of the pig carved, whether we want those parts smoked or fresh, ground or linked, how many servings per package. Most of these parts of the pig were easily recognized; however, we were both perplexed over the term “picnic shoulder.” When I phoned Larry Scott, the pig raiser, to inquire on what he meant, I was given an unbidden anatomical tour of the entire animal which included the location of the loin (back), pork chops (vertebrae), ham (hip), bacon (stomach), spare ribs (self explanatory). Of course the picnic shoulder is the shoulder. "That's right," said Richard after I hung up, reeling a bit from imagining the various parts being sliced and chopped," we're eating muscle. Muscle and veins and arteries." Lovely, thank you. I tried to tune him out, but the damage had been done. My nascent vegan wannabe me had been conjured and he hovered in front of me, frozen in its version of Klimt scream. "You're purchasing half a PIG?!!” it wailed, “What do you think you’re doing?!!" I tried to talk sense to him and replied, calmly, ‘It'll be very economical buying bulk like this. It comes to about $3.25 a pound.’ The Klimt vegan wannabee screamed back "AHHHHHHH!" I continued, reassuringly, ‘The pig was raised very humanely …’ “HALF A PIG!! SAWED DOWN THE MIDDLE!!” I continued, ignoring the outburst, ‘ … fed grass and organic vegetables. He gamboled freely in pastures during his lifetime and will be humanely slaughtered. By now the Klimt screamer was writhing on our carpet, gnashing its teeth and foaming at the mouth. I’d had it. ‘Oh come on!’ I snapped, ‘I'll become vegan right after I chomp into this BLT. Right after my Easter ham! Right after this pork roast dinner!!’ And as the moaning and keening faded into so much white noise, the cold hard facts settled in and I looked into a mirror. Oh God, I'm a carnivore, a blood thirsty, flesh eating consumer of corpses. Yep. That's what I am.
Oh well.
Richard and I have just come off a 9 day cleanse so I'm hungry for ANYTHING. And the pig won't be ready until the end of March so anything could happen between now and then. So I won’t think about any more of this now, I’ll think about this tomorrow. Because tomorrow is another day.
IT’S COLD
Yesterday morning was chilly, at least 10 below. When I went out to give the geese their daily allotment of greens, I looked off to the far hills and even the firs and spruce seemed bent in upon themselves, bundled up against the frigid air. I had some kale and iceberg lettuce for the geese and Shmuel made it very clear by his half-hearted gnaw and then side mouthed spit that he thought the kale was crap and that I’d better give him the iceberg if I knew what was good for me. He looked like a goose version of Leo Gorcey. I complied. The snow in front of their house had a coating of ice on it and they were slip-sliding around as they tried to gain purchase craning for grub. Shmuel tried to act tough, but his big orange feet going every which way beneath him like a Barnum and Bailey clown destroyed the effect. A little homage to Emmet Kelly with all the lettuce leaves around. Or were they cabbage leaves he used? Whatever. After feeding them, I lay down some additional straw on top of the ice to allow them a little better traction.
This morning there were 2 new inches of snow on the ground, fine and dusty, the kind that would drift were we in blizzard conditions. Again, I brought the kale and lettuce. Shmuel didn’t even have to try the kale, he dismissed it at first sight. Next! But the girls, thank you very much, enjoyed the kale and appreciated the extra effort it takes to chew it. So fuck you, Shmuel. (Not really.)
The new snow sheened up the hillside with a sparkly shimmer. To borrow one of my mom’s favorite sayings, it was picture perfect. It did look like a postcard out there. I couldn’t help but smile.
My friend John and I plan to climb Smarts Mountain on Sunday, about 5 hours round trip. It should be fun, bracing. It’ll be the first time I try out my new pair of micro-spikes. They’re a criss-cross collection of spikes connected by tiny metal chains woven into a rubber framework that stretches right over the sole of your shoe or boot. John’s wife Faith calls the spikes “shoe jewelry.” Our friend Dennis down the road recommended them, saying they served him well when he made a hike up the icy slopes of Mt. Moosilauke on New Years Day. This’ll be my first winter hike up a mountain. I think it’ll be grand. Glad I can get it in before I take off for New York City.
