December 28, 2011

I don’t tell this story too often, but today a conversation I had with a friend got me to thinking about it again. My friend felt she just couldn’t give enough presents, or a big enough present, this Christmas to be loved…

The best present I ever got was a lollipop.

Once a year, each summer for a few of my childhood years, my mom would get all us kids to dress up a bit – tie our shoes, comb our hair, find our cleanest pants, tuck in our shirts – and load us into the station wagon for the trip down the mountain, into town, and then to the railroad station.

It was small town. The buildings were made of brick that was clothed over with years of black soot from the paper mill’s smokestacks. The streets were of a grey, cracked concrete, framed by sidewalks. There were small stores: a five and dime, a news agency, a candy store, a pharmacy, clothing stores, a hardware store, etc. All the stores had displays in the dirty windows that tempted passersby’s to come inside.  The town wasn’t so small that everyone knew each other, but it was still small enough that everyone recognized each other.

Mom would drive to the center of town and at the crossroads of the two main streets make a right to the train station. The street sloped upward, crossing over a steel grate bridge that spanned a small creek, and ended, literally, at the dirt lot of the train station. There were the tracks running sideways, and beside them was an empty, long clapboard shed, also clothed in soot, that served as the station.

At sometime during my growing up years, the train station got its fifteen minutes of fame. Fighting the towns dying economy, the town leaders hired a PR firm to lure new businesses to town. The PR idea turned out to be a picture of all the townspeople gathered on the street below the tracks. The paper mill and stores closed that morning so that everyone could gather for the picture. School children were marched from classrooms to the station. There was what looked like a rolling sea of smiling people when the fire truck raised the photographer above the train station to take the picture. The picture ran as a full page ad in the New York Times with the caption “Town for Hire”. I don’t remember if anyone hired the town. But the town had fifteen minutes of fame just the same. Andy Warhol was proud of Tyrone.

But that’s not the story I am trying to tell.

At the station, while waiting for the train, my brothers and I would play on the wooden benches that lined the shed’s walls.  My brothers and I would jump from one bench to the other, as if we were jumping from ledge to ledge through some imaginary landscape that would swallow us into some bottomless chasm if we missed. My sister didn’t play. She was the lookout.

She stood in her dress on the platform looking down the tracks for a whisp of far away train engine smoke, anticipating the vibrations that the heavy train would make as it came toward the station.

My sister was always the lookout.

She was the one who would have been on the bow of the Titanic while her brothers were dancing downstairs…and had she been on the Titanic, it wouldn’t have hit that iceberg. My sister didn’t miss much.

As soon as she felt that familiar quake rolling through the platform boards, she would come get us. “The train is coming!”

My grandmother always stepped off the train in her Sunday best, even if it was Thursday. Her silver grey hair was always done up. She always wore a long, loose, billowy dress of plain color. Her lips were always dressed with red lipstick that would mark everything they touched – cups, napkins, our faces….And she always wore perfume. She wasn’t fat, but I remember her as being big, with an arthritic walk. She had long fingers covered with wrinkled skin that had been aged by years of knitting and housework. They were fingers that had never been out of work. And she had a New England accent that made me know that she was from somewhere different; a place where life was lived differently than how it was in my small, grey and sooted town.

And each time she came, she brought with her a small plain white box. A box from that far away mysterious place that I had never been to and so I could color with my own imagination in any way I wanted.

In my imagination I could picture Gommie putting on an overcoat and walking down the stairs to the street from her apartment. At the bottom of the stairs she would turn and walk up a street to a candy store and go inside where she would approach the counter. There she would look through the curved glass case that held handmade lollipops, and after a bit of hesitation, pick out lollipops for us kids. The store owner would wrap each one in white wax paper, and lay them carefully in the white box….

I am not sure if that’s how it really happened. But…

…I do know that each of us kids, now a bit unkempt from playing in the station, would get to pick out a lollipop, just steps from the train.

They weren’t round lollipops. They were sorta pillow shaped. And they each were made of many different colors twisting and flowing and sometimes tangled together, that gave each lollipop a very unique taste. They weren’t lemon or raspberry or grape…they were well, they were all kinds of flavors that melted together into a taste that was undistinguishable but original…and they were lollipops that I could get from no one else, but Gommie.

