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.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
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?
Friday, January 6, 2012
This morning
A fine dusting of snow, maybe an inch, still coming down. I don't think it'll amount to much. The grass still sticks out like Walt Whitman's uncut hair of graves, so the snowmobilers and skiers will have to continue chomping at their collective bits. It's beautiful out, stark and sepia toned. I walked to the top of the rise and looked out on the woods and far off mountains and felt I was inside a daguerreotype. If it hadn't been for the occasional vehicle humming down the road, it could've been a hundred plus years ago. Richard and I were both out feeding and watering the various birds and couldn't help stopping and taking it all in, smiling, appreciating it all, giving a thank you to the skies, to whoever or whatever is listening. Maybe the wind.
Someone described January as a kind of void caught in between the fatigue from the holiday season and the beginning preparations of what we plan to bring forth in the new year. I like that. I can feel that. It's a combination sense of hibernation and stocking up of the spirit, fertilizing the foundation for whatever may take seed. How am I stocking? Well today I'm writing, doing a little reading (I'm reading both Stephen King's new book "11/22/63" - a fun venture into time travel to correct the Kennedy Assassination - and Patti Smith's "Just Kids" - what a terrific writer she is. I also hope to begin a rereading of the Oresteia (Aeschylus ain't so bad neither) for our local library's book club later in the month, facilitated by a member of the Vermont Department of the Humanities. Classic Greek plays form the curriculum this year. In years past we've had Victorian Novels (my first Trollope), short stories, memoir. They're delicious. And such a warm, vital group of engaged people taking part. Okay, the book club has to be one of my 100 reasons. That will make it reason 50-what? I've lost track.) Later in the day, after making a big pot of soup and taking a winter's hike to visit neighbors down the road, I will return and watch another installment of Leonard Bernstein's "Concerts for Young People" from the late '50's, early '60's. My God, they're magnificent. I'm learning so much. And it's piqued my interest to take up an instrument again. It's been years. When I was young I played the violin. I wasn't too bad, either. I'd take part in music competitions, I took private lessons. But there was no great passion behind it. It took a spring concert in my sophomore year in high school where we were playing Rimsky-Korsakov's "Russian Easter" and my entire focus was to try and keep my bow going in the same direction as all the other violin players around me let alone play the right notes when I finally decided this wasn't for me. Then about 7 or 8 years ago, I took up the piano for a couple years. I had told myself it was an impossibility, that my hands weren't long and lithe as a piano player's should be. Goes to show you what faulty belief systems get lodged in one's mind. And playing the piano was surprisingly joyous. Doing the silly little exercises, coordinating both hands, the sheer miracle that I could do it, that I was doing it, that I was redefining a notion in my head. So why did I let that go? Moves. Not having a piano around. Lack of interest or focus. I wonder what instrument will find it's way into my life next? There's a yearning for some connection to music. Thanks, Leonard.
Here's another stocking of the spirit. I just got off the phone with Richard, and we've decided to both do a 9 day cleanse to rid ourselves of some excess holiday poundage and to get our year off to a fine, healthy start. It's based on an Isagenix nutritional program and we've had great success doing it before and it's easier when were both doing it together. We plan to begin Monday after hosting a big January meal with friends on Sunday. Send us off on our nutritional voyage in style. This is good, this is good.
The snow has stopped. About an inch or 2. Going out to see how many eggs our chickens have laid so far this morning. We opened both coop's back doors this morning, something we haven't been able to do for the past several days because of the frigid weather, but the chickens have no truck with snow. They come to the doorway and just look out. "Nuh-uh, not for me" and go back inside. The geese are doing fine, though. They're foraging around for bits of Whitman's grave hair. The bright, bold orange of their beaks and legs look so gorgeous contrasted against the white, grey of the landscape. Every once and awhile they'll squat down in the snow to keep their feet warm with all that good goose down. I'll walk them back up to their pen before I take my walk. Predators are a little rare this early in the winter, but they're still about. Here inside, 3 of our cats - Astrid, Sofia, and Delilah - are konked out around the wood stove. They are amazing sleepers. Teachers of nap. It's catching. Who knows, that may be another stocker of spirit sometime today, dreamtime.
Be well.
