April 7, 2012

Last night as the clerk of my Quaker Meeting, I took part in the areas ecumenical Good Friday service. This is what I said:

What I want to share is a leading…a leading, in Quaker speak, is when God speaks through you. Its something that you cant shake off, ignore, or just forget about. It comes to you, into you.  It stays with you, everywhere you go…..a leading is god speaking. A leading is Gods message. Its God telling you what to do…God has given them to you…. This is a leading that God gave to me.

My leading is a poem. Ever since Pastor Tom sent me an email and asked if I’d like to say something at Good Friday, this poem has surfaced in me and wont leave. Fact is, this poem is always with me, but when it usually comes to mind once or twice a day, now it won’t sit down. It just repeats to me all through the day, each day. It is God speaking. God wants me to share it. I don’t know why. But I know God wants me to, so I trust …

The poem was written some some 600 years ago, by the Sufi mystic poet, Hafiz…

This is the poem –

“So Thirsty”

First the fish has to say

Something ain’t right about this camel raise

And I am so thirsty

This poem can be interpreted in many different ways – which is why it’s remembered all these years – it survives change. It can be interpreted as just a simple lyric that is just for fun – a fish on a camel – of course he’s thirsty! Or about becoming lost…the fish is definitely lost. Or maybe all this silliness isn’t silliness at all

To me the poem is about searching for God, about leaving what we know to search for what’s missing – it’s our thirst for finding God.

Its can go deeper than that too. The fish would not be thirsty had he not left the water he once lived in…something isn’t right, we need God to survive

It is also about faith….

Faith.

It takes faith to say something isn’t right…it takes faith to admit you are so thirsty. It takes faith to seek God.

Jesus had faith.

Jesus was always moving towards God…. by faith. That was what Jesus’ life was about.

And maybe that’s what God is trying to tell me…to keep moving towards God. To keep my faith. To let my faith carry me back to the water where I belong.

Didn’t Jesus say?

“Seek and you shall find”

First the fish has to say….

And that is my leading…it speaks to thy condition. It speaks to thy condition every day. …thanks for allowing me to share my leading with you on this Good Friday…Amen.

March 27

Last Friday Tanya, our vet, came out to give the horses their spring shots – rabies, west Nile virus, etc. Zippy received a few extra shots for diseases that I can’t begin to pronounce. On Saturday Zips will be going to the barn where Kath takes riding lessons and he will stay there for the month of April to get exercised and retrained for some serious riding. Zip is a former dressage champion, retired. And he’s had it good here, eating grass. Pretty much the only stress he has here is Patrick coming up behind him to nip him on his butt.

We bought the trailer so that Kath could take Patrick to the barn for lessons, but that didn’t work out too well. Patrick didn’t mind, but he isn’t very athletic and has some kind of gait that the trainers didn’t want to work with. They pretty much said he’s a great trail horse, but his body was never meant for ballet. One of those “I like you, but lets just  be friends…” deal. So they asked what else we had….

Lou only walks, unless he smells a peppermint, or if Patrick nips him in the butt – then he will run. But we pretty much figured that the trainers weren’t going to offer him peppermints and I couldn’t quite picture Sophia or Illona sneaking up behind him and biting him in the butt to get him to move…trainers aren’t born with too much of a sense of humor. Lou wasn’t gonna work, so it was no use to even contemplate it.

So that left Zips. And so poor ol Zips got marched into that new trailer that was meant for Patrick and sped off to the barn for a trial.  ‘Ol Zips did all the right moves and had the right gait or whatever…things that trainers know about but something I may never understand. Dumb ‘ol Zips – had he been smart enough and trotted out of whack and not responded to Sophie’s heel, he’d been home free and left to enjoy grass and retirement and hang out with me in the back field. Just like Patrick and Lou. But no, not Zip! he decided to show off. The dummy.

So this Saturday he will be loaded into the trailer for an extended stay. He will get good care. During the week he will get exercised and put in shape. He will get re trained to get his responses sharpened up. Kath will go over every Saturday to take lessons on him. He’ll be fine.

But I will miss him. Sorta like sending your kids off to college – ya know it’s a good thing, and the right thing, but it still leaves that bit of emptiness that never gets totally refilled….

The problem with me and animals is that I get way too attached. Way too attached.

March 12, 2012

Spring’s here! The light is lasting longer as the earth’s wobble tilts us closer to the sun.

Today the bees were bringing in pollen – grey, yellow, white, and red – from crocus, daffodils, etc, and from trees, especially the swamp maples that are bursting with petite red flowers. Some bees were fat with nectar as they landed; a sure sign that honey is starting to be made, and brood is being fed.