My mom, after each of us kids picked one out of the box, would ration us to one lollipop a day. Gommie didn’t buy in so much to that and would always let us sneak another when my mom was down in the basement doing laundry. When the lollipops ran out we kids knew that it would be at least another year before we could taste them again.

These lollipops became my favorite, and are one of my most favorite memories.

Lollipops. They didn’t cost much – maybe they were penny candy if they were that at all. They didn’t have sounds or flashing lights. They had no expensive wrapping. They were not big or huge or heavy. Gommie didn’t wait in line all night with frantic others for the store to open. There was no such thing as a televised Black Friday back then that proved that she was a successful shopping warrior. And the lollipops were so simple that they didn’t come with any instructions.

But then, if one really gives it some thought, any thing that is given with love doesn’t need instructions….

I tell this story to say that the present doesn’t really matter…it’s the experience that someone loves you that matters. It doesn’t take money or a holiday to show someone that you love them….all it takes is heart.

Those lollipops were my grandmother’s heart…and they were the best present she could ever give.

December 18, 2011

While we were sleeping….

On November 18^th of this year President Obama signed a bill passed by congress that funded jobs for horse meat inspectors, opening the door to horse slaughter in the continental US. Horse slaughter was never illegal, but because there were no inspectors for horse slaughter houses, it couldn’t be done.

It still went on.

Most unwanted horses were packed onto livestock trailers and shipped to Mexico for death and processing. Others were left uncared for and starving in abandoned barns, backyards, and pastures. In the downward spiraling economy, affording a horse became too much burden for many.

Yet breeders keep breeding, hoping the next foal will be the next Secretariat or Dan Patch.  Perhaps the foal will sell and bring the farm income to pay the bills….

But just like kittens and puppies, what doesn’t go to a good home still has to go.

PETA supported this bill. Their thinking is that it’s less trauma to quickly end a horse’s life in the US rather than to ship it across a border where it may get worse treatment in travel and handling before its slaughtered. If it has to be, doing it here would be more “humane” than doing it there.

Others feel it’s better to have a slaughter option than none at all; a much better option than abandoning a horse to be left sick or starving. Slaughter would translate to be a lot less suffering horses.

And it could create jobs. Shippers, packers, processors, and on and on. Maybe there could even be horse cafo’s someday, providing even more jobs and giving foundation to a niche industry with its own pac and lobbyists. (I am probably wrong to think that they don’t already exist.)

I just don’t like it. Any of it. 

My argument is a moral one, and moral arguments are hard to win.

I’d rather see less breeding. I’d like to see a more responsible racing and show industry. I’d like to see less backyard operations. I’d like to see more horses spayed or gelded. I’d like to see education. I’d like to see compassion for a life.

Horse slaughter is another symptom of our use it and throw it away culture. As long as there is horse slaughter, breeding can go on unabated and without any need for breeders to take responsibility or have respect for the life that was created. Slaughter won’t address the problem of too many horses, but it will enable too many horses. It’s the wrong thing to do. And two wrongs don’t make a right.

But a lot of people think they do.

It happens a lot when we are sleeping.

December 13, 2011

The fall and the coming of winter with ever shortening days and morning frosts bring a slower pace of life here. The anxious hurry of survival is replaced by the preparation of dormancy. And that comes so slowly that it is hardly noticed until it has happened.

It seems that it wasn’t too many days ago that the constellation Orion was barely visible above the eastern tree line an hour before the late August daybreak  Now, with the earth’s backward leaning, it is prominent in the southern night sky, overseeing the coming of colder days.

Since Augusts’ last days, the horses and the goats thin summer hair has grown out into thick mats of fur that shed water and hold body heat. The chickens have for the most part finished molting, dropping faded, tattered year old feathers for new, glossed and colorful ones. The bees have stopped sending out foragers to find pollen and nectar. They have joined together around the queen to form a single working organism that just days ago was an organized confusion of many thousands. In clustered formation, they generate body heat to protect the queen through the winter, moving through the frames surviving on stored honey.