Nothing against New York, because I do love it so, but I’m going to miss this place when I’m gone. That’s a good thing.
CHICKEN NEWS
To Richard and my surprise, egg production is UP!! Oft times cold weather clamps up the hen’s behinds, at least that’s been our experience over the past few years, especially with some breeds (I may get an editorial correction from Richard on this after he reads it), but we’re getting up to 13 eggs a day from our crew! Keep it up, girls!
We had a little rooster cleansing over the past week. 3 brothers bit the dust. Just too many roosters in that coop, 6 in total before the 3 met the hatchet. Richard had been hemming and hawing about when to do it. He knew he had to do it, and he wanted to, but he couldn’t settle on a firm date. Then in the middle of a walk we were taking the other day, he stopped, decided ‘this is the day, now is the moment’ and he turned around and headed back for home. I gave a half hearted call after him, ‘Need any help?’ secretly hoping he wouldn’t, probably coloring my request with that hope. “Nope, thanks!” Score! Then he added “It’ll probably all be over by the time you get back!” And he was gone.
When I returned from my 4 miles about an hour later and walked up our driveway to the garage through the fresh, white, pristine snow, I noticed a small patch of bright red right right in front of the closed garage door. There in a pool of gore lay the 3 severed rooster heads, eyes shut. Lovely. It looked like a warning to all recalcitrant roosters. “This is what you got coming to you if you don’t watch out, so shape up!!”
I thought of the beheadings of traitors in Elizabethan London and wondered why Richard hadn’t skewered the rooster heads on spikes. That would’ve been a nice touch. I opened the back door and then the door from the entryway into into the abattoir, uh, excuse me, garage, and there squatted Richard, surrounded all the gruesome tools of his trade: a steaming cauldron of hot water; a spread of wet, blood spattered newspapers; and various hatchets, knives, and what nots covered with wet feathers. He’d been an efficient killer. “I’m getting good at this!” he chimed cherrily as I walked in. True to his word he’d done in, plucked, and gutted all 3 and now was ready for me to wrap them up in plastic to be stored in the freezer. The freezer where the pig half will go soon. Was that a scream I heard from inside the house?
ONE MORE THING
An interesting chicken/rooster tidbit. Richard came in the other morning a bit peeved with himself. “I should’ve known better,” he said scolding himself. When I asked ‘about what?’, he explained that a piece of our main rooster Red Vestey’s crest had turned black due to the icy temperatures. The black means that that piece of crest had been frost-bitten and was now dead and would eventually fall off. You can prevent this from happening on the crests and “waddles”, if that’s the chicken term for the sometime skin beneath their beak, by slathering on a goodly cover of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. ‘Who knew?’ “I did,” Richard harrumphed.
OKAY, ONE MORE THING.
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the light this time of year is something to behold. The other day I went out to grab a walk down our road before nightfall. It was about 4, the setting sun was to my back, and at one point I looked up and there stood this grove of trees, basking in this rich blast of reflected vanilla light. They looked as if they were as surprised as I was, frozen, still, like pilgrims witnessing some miraculous event. As I walked on and caught other trees looking back, pinks began filtering in, subtly altering the quality of the light, this warm, inviting, enchantment. When I reached my favorite point of the walk, where the forest opens to my right and sweeps this stunning far off view of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the last little bit of reddish light was hitting the crest of a nearby hill and the trees seemed as if they were on their tiptoes, craning for that last catch of light. Oh, man. So wonderful.
I trekked back home, dusk now, the light still in the sky, a pale white grey backdrop, and as the back of our land came into view, I marveled at the sight of the line of our maples bordering the eastern side our old orchard, the silhouettes of the branches against the light looked like delicate tendril tree fingers open in a final farewell to the day.