The chickens are laying more eggs each day now. The 25 chickens average about 18-20 eggs every week in the winter and as the days get longer, laying increases each week. Chickens are scheduled by the sun. Last week we were up to about 50 eggs, and today alone we collected 11. (I guess for 25 chickens it could be more, but not all of them lay eggs anymore because they are up there in years. I let my chickens live out their life here…I figure that they’ve provided for me and it’s only right for me to provide for them in return.) By early summer, we might top out at about 70 eggs a week, and then a little less as the heat slows the girls down a bit.

It’s also the shedding season. Now, when we groom any of the hippos, the brush gets so full of hair in just a few strokes that it needs to be cleaned out. Same is true when I brush Snoops. Small birds swoop down now and then to pick up what hair lands on the ground and use it for making their nests. Nature doesn’t let much go to waste. It’s almost as if it’s all planned out and everything timed to fit together…

The wild turkeys are putting on shows each day – in the back yard and front pasture, males are strutting with their feathers all puffed out. Wooing the hens…the guys look like mummers without the banjoes. A lot of people complain about all the turkeys these days, but I like them. Years ago there were no turkeys in the county, as they had been hunted out. The state department of Fish and Game reintroduced them, and coupled with new hunting laws, the turkeys have flourished. It is a success story that in some areas has been too successful, and these areas are over run with them. Not so here. At least not yet. We have two main flocks – one of 39 and one of 23 that move through here. Soon the hens will be nesting and the flocks will temporarily break up. Come June the females will band together and raise the chicks. By late summer the flocks will re form and roam the woods and fields. I have never tired of watching this cycle. Wild turkeys are so cool!

March 4, 2012

Boy did it rain the other night…the thunder and lightning seemed to go on forever. It stayed over us for so long that it seemed the storm somehow got stuck to our house. The rain just pounded and the thunder shook every window and the lightning snapped and lit up the dark like rapid strobes.

I walked out to the field the morning after and the water was laying everywhere. Everywhere I looked was ponded with water…just a mess.

By the afternoon much of the water had begun to drain back into the earth, and I noticed that the pastures had a new green tint to them. The grass had greened up a bit. It wasn’t the rain that caused it, but the nitrogen that was produced from all the lightning. Lightning energizes the sky and causes nitrogen to combine with oxygen, and that makes nitrate, which is one of the forms of nitrogen that a plant can use. (I am no chemist - my brother is the one with the PhD in that – but I really do know this!) I have seen this greening so many times after a storm that I have pretty much come to expect it, especially in the spring.  It’s one of the ways Natures feeds plants…

*****

I planted turnips back in August right before hurricane Irene hit. Somehow this one survived the beating rain and didn’t get washed away or broken down. It was a strong seedling. A few others survived the hurricane but never really got going, and only produced very small bulbs/ roots. But something told me that this one was special. Something told me not to pull this one. Something said to just let it grow. Here it is, a little over six months old and still growing. The best I can measure her, she is about 9 in diameter and has a 26 inch circumference. I’m just going to let her grow as long as she will. I even named her Irene, after the storm! Only a farmer would have a pet turnip….or maybe just I would.

*****

Way back in January I bought a used greenhouse. I should capitalize USED to describe it! The hoops were twisted, some bent, some broken at the apex; anchors were broken; the plywood front and back was a bit rotted. But the greenhouse had a few good things going for it – a huge shade cloth, four year plastic, an older fan that was in good condition, benches, and thermostats. The other thing it had going for it was that I had time on my hands and I needed something to do.

Friends of mine, my son, his friends, and I traveled thirty miles to Buena with a borrowed trailer and over a few days, disassembled it and hauled it back to the farm in pieces, all of us knowing that it would never go back together the same way that it had come apart. The first week of February I began salvaging the good hoops and other parts and began putting it up – because not all of its pieces could be reused, I settled on putting up half of what was the original. I am happy with that.

It’s almost finished. In another week I hope to have the plastic on and I might even begin growing stuff in there. My real plan though is to use it as a high tunnel in the fall/ winter, planting directly into the soil underneath. With double plastic it should stay warm enough without using a heating system. I am sure this, like everything else I have done here, will be a learning experience that will build upon itself year after year.

February 12, 2012

Patterns and loneliness...

February 6, 2012

I am not yet sure of all the effects that the warmer than average weather we are having this winter has had on the bees. Normally in the winter the colony clusters around the queen to keep her warm. The bees are restful, conserving energy and food. Yet with the temperatures being so warm, the bees are not settling, and the colonies have been active and sending out foragers.

With all this activity the bees use up in more honey to sustain themselves than they would have had if they were in a cluster. With reserves dwindling, and no sources of nectar, starvation is a concern.

