12/21
The logs break into embers and ash
Whiskey is passed
Stories told about weddings
Laughs.
The mulled wine is gone and the fire stick finds new hands
Coals break and spread
Whiskey is passed
The conversation turns serious
There is no humane killing
No animal wants to die
Ever.
Life Lives.
The last beer is poured
Rats girdled the trees
(Humans didn't cut them down)
Whiskey is passed
Quality of life slowly slipped
Whiskey is passed
Logs are no more, only embers and ash
Nothing left but
laugh
Whiskey is passed
Friday, January 24, 2014
"Warm Meal"
Leaves fall on the frosted field.
A gentle rain of soil food.
The herd waits to move
to the next field where the sun warms the fescue.
A hot meal on a cold November morning.
A gentle rain of soil food.
The herd waits to move
to the next field where the sun warms the fescue.
A hot meal on a cold November morning.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
8/11
8/11
Cicadas pulse the pace of a lazy summer day.
Maple leaves dance and butterflies flutter.
In the meadow across the road a mockingbird struts atop a fenceboard.
When a car careens by the moment is jolted and I'm smacked in the face by the chores
Left before another week.
Cicadas pulse the pace of a lazy summer day.
Maple leaves dance and butterflies flutter.
In the meadow across the road a mockingbird struts atop a fenceboard.
When a car careens by the moment is jolted and I'm smacked in the face by the chores
Left before another week.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Shirtless Sundays
7/21
I sat shirtless on Sunday in the kitchen peeling peaches.
I sliced them up for the cold future and sucked the pits.
A particularly sweet white peach clarified my thoughts with awareness
and I saw the soil and the roots,
the rain and the sun,
the pollen and the bee,
the cold and the heat,
the fuel and the oil,
the movement and the sweat,
the time,
that brought this miracle to my lips,
and I wondered at all the miracles that I take for granted
and I looked at my wife and I smiled.
I was glad she was home.
I'd taken for granted how much she does.
7/28
I lean on the hood, shirtless on Sunday, and slowly drink my Pabst.
The warmth of the engine feels strangely good in this July dusk.
Milk crates and buckets and trash from the week liter the yard,
but beyond the barn,
out where Nemo barks,
there is Majesty.
The mountains are blue and the amber is dead grass,
but the skies are spacious and pink and gray and purple
and full of wispy and streaked, and thick and deep clouds,
and the plains are fruitful with cattle and sheep and pigs and chickens.
America, oh Virginia, God shed his grace on you.
I sat shirtless on Sunday in the kitchen peeling peaches.
I sliced them up for the cold future and sucked the pits.
A particularly sweet white peach clarified my thoughts with awareness
and I saw the soil and the roots,
the rain and the sun,
the pollen and the bee,
the cold and the heat,
the fuel and the oil,
the movement and the sweat,
the time,
that brought this miracle to my lips,
and I wondered at all the miracles that I take for granted
and I looked at my wife and I smiled.
I was glad she was home.
I'd taken for granted how much she does.
7/28
I lean on the hood, shirtless on Sunday, and slowly drink my Pabst.
The warmth of the engine feels strangely good in this July dusk.
Milk crates and buckets and trash from the week liter the yard,
but beyond the barn,
out where Nemo barks,
there is Majesty.
The mountains are blue and the amber is dead grass,
but the skies are spacious and pink and gray and purple
and full of wispy and streaked, and thick and deep clouds,
and the plains are fruitful with cattle and sheep and pigs and chickens.
America, oh Virginia, God shed his grace on you.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Silo Piglets and Houndsheep
The piglets poured in over the past two weeks like the rains this spring. I wasn't surprised when Tigger farrowed first. I'd seen Rorsarch gracefully mounting her in February and wrote in my trusty notebook to expect piglets on May 20th.
I was wrong on both accounts. First, pig sex is not graceful. Pigs are tubes of muscle and fat, so the boar faces a challenge in mounting the sow. His conquests aren't pretty. Second, I was a month off with my guess at farrowing dates. I suppose Rorsarch is a firm believer in "if at first you don't succeed..."