I like this place.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
For no reason but that I love it
This from Writer's Almanac this morning, a couple quotes by Philip Levine, our present Poet Laureate:
"It is the imagination that gives us poetry. When you sit down to write a poem, you really don't know where you're going. If you know where you're going, the poem stinks, you probably already wrote it, and you're imitating yourself."
"You have to follow where the poem leads. And it will surprise you. It will say things you didn't expect to say. And you look at the poem and you realize, 'That is truly what I felt.' That is truly what I saw."
Went up to give Shmuel and the girls their daily ration of lettuce. The moment I raise the garage and start gathering the bits of chinese cabbage and iceberg lettuce to take up to them, their jabber begins to crescendo, accentuated by abrupt calls. Shmuel gives off this breathy sort of squeeze box sound, rapid-fire. And as I near, they don't seem to know what to do with themselves, they're so excited. They bounce back and forth around their pen, flap their wings, and Shmuel finally presses himself up against the fence. He lifts his foot up and down attempting to climb up it, wanting it gone, now. There's a definite pecking order to how the lettuce is received: Shmuel in front, the 2 girls in back. He always gets the first chomp, always; they are adherents to the "trickle down" theory. They may complain "Hey, more for us! What about us in the back here! C'mon, stingy!!" (I'm very adept at goose translation), but if I reach over Shmuel to try and feed them directly, they become instantly skittish "No, no! What are you doing?! Get away!! Unclean! (They probably wouldn't go as far as yelling "Unclean!" I just tossed that in for dramatic affect) And Shmuel rarely let's me reach over him. He's very dextrous with his lettuce chomps, though. He makes a point not to bite me, even when it's the tiniest bits of lettuce. It's impressive. They're out now, taking turns roaming about the hill, rooting through the sleeping grass and then hunkering down by the chicken pen.
The garden is sound asleep up on the hill. Hard to imagine how green and fecund it was during the growing season. To everything there is a season. It's all tucked in bed underneath a comforter of straw and a little snow. I waited a little too long to yank out our last kale plants and now they're pretty solidly frozen into the soil. Ah well. The soil will forgive my missteps. In the smallest of the beds my first bed of garlic is resting, forming. Looking forward to all of its stages next year. One of the next few days I'll begin planning next years placement of plants and order seeds from High Mowing organics. Maybe this year an asparagus patch. And a straw bale cold frame.
Richard and I are cleansing for 9 days, (this is day 2), so the days are a bit shapeless without meals or the planning of meals or the shopping for meals to form a kind of structure to the day. It all feels very new, which is kind of perfect for the beginning of the year. When I give into it, it allows me to see things from a different perspective. Fresh. There isn't much planned activity right now, no job, my schedule is up to me. So I just thought how can to apply that Philip Levine quote to my present situation. How do I allow myself to not be clear what my priorities or goals or activities, aims and directions are before I sit or walk, and allow my imagination to take the reins. Hmmm? Sounds good to me.
It does amaze me how I can find such beauty in this barren landscape, but I do. The multitude of grey barked, leafless trees couched in among the silent, dark greens of fir and spruce. They don't want to make too much fuss. They're willing to stay in the background, even when the maples and oaks and elms show off their color display in autumn, their dying act, going out with a bang, even then the firs and spruce are content to keep quiet and still and steady. They embolden me. And the winter light. Yesterday the white birch bark in the woods was blasting the reflection of sunlight back at me. Like a huge white woody smile. And the silence, the silence. Noise will come, but for now, be grateful for the silence. And then when sounds come, every sound is singular, it's own world. A rooster calls "I'm here! I'm alive!" from our neighbors and is answered in chorus from ours. Hound dogs moan and yelp off in the woods, woods on a far hill. A gunshot, another. The crunch of my boots on the dirt road. The clanky stretch of the metal in our wood stove. The ticking of clocks, like wooden puppets tip-toeing somewhere. My imagination flowing free. What sound does that make? A brook? The wind in the trees? The owl deep in the forest?