So I have been feeding a bit. On warm days when the bees are active, I have been opening the outer cover and spreading granulated table sugar on the inner cover near the vent. I have been trying not to overfeed, as this may start the queen to begin laying eggs, using up even more reserves to feed the pupae and the added population as it hatches. It’s hard to tell though if that’s happening because although its warm enough for the bees to be active, its still not warm enough for me to open up the hive, smoke it, and pull frames to see. For now, I am guessing how much to feed, based on how much activity I see and how much the bees are taking in. Each hive is different.

Two day ago I was very surprised when I checked the hives. Bees were coming back to the hives loaded up with pale yellow pollen – not just a bee or two, but many. I am not sure where they are getting the pollen. There are dandelions in flower, and some people are saying that their crocus and daffodils are up. A few rouge forsythias have scattered blooms on some of their branches. It could be any of these sources, and probably others I don’t know of or haven’t thought of.

If the bees are getting pollen, they are also getting nectar, and so I have to guess that egg laying is probably going on in a few of the hives.

I am not sure where all this will lead. On one hand, because they are active, I know that all my hives have made it this far through the winter. On the other, I don’t know how much all this activity will help or stress the colonies.

In the end, Nature will decide, and I will have learned new lessons.

January 19, 2012

Probably not the biggest story of the year….but yesterday I ate a beet. Not the whole thing, but a bite of one that I pulled from the hoop house bed. This would be no big deal, and it most likely still wouldn’t be, except that I haven’t been able to look at a beet, let alone touch one, since kindergarten. And for those persons who know my age, that was a very, very long time ago.

Beets are one of those “bad memory” foods! I think that everyone has one. Some people can’t touch liver. Some people cant touch peas…

My bad food memory is of an ugly, runny red pile of chopped, cubed pickled beets on the side of my kindergarten lunch plate. I took one bite and reacted with a sudden spit that lobbed over the table and hit the wall on the other side. Even so, a kind and matronly lunch aide who whole heartedly believed in “waste not” stood over me and helped me force down that whole pile. I didn’t want help. I wanted to run away.

The taste and fear of that lunch time still haunts me. It’s ingrained in me. It’s a bad movie re running in my brain.

Last year Karen asked that I grow beets. Just the thought of a beet in the garden started my stomach to quiver, but I relented, saying that I would plant them, but the rest was up to her. I wouldn’t pull them and I wouldn’t eat them. I didn’t even want to smell them!

Turns out that the beets were the hit of last year’s CSA. I didn’t understand it – how could  they be so popular? Couldn’t figure how anyone could get excited over something so red and vile. But people were excited, and people asked for more. So I kept planting. And in the fall, I planted some in the hoop house.

These in the hoop house didn’t grow very big. The soil I think got too cool too soon. But I didn’t want to waste them (remember what the lunch aide taught me?)Every so often I pulled one or two and gave them to Snoopie. She wasn’t thrilled with them, but when she realized that nothing better was to come, she reluctantly nibbled at them. Same with the chickens. They pecked at the red bulb, but more out of curiosity than with relish. I got to thinking that if they did go crazy for them, I could end up with red yolked eggs, and that probably wouldn’t be too good. So maybe it was a good thing that they didn’t like them. Some blessings come as failures.

After Snoopie and the chickens there was only one other animal I had left to try feeding the remaining beets to -  the hippos.

We had been feeding Zippy dried beet pulp for months to put some more weight on him, so it seemed natural to offer him a fresh beet. I was cleaning the stalls when Zip came in from the front pasture to see what I was up to. He looked at me and gave me a throaty snicker. (I have no idea why this sound is called a snicker because it’s more of a growling sound.) And I thought, “what the hell, lets give it a try…”

So I walked to the hoop house and lifted two small beets from the raised bed inside. I scraped off the skin with my pocket knife, much like peeling a carrot, and cut off the roots and then the leaves. Red water seeped from the cuts onto my hands. I walked back to the stable and offered the first beet to Zips. He sniffed it a bit. He backed up to get a better look at what was in my hand and what it was that had that smell. He sniffed it again, and gently picked it off my hand with his teeth. And then he crunched it in his back teeth and suddenly his eyes lit up and he looked to my hand to see if another was coming! He began to shuffle his feet in anticipation that another might appear.

And then it came over me like an epiphany. I gotta see what’s so good about these things, and I took a small bite of the second beet. Not a big bite, but just enough to take off a shred. It tasted pretty much like a carrot – a bit crunchy and a bit sweet which turned slightly bitter as I chewed. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t enough to convince me that I had to have any more. But it was a start. I gave the rest to Zip, and realized that I had just eaten a beet...

And then I realized that it took a horse to get me to try a beet after all these years…

I guess the lunch lady would have been proud of me.  But then again, maybe not.