Going to Walden

Shopping for groceries is an entirely different, and somewhat weird, experience these days. I still have a list of things I need for this meal or that household chore, but these days I have to also be on the lookout for things that are vanishing from the shelves at an alarming rate and never (or so it seems) replenished.

Because the stores around us were slow to place limits on how much any one person could buy at one time, we have a permanent toilet paper crisis here in upstate New York.  Just a week ago, I walked by fully stacked shelves of flour, and now they are gone baby, GONE!  Pasta, butter, frozen vegetables…same story.

So, these days, I shop with an eye for what seems to be vanishing, rather than what I just need at the moment.  Case in point, mayonnaise.  There were two solitary jars left yesterday, sitting unhappily on opposite ends of an otherwise empty shelf.  Back in my short lived Martha Stewart phase, I used to make my own mayo, and perhaps some day soon I shall have to do that again.  Yesterday, both jars made it into my cart, just in case mayo would go the way of toilet paper and flour.

The silver lining here, is that grocery shopping has become a community affair these days.  A group of us text each other if we happen to be heading out to the store, and so we are able to help each other out even as we try to maintain social distancing in the time of COVID19.  So, I was able to get Ann the parsnips and onions she needed for her stew, and Socrates (yes, that really is his name) the egg whites he’d requested.  I returned home having dropped these items off on front porches, to find the two leaves of bread I’d asked Kelly to pick up on her run to the bakery in Vermont.   Something about this circle of being connected and collaborating over the  mundane but necessary task of keeping ourselves supplied, feels good…feels right.

When the six chickens first arrived to the farm last summer and took up residence in their coop, I thought that was that.  And, for a few weeks, it was.  They settled in, ate their way through buckets of crumble and compost, and soon began laying eggs in lovely shades of brown, blue, and green.

Then, an acquaintance suggested that my chickens would be happier if there was a rooster present; apparently this would increase their productivity, which would make me happier, too.  While I was trying to work out the logic of all of this, he showed me a picture of the rooster he had in mind, which he would be more than pleased to drop off at the farm, free of charge.   The rooster was handsome, and the word “free” had such a pleasant sound.  Plus, wouldn’t our idyllic farm be all the more idyllic if it had a handsome rooster greeting each sunrise with his melodious crowing?

And so, Roscoe came to the farm the very next day.

The thing about Roscoe is that he begins his crowing at three in the morning – a non-stop crowing that is anything  but melodious.  As an insomniac, I usually begin to fall into a deep sleep just as Roscoe gets going.  Which brings me to the other thing about Roscoe, which is that I think he does this deliberately.  There is a certain gleam in his eyes when he sees me, a look of evil intent.  I don’t know why I sense this, but I think Roscoe lurks around the farm plotting ways to do me in.

So, I thought I’d make the first move by asking around if anyone was interested in a handsome rooster of their own, an early riser who would keep any honest farmer to an honest early-to-rise schedule.  Not having heard back from anyone after weeks of asking (some might have interpreted this as pleading, even whining), I placed an ad in Craigs List (under FREE stuff).  No takers thus far, sadly, but I still have hope…especially at three in the morning.

The poetry round-up this week is hosted by Michelle Kogan.

I haven’t felt like writing these past two weeks, nothing I have to say seems worthy of being written, or perhaps the real reason is the sense of confusion and anxiety I feel well up every time I try to address what it is that I feel and think.

My  children have hunkered down in their Brooklyn apartments, working from home and trying to stir as little as possible into deserted streets for the occasional trip to the grocery store or laundromat.  They sound tired, stressed, uncertain, and more than just a bit without a sense of hope.  The future, even tomorrow, seems full of dread.  Once their self-quarantines have come to an end, they plan to drive up to the farm for as long as necessary.

Here in upstate New York, farm life goes on for one and all.  I can see lights twinkling  from the dairy down the valley early every morning, and the cornfields everywhere around us are already being prepped for Spring planting.  The feed store, which I visit at least once every week, is still a busy place.  Yesterday was warm, which made me commit to putting through the order of summer flower seeds I’d been pining after.  The Angora goats arrive in two weeks, and I went ahead with plans to build a small pen for them within the barn.  The flock will be sheared soon, and I am getting ready with plans for their gorgeous fleeces.

It’s important to stay abreast of the news in times like these, and so I dip in here and there to learn what I can.  Little of the news is good, it seems, and then I read about good people doing good deeds. It brings to mind Fred Rogers’ observation :“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”  There are many people helping out there, rising to the occasion, doing the hard things necessary to keep others safe and well tended to.

And there is Nature, free of charge, offering her comforts, too…

Lost by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Rebecca Herzog at Sloth Reads 

As this first week of March ends, most of our snow and ice have melted away.  For the last two evenings, I’ve seen geese fly up our valley and continue on north.  My garden beds have emerged, and I can see where I need to clear and weed when the days get just a bit warmer.   We are entering that just-before-the greening time, when the landscape around seems to be breathing gently, getting ready to stretch and awake fully again.   March seems to have come in like a lamb this year…but is welcome, never the less.

Cantata for Woodland and Orchestra by Ralph Murre

Next

There, just there — where the first cellos
of March come in, before the oboes
or the ides — there, the brooding

before budding or cranes return,
before clarion brass of calendar spring,
the thing made of maple and ice,

there, that dripping, the ripping of the long,
white garment, there, the giggling
of flutes, perennial roots waking in cold soil.

At last, a roll of timpani just
before this symphony season’s end,
a thunder of freeze unfreezing.

Cymbal crash of lightning tightening senses,
there, the tension as a hundred violins go wild,
waking your lover, waking your child.