Someone described January as a kind of void caught in between the fatigue from the holiday season and the beginning preparations of what we plan to bring forth in the new year. I like that. I can feel that. It's a combination sense of hibernation and stocking up of the spirit, fertilizing the foundation for whatever may take seed. How am I stocking? Well today I'm writing, doing a little reading (I'm reading both Stephen King's new book "11/22/63" - a fun venture into time travel to correct the Kennedy Assassination - and Patti Smith's "Just Kids" - what a terrific writer she is. I also hope to begin a rereading of the Oresteia (Aeschylus ain't so bad neither) for our local library's book club later in the month, facilitated by a member of the Vermont Department of the Humanities. Classic Greek plays form the curriculum this year. In years past we've had Victorian Novels (my first Trollope), short stories, memoir. They're delicious. And such a warm, vital group of engaged people taking part. Okay, the book club has to be one of my 100 reasons. That will make it reason 50-what? I've lost track.) Later in the day, after making a big pot of soup and taking a winter's hike to visit neighbors down the road, I will return and watch another installment of Leonard Bernstein's "Concerts for Young People" from the late '50's, early '60's. My God, they're magnificent. I'm learning so much. And it's piqued my interest to take up an instrument again. It's been years. When I was young I played the violin. I wasn't too bad, either. I'd take part in music competitions, I took private lessons. But there was no great passion behind it. It took a spring concert in my sophomore year in high school where we were playing Rimsky-Korsakov's "Russian Easter" and my entire focus was to try and keep my bow going in the same direction as all the other violin players around me let alone play the right notes when I finally decided this wasn't for me. Then about 7 or 8 years ago, I took up the piano for a couple years. I had told myself it was an impossibility, that my hands weren't long and lithe as a piano player's should be. Goes to show you what faulty belief systems get lodged in one's mind. And playing the piano was surprisingly joyous. Doing the silly little exercises, coordinating both hands, the sheer miracle that I could do it, that I was doing it, that I was redefining a notion in my head. So why did I let that go? Moves. Not having a piano around. Lack of interest or focus. I wonder what instrument will find it's way into my life next? There's a yearning for some connection to music. Thanks, Leonard.
Here's another stocking of the spirit. I just got off the phone with Richard, and we've decided to both do a 9 day cleanse to rid ourselves of some excess holiday poundage and to get our year off to a fine, healthy start. It's based on an Isagenix nutritional program and we've had great success doing it before and it's easier when were both doing it together. We plan to begin Monday after hosting a big January meal with friends on Sunday. Send us off on our nutritional voyage in style. This is good, this is good.
The snow has stopped. About an inch or 2. Going out to see how many eggs our chickens have laid so far this morning. We opened both coop's back doors this morning, something we haven't been able to do for the past several days because of the frigid weather, but the chickens have no truck with snow. They come to the doorway and just look out. "Nuh-uh, not for me" and go back inside. The geese are doing fine, though. They're foraging around for bits of Whitman's grave hair. The bright, bold orange of their beaks and legs look so gorgeous contrasted against the white, grey of the landscape. Every once and awhile they'll squat down in the snow to keep their feet warm with all that good goose down. I'll walk them back up to their pen before I take my walk. Predators are a little rare this early in the winter, but they're still about. Here inside, 3 of our cats - Astrid, Sofia, and Delilah - are konked out around the wood stove. They are amazing sleepers. Teachers of nap. It's catching. Who knows, that may be another stocker of spirit sometime today, dreamtime.
Be well.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Tabula Rasa
Is that what I mean to say? Clean slate? That's what the land looks like today out back. Everything clear, no leaves on the trees, no color to the grass, a sugaring of snow everywhere, frigid weather, all in abeyance, waiting, patient, letting the season be what it is which is very fitting for the first of the year. And I, tuckered out from the holidays and curious about what's next, am one with this feeling. Good to be bundled up in flannel and fleece, good to take a little time to read, good to slow down, let go, see with new eyes, let be.
I woke early this morning, hardly a sound in the house save for the muffled ticking of clocks and the warm phantom breath of the forced air furnace. The Christmas tree still glows in the living room, a whole chunk of lights out from Sofia's punch bagging of the ornaments. The back window thermometer read 6 below zero, but I don't buy it for a moment. Maybe 7 above. Maybe. It's frigid, but let's be factual. I stoked a fire which took quickly with the cold drawing it up the flue and even the sight of the orange glow warmed the kitchen. The coffee pot gargled to life, the cats feasted, the morning began. Later would come some warm water and corn scratch for the geese and then a hike up our hill; for the moment, though, I was content being in the beginnings of the morning, nothing fancy, Richard still in bed, no pressing anything, just me, here, now.