I too have made changes. I have gained some weight- a combination of slowing down and the naturalness of storing reserves throughout my body. My hair has thickened. My skin, especially the exposed skin on my hands, has dried and hardened so to lose some sensitivity to the cold. All this too, has happened almost unnoticed, taking months to come about.

These are only a few of the things I have seen come winter around the farm.

Once again, I am fascinated how seasons cause us and everything else to change long before change is needed. It’s as if someone is looking out for us….

November 14, 2011

It’s been a long time since Kath and I have gone away…and it’s been an even longer time since we went away somewhere where we wouldn’t be stepping in manure and getting straw in our underwear…

Over the weekend we went up to NYC with Paul, a member of our CSA, and his girl friend Jen. We saw the Rockettes, walked the streets like the other tourists, and went over to Brooklyn and visited ‘little China’. I wish we had had more time to stay longer.

I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, but I still got a few good shots that I want to share. Some are of the sights and people, and some are of the geometry that surrounds it all.

October 31, 2011

I swept the barn this morning – was before 8 when I went out to feed the animals. Ducks, Snoopie, the rooster, the chickens, and the horses. The bees have sugar left from last Friday. When it got cold Saturday they stopped feeding.

The animals don’t have the weather channel – they have to contend by instinct and not by the forecast. Snoops has a long, shaggy coat that puffs out to trap body heat in this cold. So do the horses. Their coats begin to grow out in early August and then continue to get thicker and longer until the spring equinox. The rooster was funny today– his feathers were frosted like the grass, but he didn’t seem to mind at all as he was crowing and strutting around as if it were any other day.

But I was cold. My fingers were growing numb by the minute as I swept the stable floor. And then that cold burn feeling began to creep into my knuckles. I kept moving and did my best to ignore it. I should have worn some gloves. Every few minutes I stopped and went over to Lou and stroked his shoulder, allowing my hands to steal some of the warmth from his coat. He didn’t seem to mind, but he was curious if there was going to be a ginger snap treat appearing anytime soon. That’s pretty much all that Lou seems to think about – treats. He tried to angle his head a bit sideways to adjust his sight with his good eye to see if there was anything in my hand ..“no Louie, I’m just pettin’ you”. Then he lowered his head into the tangled mound of hay at his feet. He couldn’t care less about my numbed hands, or that he was keeping me warm. Good ol Lou. As long as there is hay at his feet, he doesn't have a care in the world.

As I swept I relived and thought more about Saturday afternoon. With the northeast storm, cold air blew in and pushed aside the fall temperatures. We lost about 20 degrees in a few winds late in the day. We found Zip’s circling in his stall, kicking, biting at his stomach, heaving for breathes. Looked like colic, which is when the horse’s digestive system gets blocked and if not treated, can be fatal. It’s a horse owner’s nightmare. Trust me. It can be caused by a lot of things, and one of those things is a sudden change of weather. It’s hard to believe that an animal so big, fast and strong can be so sensitive.

Kath came in to make an emergency call to the vet, and I headed out to the stable. By then Zip was laying down…there was no rhythm to his breathing. His eyes were glassed over, and trending up and back towards his eyelids. He let me stroke him, and every so often lifted his head up to lick my fingers, just to fall back onto the floor, struggling to get enough breathe. I thought it was over. He was laying with his mouth slightly open, eyes rolled up searching for help. It was hard to bear. Hard to be so helpless. I just stroked him.

It seemed like hours, but was only minutes. Without describing it, the blockage loosened. Slowly. The vet called back. Dr. Beth thought that from our description and what was happening that it was gas colic and would be over in a half hour, but if not, she’d be coming by. Gas colic usually takes care of itself.  She was treating a colic’ed horse south of us, and had another to see after that. Zip’s was third in line, but was now on his feet. She’d call later to see if he was getting better.

Once Zip got up we haltered him and put him on a lead. Kath and I took turns walking him back and forth in the back field…walking helps to keep things inside him moving. In an hour he was back to being Zip, with eyes brightened, breathing regular, alert, and strong on his lead. Dr. Beth was happy to hear it, and gave us a minimalist feeding schedule for the next few days to get his digestive system back on track.