Annie was second to farrow and had a large litter of 10 piglets. Both sows gave birth in a shed inside the farrowing paddock and their piglets quickly took to frolicking and nursing together. Last fall, we saw the same behavior when Tigger and Annie's piglets freely nursed each mom. Strength in numbers? Each sow seemed grateful when the piglet hordes descended on the other mother and gave her a chance to rest.
The piglet horde played and nursed happily for days. Swayzie (not Patrick, but an apple variety, because Old Spots were orchard pigs in England) gave birth to a litter of eight piglets and all seemed well in the baby paddock.
When the unnamed gilt farrowed things took a turn for the bizzare. Said unnamed gilt got knocked up in her teenage years (pig years that is), so I wanted to keep a close eye on her. Sometime the middle of this past week--which all blurred into a furious stream of chores, hauling feed, chores, catching animals, chores, unloading feed, chores, hauling animals... you get the point--I noticed that the unnamed gilt was missing, not to mention that 3 of Tigger's 7 piglets.
I discovered the whereabouts of the teen pig mother's brood quickly. After walking the baby paddock and checking each barn, I put on my pig thinking cap. That silo looks like a safe place. Nice and secluded, maybe not the ideal farrowing spot as it's open to the rains and there's no way an unassisted piglet could exit this nest until a couple months of age, but my pig mind lead me to the silo and the piglets. I fretted over the sow and how she'd get water and feed, and how the piglets looked cold (in June), so I first made a set of stone stairs, which the sow toppled, and then made a wooden ramp and nailed it to the silo's entrance. When the sow demolished my second means of egress and I observed her greedily guzzling feed, I decided she had things under control and to leave her and her babies alone.
The wherabouts of Tigger's missing piglets remained a mystery to me until yesterday evening. I was pouring the pig's feed into their troughs and smelled either a skunk or a fox. The hair on Annie and Tigger's backs shot up and they barked and ran around looking for the intruder. I guess Fantastic Mr. Fox is less afraid of a sow then me, because when I snatch a piglet, when the sow barks at me with back hair erect, I drop the piglet and proceed to wash my soiled pants (that second part might not be true).
That's the new news from around the farm. But, before I retire to my nightly sheep check, I have some ewe news. I've started shearing other people's flocks this spring and it's taken me from Pulaski to Gloucester. I stopped by a "farm" in Earlysville on my way to pick up whole lambs from the butcher. I drove west through Charlottesville through suburbs mixed into hayfields to get to my client's home. I pulled into the driveway of a beautiful suburban home chock full of gardens. I met my client and she walked me through the gate into her backyard. The yard looked like a standard suburban backyard until I noticed the hoop house full of chickens and ducks and all the vegetable beds. All cool and slightly surprising, but nothing compared to what happened next.
I looked around the yard to find a good level spot where I could set my shears and run a drop cord. I put my equipment down under the shade of a black walnut and a ewe and a wether ran up to me. Friendly sheep I thought. Pets, should be used to handling. Easy in and out job. I decided that the spot I'd picked wasn't ideal, so I took my shearing equipment to the entrance of the yard and set up on the walkway by the fence. The wether and his girl followed me over. Cake. A second ewe walked out from under the deck to check out the action. "That's her favorite spot," said my client. I stifled a laugh. I've heard of houndogs that sleep under porches but never sheep.
When the flock came over to inspect my shearing tools, I found out that this was a pack of hound sheep. Something they smelled in my shearing kit caused them all to bolt under the deck. Apparently, they'd had a traumatic experience being sheared last year. Nothing was traumatic about this year's shearing, only comedy. I spent more time trying to keep the hound sheep from their "favorite spot" then I did shearing them. When I finished, I left the flock grazing happily, only steps away from their beloved deck.
I was wrong on both accounts. First, pig sex is not graceful. Pigs are tubes of muscle and fat, so the boar faces a challenge in mounting the sow. His conquests aren't pretty. Second, I was a month off with my guess at farrowing dates. I suppose Rorsarch is a firm believer in "if at first you don't succeed..."
Annie was second to farrow and had a large litter of 10 piglets. Both sows gave birth in a shed inside the farrowing paddock and their piglets quickly took to frolicking and nursing together. Last fall, we saw the same behavior when Tigger and Annie's piglets freely nursed each mom. Strength in numbers? Each sow seemed grateful when the piglet hordes descended on the other mother and gave her a chance to rest.