I woke early this morning, hardly a sound in the house save for the muffled ticking of clocks and the warm phantom breath of the forced air furnace. The Christmas tree still glows in the living room, a whole chunk of lights out from Sofia's punch bagging of the ornaments. The back window thermometer read 6 below zero, but I don't buy it for a moment. Maybe 7 above. Maybe. It's frigid, but let's be factual. I stoked a fire which took quickly with the cold drawing it up the flue and even the sight of the orange glow warmed the kitchen. The coffee pot gargled to life, the cats feasted, the morning began. Later would come some warm water and corn scratch for the geese and then a hike up our hill; for the moment, though, I was content being in the beginnings of the morning, nothing fancy, Richard still in bed, no pressing anything, just me, here, now.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Solstice thoughts
Putting things together for a holiday trip away from home and feeling sad about leaving all of our animals. Just listened to a podcast of "Favor Nation" over VPR which I'm told is a Christmas tradition in these parts, a heartwarming yarn written and spoken by William Lange. Part "All Creatures Great and Small" and part "The Waltons." It was enjoyable.
Here's something from a day or 2 ago:
"I stood in the garage this morning watching our geese gather around a white plastic water bucket I’d placed for them just outside the garage door. It was frigid out – finally, seasonal weather – crisp and brightly sunny, a newly washed sky. They didn’t mind me watching them, they weren’t spooked or confrontational, they were busy, in their element. The pond’s frozen over, has been off-and-on for weeks, will be (knock on wood) for months, so this bucket of water is their touchstone to their world. It’s almost as if they come to worship. Sure, they drink from it. They are need of it to wash the grain down their gullets. And the way they drink, mesmerizing, a delicate dip of the neck, a clackity-lapping sound, and then a tilt up and their heads cock back to let the water flow down the inside of their long necks. Lovely. But there’s more. Their ablutions, a ritual. They go individually to the bucket and splatter shake their heads, their beaks just under the surface, over and over, splashing the water back onto themselves, onto their feathers, carrying the water back along the feather’s shaft to clean and prune, cleaning their beaks too. It seems as if there’s ecstasy tied into it all. It’s connected to who they are, an extension of who they are. And inevitably, at least one of them tries to climb into the bucket, Felicity did it this morning. It so moved me. Why? She wanted to be closer, nearer the source, or so it seemed. Maybe she thought it was a portal to a larger body of water somewhere. Moments later it was Shmuel’s turn at the bucket and Felicity moved aside, but she carried on as if she were in the water instead of a driveway with gravel. She dipped her chest down as if diving beneath the surface of the water, something I’ve watched them all do on the pond, diving and flapping and belly flopping. Is it just their nature? Or is it also fun to them? And then the patient sprucing of the feathers, the necks so limber, bending back on themselves, reaching every feather, sewing machining down the whole feather with such thoroughness and pride, immaculate. And then, when finished, they flap their wings whomp, whomp, whomp, one after another after another. I always thought that was Shmuel’s way of saying “I’m boss!” but maybe there are myriad meanings. Little miracles all around."
Richard pointed out the quality of the light the other day and he's right, it's marvelous. Very much of the season, a winter light, bright, but slightly dulled and buttery, sepia toned almost. It's comforting.
I can just eat this place up sometimes I love it so much, just the simplicity of it. I marveled at the kale in our garden, still going strong, growing despite the cold, hearty and dark green. We feasted on it last night and I feel fortified deep down, fantastic. And the parsley too which is even more miraculous to me because it has the color of grass, bold and lively green. It too is a member of the Polar Bear Club. Bring it on it seems to say. Very impressive.
The shortest day once more, the cycle of seasons. A white grey palette to the sky today, our hill beige brown. I must take a walk out in this, say goodbye for a bit. Our chickens are out; I can see Red Vestey, our rooster, and his particular harem of hens up visiting the open goose pen, strutting through the straw and stealing a feed while Shmuel and Mary Ann and Felicity wander about the lawn. Lovely seeing all this LIFE around a seemingly dead countryside. Oh, I can hear some muffled crows from the roosters. Yes, unfortunately some of the hens we thought were hens have turned out to be roosters and once we're back from holidays, Richard has marked them for the chopping block. Too many roosters around mean harried hens.