As I swept I kept looking over to Zip, who was sifting through his meager ration of hay. As cold as I was I just wanted to stay around and stay near him and the others. You just never know.

October 21, 2011

Stuttered starts are what I call the posts I‘ve started, but for some reason or other, veered off the thought path and never finished the journey, so to speak….here’s a sampling:

It seems that I have been so busy lately that I don’t know what to do first, and so I end up doing everything last…

*****

I have always believed that some forms of mental illness, such as melancholy, can at times be a good thing. Lately, I have been witnessing a building current in the mi culture that understands and appreciates some forms of mi as “mental sk’illness”. Examples of this emerging thought is the TED talk given by Joshua Walters about the very fine line between being crazy and being creative, and Nassir Ghaemi’s book, “A First Rate Madness”,  that argues how mental illness was a trait and asset of great leaders such as Lincoln, King, and Churchill. Not all mi’s are the seeds of greatness. Some are seriously deliberating. However, due to the social stigmas surrounding mi’s, any silver lining will be tarnished.

*****

“I don’t care if it rains or freezes….

 I think there is little difference between tv infomercial hosts and tv evangelicals.  Each is selling a prescription to make our lives happy, easier and more fulfilled. They tell us that there are things we need that we do not yet have. Each brings forth a parade of witnesses to verify the claims they make. There is always a before and after piece. Each asks us for money - vacuums and hair loss salves cost pretty much the same as salvation. And there is always a disclaimer somewhere at the bottom of the screen explaining that results may vary, some are not typical.

 … long as I got my  plastic Jesus”

*****

I have never watched Oprah, or Dr. Phil for that matter. I did watch Glenn Beck once. But only once.  I turned off the TV for days after that.

*****

Sometimes I really scare myself…I was thinking of what to do last Saturday night and the first thing that popped into my head  was to clean out the stalls a bit early  so I could go wander around Tractor Supply to see what’s new and then afterwards go to Applebee’s for dinner... Uh oh!

*****

Peggy asked why most people are wholly and instinctively compassionate towards animals in preference to people…

Maybe it’s because what Louie has taught me. Louie doesn’t care how I dress, how much money I have, who my friends are, what my race is, if I am Quaker or Muslim, what kind of car I drive, about the books I read, if I have a job or not, if I am gay, who my favorite football team is, what my politics are…he just doesn’t care.

What he does care about – and it is the only thing – is if he can trust me. Trust is the core of our relationship and it goes both ways. For example, I trust him to take care of me when we ride, and he trusts me not to lead him into any trouble. The only thing in our relationship that is conditional is that trust – nothing else matters.

That to me is the difference. With people, there are too many conditions. And conditions block trust. I think that those few and rare persons who can get around this are the ones who are truly compassionate toward others. And the rest of us…?

The rest of us need to get on the back of a horse more often.

October 8, 2011

Saturday afternoon I looked across the yard and saw a cluster of bees on one of my hives. In the summer this is usual – bees bearding on the outside of the hive because they are not needed inside to cool the hive, or there’s just too many bees to fit inside when all the forager bees return by evening. But in the fall this doesn’t happen. So I was curious. I thought that maybe the hive was being robbed by another hive for its honey reserves, and these were guard bees or some others forced out. So I walked over to see just what was going on.

The clusters were drones- male bees. In the fall, the drones are pushed out of the hive because they are no longer needed for survival. Drones don’t forage, don’t build comb, don’t feed larvae, don’t do much of anything except for one thing. Each day the drones fly out to wherever drones instinctively go, waiting to mate with a virgin queen. That is, of course, if a virgin queen comes by. If and when a drone mates, it dies. In the fall, when the mating season ends, the worker bees push the drones out of the hive – there is no reason to feed them if they have no purpose and no reason to waste honey on them that will be needed by the workers and the queen during the winter. Its the bee economics of survival.

I never saw drones pushed out and clustered before, though it probably is a normal late season occurrence. In the past I have witnessed just a few drones being wrestled out by worker bees and then not allowed back into the hive by the guard bees. But on this hive there were two full clusters of drones…pushed out to starve and die. The worker bees were massed, guarding the entrance.

Drones to the left and top , guard bees to the right.

Closer view of drones with two worker bees to the right.