Crescendo!
Innuendo of greening in the plop
of that first drop of the applauding rain

and it’s over again — there’s a silence
so profound we can hear the stirring
of the deep unknown, and underground.

Last Sunday, while I tended to the sheep and dogs at the farm, my family gathered in Brooklyn to celebrate our youngest’s 25th. birthday.  After brunch and a visit to the nearest bookstore (no Smith gathering ever takes place without one of these), they made their way to my old apartment in Carroll Gardens where the above picture was taken: 475 Sackett Street.

I was 25 when I lived in this brownstone, starting out in a career in publishing.  The handsome gentleman in the green baseball cap was finishing up his last year of law school in Boston at the time, and we had vague plans for him to join me in New York City when it was time for him to begin his own career.  In fact, vague plans marked everything at that point in my life, from career goals to marriage to Scott.  I was thrilled to have found an editorial job at a big publishing house in Manhattan, thrilled to be living in two floors of an old brownstone with a patch of garden in the back, and thrilled to be independent at last.

Every morning, one of my room mates and I would march over the Brooklyn Bridge  in our trench coats and white Reebox sneakers (work shoes were in the big bag slung across our shoulders, along with manuscripts to be read or copyedited, and lunch), and catch our separate subways to work.  And every evening I would meet friends, new and old, somewhere in the Village or Chinatown or Little Italy for a cheap meal, since there were so few restaurants in Carroll Gardens at the time.

At night, we would often sit on the front stoop, drinking more cheap wine, listening to the old fashioned Italian music playing from the apartment next door, and watching the street life of Brooklyn, circa the early eighties.   This was a time before “gentrification” and “hipsterization” – the trendy Brooklyn of today where all three of our children live.  Little old Italian ladies in black cloth coats and sensible lace up shoes trundled up and down the streets with their metal shopping trolleys, picking up coffee and meats and pastries in shops that hadn’t changed their decor since they first opened their doors in the thirties and forties.   Newcomers like us were just starting our working lives or finishing up graduate school, those who were on their way to better things or already there, lived across Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights.

I can’t remember much about being 25, and my memories of life in that brownstone are a series of gauzy memories seen through the filter of many decades: the early morning view of Manhattan as I walked towards my work day, the way sunlight would stream through our oversized brownstone windows and cast shadows on our postered walls, the exhilaration of turning the lock in the front door and hurrying off  to start a brand new day.

Perhaps that’s what I remember most about being 25, in that particular space and time: everything was possible.  As we went our separate ways, my room mate and I would turn to each other and say, only partly in jest: “Let’s carpe our diem!”  And that’s as good a philosophy even today…

Today’s Poetry Friday round up is hosted by  Karen Edmisten

In an effort to preserve my sanity in the era of the current occupant of the White House, I took myself off Facebook and Twitter, switched from NPR to music and podcasts about books, sheep, and true crime, and from MSNBC to either the Food Network or HGTV whenever I had the inclination to turn on the television.  I can vote and I can help get out the vote, but I can’t keep sane if I attempt to keep up with current events, and I pay for the effort when I veer off course.

For example, I made the mistake of checking out The New York Times yesterday, only to discover that Mike Pence is now in charge of the CDC’s efforts to contain and deal with the coronavirus.  Mike Pence??!! And, just like that, I spiraled into a mood of rage, anxiety, and helplessness – I was once again conscious of  living in the age of Trump.

Then I received a message from a friend inviting me to a fundraiser at a local brewery for a local family whose daughter has cancer.   This reminded me of a fund raiser I had just been to in support of our town’s Fuel Fund, where money is raised to help those in need of support meeting their winter heating bills.  And, I thought ahead to the free summer camp I will be teaching at in an effort to provide children with positive experiences during those summer months.  I live in a rural area, mostly corn fields and dairy farms, where life is not easy for a good number of people, and yet there are also a good number of people volunteering in so many ways to make those lives just a bit easier.

I’m not sure where I found the poem below, or even when I saved it into my poetry file, but I’m glad I did.  I rather read it over and over again, than keep up with the current state of affairs in our country.

Mending Mittens by Larry Schug

Mending my leather mittens
for the third time this winter,
I sew them with waxed string
made to repair fishing nets,
hoping they’ll last
until the splitting maul rests
against the shrunken woodpile
and the hoe and spade come out of the shed.
Suddenly I find myself praying.
Blessed be those who have laced together
the splits at the seams of this world,
repaired its threads of twisted waters.
Blessed be those who stitch together
the animals and the land,
repair the rends in the fabric
of wolf and forest,
of whale and ocean,
of condor and sky.
Blessed be those who are forever fixing
the tear between people and the rest of life.
May we all have enough thread,
may our needles be sharp,
may our fingers not throb or go numb.
May each of us find an apprentice,
someone who will take the needle from our hands
continue all the mending that needs to be done.

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“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality…”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson

I feel as though I hold my breath every evening as I watch the sun descend behind Bunker Hill.  Sometimes, I am happy just to be a part of the experience, at others I feel compelled to photograph it.  These images are from last evening, when peach transformed into pink and then a dull violet.  I found the shifts in color to be unexpected, and that violet to be more muted than I thought it would be.

The sheep are all back in the barn by this time of evening, and so it’s usually just Bowie and me who are graced by Nature’s last light show of the day.  I am all about the visual, while Bowie is intent upon what she hears: deer making their way through the woods, bats circling silently, the village dogs calling out their evening messages.  Darkness takes me indoors to the farmhouse, while Bowie lopes off into the pastures to make her perimeter checks – a white wolf against the inky black sky.