I wish you all a pleasant and abundant holiday season, filled with warmth and laughter and fun. Happy Solstice and Winter!
Here's something from a day or 2 ago:
"I stood in the garage this morning watching our geese gather around a white plastic water bucket I’d placed for them just outside the garage door. It was frigid out – finally, seasonal weather – crisp and brightly sunny, a newly washed sky. They didn’t mind me watching them, they weren’t spooked or confrontational, they were busy, in their element. The pond’s frozen over, has been off-and-on for weeks, will be (knock on wood) for months, so this bucket of water is their touchstone to their world. It’s almost as if they come to worship. Sure, they drink from it. They are need of it to wash the grain down their gullets. And the way they drink, mesmerizing, a delicate dip of the neck, a clackity-lapping sound, and then a tilt up and their heads cock back to let the water flow down the inside of their long necks. Lovely. But there’s more. Their ablutions, a ritual. They go individually to the bucket and splatter shake their heads, their beaks just under the surface, over and over, splashing the water back onto themselves, onto their feathers, carrying the water back along the feather’s shaft to clean and prune, cleaning their beaks too. It seems as if there’s ecstasy tied into it all. It’s connected to who they are, an extension of who they are. And inevitably, at least one of them tries to climb into the bucket, Felicity did it this morning. It so moved me. Why? She wanted to be closer, nearer the source, or so it seemed. Maybe she thought it was a portal to a larger body of water somewhere. Moments later it was Shmuel’s turn at the bucket and Felicity moved aside, but she carried on as if she were in the water instead of a driveway with gravel. She dipped her chest down as if diving beneath the surface of the water, something I’ve watched them all do on the pond, diving and flapping and belly flopping. Is it just their nature? Or is it also fun to them? And then the patient sprucing of the feathers, the necks so limber, bending back on themselves, reaching every feather, sewing machining down the whole feather with such thoroughness and pride, immaculate. And then, when finished, they flap their wings whomp, whomp, whomp, one after another after another. I always thought that was Shmuel’s way of saying “I’m boss!” but maybe there are myriad meanings. Little miracles all around."
Richard pointed out the quality of the light the other day and he's right, it's marvelous. Very much of the season, a winter light, bright, but slightly dulled and buttery, sepia toned almost. It's comforting.
I can just eat this place up sometimes I love it so much, just the simplicity of it. I marveled at the kale in our garden, still going strong, growing despite the cold, hearty and dark green. We feasted on it last night and I feel fortified deep down, fantastic. And the parsley too which is even more miraculous to me because it has the color of grass, bold and lively green. It too is a member of the Polar Bear Club. Bring it on it seems to say. Very impressive.
The shortest day once more, the cycle of seasons. A white grey palette to the sky today, our hill beige brown. I must take a walk out in this, say goodbye for a bit. Our chickens are out; I can see Red Vestey, our rooster, and his particular harem of hens up visiting the open goose pen, strutting through the straw and stealing a feed while Shmuel and Mary Ann and Felicity wander about the lawn. Lovely seeing all this LIFE around a seemingly dead countryside. Oh, I can hear some muffled crows from the roosters. Yes, unfortunately some of the hens we thought were hens have turned out to be roosters and once we're back from holidays, Richard has marked them for the chopping block. Too many roosters around mean harried hens.
I wish you all a pleasant and abundant holiday season, filled with warmth and laughter and fun. Happy Solstice and Winter!
Monday, November 28, 2011
The color of geese
The sky, the pond, the surrounding landscape, everything is the color of our geese this morning, white and grey. We woke encased in fog, a haze from the unseasonably - or seasonably from now on - warm weather, up to 60 tomorrow, and I could just make out their silhouettes up in their pen. I'm reading things into their behavior, watching the way they walk, stand, look at me, react to sounds, movement, as if they were all signs of shock, bereavement, post partem depression from 5 of their flock disappearing from their lives. And it's a ghosty day. Everything unfamiliar. I just spied them out the front window across the road, staring at the pond. Of course I was about to stick the word "forlornly" into that sentence right after "staring." But how do I know? Isn't the pond frozen over enough to give them pause? This grey white world melting a bit now from the 6 inches of Thanksgiving snow. Everything's off, so different. Where'd the green go? Or the moveable surface of the pond? The depth to dive in, the space for one's webbed feet to gain purchase and push you forward? Where did that world of water go? Go ask Persephone, headed south for the warm weather in Hades for the winter. She's no fool.