"It is the imagination that gives us poetry. When you sit down to write a poem, you really don't know where you're going. If you know where you're going, the poem stinks, you probably already wrote it, and you're imitating yourself."
"You have to follow where the poem leads. And it will surprise you. It will say things you didn't expect to say. And you look at the poem and you realize, 'That is truly what I felt.' That is truly what I saw."
Went up to give Shmuel and the girls their daily ration of lettuce. The moment I raise the garage and start gathering the bits of chinese cabbage and iceberg lettuce to take up to them, their jabber begins to crescendo, accentuated by abrupt calls. Shmuel gives off this breathy sort of squeeze box sound, rapid-fire. And as I near, they don't seem to know what to do with themselves, they're so excited. They bounce back and forth around their pen, flap their wings, and Shmuel finally presses himself up against the fence. He lifts his foot up and down attempting to climb up it, wanting it gone, now. There's a definite pecking order to how the lettuce is received: Shmuel in front, the 2 girls in back. He always gets the first chomp, always; they are adherents to the "trickle down" theory. They may complain "Hey, more for us! What about us in the back here! C'mon, stingy!!" (I'm very adept at goose translation), but if I reach over Shmuel to try and feed them directly, they become instantly skittish "No, no! What are you doing?! Get away!! Unclean! (They probably wouldn't go as far as yelling "Unclean!" I just tossed that in for dramatic affect) And Shmuel rarely let's me reach over him. He's very dextrous with his lettuce chomps, though. He makes a point not to bite me, even when it's the tiniest bits of lettuce. It's impressive. They're out now, taking turns roaming about the hill, rooting through the sleeping grass and then hunkering down by the chicken pen.
The garden is sound asleep up on the hill. Hard to imagine how green and fecund it was during the growing season. To everything there is a season. It's all tucked in bed underneath a comforter of straw and a little snow. I waited a little too long to yank out our last kale plants and now they're pretty solidly frozen into the soil. Ah well. The soil will forgive my missteps. In the smallest of the beds my first bed of garlic is resting, forming. Looking forward to all of its stages next year. One of the next few days I'll begin planning next years placement of plants and order seeds from High Mowing organics. Maybe this year an asparagus patch. And a straw bale cold frame.
Richard and I are cleansing for 9 days, (this is day 2), so the days are a bit shapeless without meals or the planning of meals or the shopping for meals to form a kind of structure to the day. It all feels very new, which is kind of perfect for the beginning of the year. When I give into it, it allows me to see things from a different perspective. Fresh. There isn't much planned activity right now, no job, my schedule is up to me. So I just thought how can to apply that Philip Levine quote to my present situation. How do I allow myself to not be clear what my priorities or goals or activities, aims and directions are before I sit or walk, and allow my imagination to take the reins. Hmmm? Sounds good to me.
It does amaze me how I can find such beauty in this barren landscape, but I do. The multitude of grey barked, leafless trees couched in among the silent, dark greens of fir and spruce. They don't want to make too much fuss. They're willing to stay in the background, even when the maples and oaks and elms show off their color display in autumn, their dying act, going out with a bang, even then the firs and spruce are content to keep quiet and still and steady. They embolden me. And the winter light. Yesterday the white birch bark in the woods was blasting the reflection of sunlight back at me. Like a huge white woody smile. And the silence, the silence. Noise will come, but for now, be grateful for the silence. And then when sounds come, every sound is singular, it's own world. A rooster calls "I'm here! I'm alive!" from our neighbors and is answered in chorus from ours. Hound dogs moan and yelp off in the woods, woods on a far hill. A gunshot, another. The crunch of my boots on the dirt road. The clanky stretch of the metal in our wood stove. The ticking of clocks, like wooden puppets tip-toeing somewhere. My imagination flowing free. What sound does that make? A brook? The wind in the trees? The owl deep in the forest?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