Post mortem on the processing.
Richard told me to expect to be haunted for a while. And I am. Up on a treacherously snowy driving day Wednesday. A quick chase and corner and cage of the first 4 and then 5 to be taken. An hour and a half drive north on slippery surfaces with their eyes looking up toward me reflected in the rear view mirror, as they kept cluck calming themselves. I turned classical music on low for them, cooed, thanked them, trying to calm them and in the process, centering myself.
The Processor's had had a busy morning, but there was no one there when I pulled up. Cynthia, tough and leathery with clear blue eyes and a kind smile, directed me around back. Snow covered the ground which I chose to see as a blessing, the white covering up what must have been pools of blood. I was grateful that their were signs of animal life around to balance out the surroundings, Muscovy ducks poking around near the barn, a blonde stallion pacing its stall, and 2 brown mares frolicing back and forth between pastured enclosures and rolling around in the snow, standing back up, and shaking it all off in a full body shiver. I'd never seen that before. From what I had imagined from Richard's story of his trip here last year, I had expected a larger building where the killing took place, but it was really an old double horse trailer decked out for its new purpose: 3 galvanized cones attached to one wall an open gap down its front side (beneath the cones was a pile of what looked like hard white straw or porcupine needles doused in blood - on closer inspection, turkey feathers); across from the cones was a combination sink/plucking/cutting area with big plastic buckets beneath; to the back of the trailer, a galvanized trash can atop a sturdy propane burner, a cauldron of hot water in which to douse the carcasses before plucking, and to its left, a wide-mouthed plucking machine, looking like a huge cotton candy maker. Just outside the trailer was another tub of cold water to place the finished birds. I lifted the hatchback door and saw that despite my efforts to protect the the floor, the geese had made quite a mess. No matter. I lifted the cage out and onto the snow and cleaned the mess. They were calm, the birds. Skittish when I pulled them from their cage, but I held them, thanking them one more time, and passed them off to Cynthia, now having donned a long, brown rubber apron and gloves. Phil, a jovial helper, was already in the back of the trailer and Ralph, looking like an old cowboy right out of Lonesome Dove, sauntered around the back of the trailer. I introduced myself and then told him we'd made the classic mistake of naming all our geese.
"Just rename them Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc," he said.
"Don't look now," Cynthia told me, the first 2 geese upside down in the cones, the knife in her hand. But I felt I owed them and I watched every step.
I'm still not right with it, the taking of their lives. I've spoken of this before. Richard was right, it stays with you. And there was kindness, thoughtfulness from Cynthia and Ralph. They were good people, proficient at their job. I remember when it got down to the last goose, one of the youngest, a gander. He had been the loudest squawker whenever we'd come home, whenever a stranger passed on the road, whenever it was time to eat. He'd relaxed in the cage, he was sitting down, Cynthia needed to use her "chicken hook" to tug him gently from the cage. I held him, loved him a bit, and passed him off to Cynthia. I heard her coo softly "You were a good goose" before taking his life. And still ... still ...
I drove home, lonely. No image of them in my rear view mirror. Knowing now they would be holiday gifts to dear friends, that the next day one would grace the table of our Thanksgiving hosts. The thought of that helped. I had to call Richard to talk myself down, ground myself, to reach out to someone who had had the same experience. I didn't want to berate myself with some form of "get over it! C'mon! Your cousins have killed and dressed game from time immemorial!" I then called my sister, leaving a message, remembering the time when she, a nurse in training years ago, had witnessed her first autopsy and had called me to share the experience. Life here and gone, no matter what size the creature, matters.
A lot of activity out our back window. The chickens are doing their little scratch and peck dance all over the hill, happy, it seems, to have a respite from the snow covered ground. Another group is up in the goose pen sprucing things up, snatching a little of the goose feed for themselves. A little tit for tat, the goose do the same thing to their food. Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Daphne (or is it Felicity?) are pretty vocal when I step out to check and see how they are. Not so much a belligerent cry from them as just "Yeah, we're here. We're right here. This is our territory, give us space and things will be just fine." And then a pure trumpety bray from Shmuel for no purpose at all other then to say "I'm alive!" A fine sound. And it stays clear and clear in the grey, white air.
Post mortem on the processing.
Richard told me to expect to be haunted for a while. And I am. Up on a treacherously snowy driving day Wednesday. A quick chase and corner and cage of the first 4 and then 5 to be taken. An hour and a half drive north on slippery surfaces with their eyes looking up toward me reflected in the rear view mirror, as they kept cluck calming themselves. I turned classical music on low for them, cooed, thanked them, trying to calm them and in the process, centering myself.
The Processor's had had a busy morning, but there was no one there when I pulled up. Cynthia, tough and leathery with clear blue eyes and a kind smile, directed me around back. Snow covered the ground which I chose to see as a blessing, the white covering up what must have been pools of blood. I was grateful that their were signs of animal life around to balance out the surroundings, Muscovy ducks poking around near the barn, a blonde stallion pacing its stall, and 2 brown mares frolicing back and forth between pastured enclosures and rolling around in the snow, standing back up, and shaking it all off in a full body shiver. I'd never seen that before. From what I had imagined from Richard's story of his trip here last year, I had expected a larger building where the killing took place, but it was really an old double horse trailer decked out for its new purpose: 3 galvanized cones attached to one wall an open gap down its front side (beneath the cones was a pile of what looked like hard white straw or porcupine needles doused in blood - on closer inspection, turkey feathers); across from the cones was a combination sink/plucking/cutting area with big plastic buckets beneath; to the back of the trailer, a galvanized trash can atop a sturdy propane burner, a cauldron of hot water in which to douse the carcasses before plucking, and to its left, a wide-mouthed plucking machine, looking like a huge cotton candy maker. Just outside the trailer was another tub of cold water to place the finished birds. I lifted the hatchback door and saw that despite my efforts to protect the the floor, the geese had made quite a mess. No matter. I lifted the cage out and onto the snow and cleaned the mess. They were calm, the birds. Skittish when I pulled them from their cage, but I held them, thanking them one more time, and passed them off to Cynthia, now having donned a long, brown rubber apron and gloves. Phil, a jovial helper, was already in the back of the trailer and Ralph, looking like an old cowboy right out of Lonesome Dove, sauntered around the back of the trailer. I introduced myself and then told him we'd made the classic mistake of naming all our geese.
"Just rename them Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc," he said.
"Don't look now," Cynthia told me, the first 2 geese upside down in the cones, the knife in her hand. But I felt I owed them and I watched every step.
I'm still not right with it, the taking of their lives. I've spoken of this before. Richard was right, it stays with you. And there was kindness, thoughtfulness from Cynthia and Ralph. They were good people, proficient at their job. I remember when it got down to the last goose, one of the youngest, a gander. He had been the loudest squawker whenever we'd come home, whenever a stranger passed on the road, whenever it was time to eat. He'd relaxed in the cage, he was sitting down, Cynthia needed to use her "chicken hook" to tug him gently from the cage. I held him, loved him a bit, and passed him off to Cynthia. I heard her coo softly "You were a good goose" before taking his life. And still ... still ...
I drove home, lonely. No image of them in my rear view mirror. Knowing now they would be holiday gifts to dear friends, that the next day one would grace the table of our Thanksgiving hosts. The thought of that helped. I had to call Richard to talk myself down, ground myself, to reach out to someone who had had the same experience. I didn't want to berate myself with some form of "get over it! C'mon! Your cousins have killed and dressed game from time immemorial!" I then called my sister, leaving a message, remembering the time when she, a nurse in training years ago, had witnessed her first autopsy and had called me to share the experience. Life here and gone, no matter what size the creature, matters.
A lot of activity out our back window. The chickens are doing their little scratch and peck dance all over the hill, happy, it seems, to have a respite from the snow covered ground. Another group is up in the goose pen sprucing things up, snatching a little of the goose feed for themselves. A little tit for tat, the goose do the same thing to their food. Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Daphne (or is it Felicity?) are pretty vocal when I step out to check and see how they are. Not so much a belligerent cry from them as just "Yeah, we're here. We're right here. This is our territory, give us space and things will be just fine." And then a pure trumpety bray from Shmuel for no purpose at all other then to say "I'm alive!" A fine sound. And it stays clear and clear in the grey, white air.
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