The piglet horde played and nursed happily for days. Swayzie (not Patrick, but an apple variety, because Old Spots were orchard pigs in England) gave birth to a litter of eight piglets and all seemed well in the baby paddock.
When the unnamed gilt farrowed things took a turn for the bizzare. Said unnamed gilt got knocked up in her teenage years (pig years that is), so I wanted to keep a close eye on her. Sometime the middle of this past week--which all blurred into a furious stream of chores, hauling feed, chores, catching animals, chores, unloading feed, chores, hauling animals... you get the point--I noticed that the unnamed gilt was missing, not to mention that 3 of Tigger's 7 piglets.
I discovered the whereabouts of the teen pig mother's brood quickly. After walking the baby paddock and checking each barn, I put on my pig thinking cap. That silo looks like a safe place. Nice and secluded, maybe not the ideal farrowing spot as it's open to the rains and there's no way an unassisted piglet could exit this nest until a couple months of age, but my pig mind lead me to the silo and the piglets. I fretted over the sow and how she'd get water and feed, and how the piglets looked cold (in June), so I first made a set of stone stairs, which the sow toppled, and then made a wooden ramp and nailed it to the silo's entrance. When the sow demolished my second means of egress and I observed her greedily guzzling feed, I decided she had things under control and to leave her and her babies alone.
The wherabouts of Tigger's missing piglets remained a mystery to me until yesterday evening. I was pouring the pig's feed into their troughs and smelled either a skunk or a fox. The hair on Annie and Tigger's backs shot up and they barked and ran around looking for the intruder. I guess Fantastic Mr. Fox is less afraid of a sow then me, because when I snatch a piglet, when the sow barks at me with back hair erect, I drop the piglet and proceed to wash my soiled pants (that second part might not be true).
That's the new news from around the farm. But, before I retire to my nightly sheep check, I have some ewe news. I've started shearing other people's flocks this spring and it's taken me from Pulaski to Gloucester. I stopped by a "farm" in Earlysville on my way to pick up whole lambs from the butcher. I drove west through Charlottesville through suburbs mixed into hayfields to get to my client's home. I pulled into the driveway of a beautiful suburban home chock full of gardens. I met my client and she walked me through the gate into her backyard. The yard looked like a standard suburban backyard until I noticed the hoop house full of chickens and ducks and all the vegetable beds. All cool and slightly surprising, but nothing compared to what happened next.
I looked around the yard to find a good level spot where I could set my shears and run a drop cord. I put my equipment down under the shade of a black walnut and a ewe and a wether ran up to me. Friendly sheep I thought. Pets, should be used to handling. Easy in and out job. I decided that the spot I'd picked wasn't ideal, so I took my shearing equipment to the entrance of the yard and set up on the walkway by the fence. The wether and his girl followed me over. Cake. A second ewe walked out from under the deck to check out the action. "That's her favorite spot," said my client. I stifled a laugh. I've heard of houndogs that sleep under porches but never sheep.
When the flock came over to inspect my shearing tools, I found out that this was a pack of hound sheep. Something they smelled in my shearing kit caused them all to bolt under the deck. Apparently, they'd had a traumatic experience being sheared last year. Nothing was traumatic about this year's shearing, only comedy. I spent more time trying to keep the hound sheep from their "favorite spot" then I did shearing them. When I finished, I left the flock grazing happily, only steps away from their beloved deck.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
"A stolen moment"
"A stolen moment"
I walked into the grass sea,
into the cool breeze.
Above me, the clouds painted a story.
The grey and blue to the east are violent colors
(an American knows).
White and pink streaked peace above.
The west looked unsettled.
Maybe a new tale will rumble tonight?
Below me, a symphony of life.
Under the sea
of grass,
frogs rejoiced
and crickets lent their voice
in praise of the cooling rain.
Above the pokeweed trees,
barn swallows chased dinner.
Thunder shot across my ears
and the horses flashed across my eyes
away,
from the collie
who loved to work
which I slipped back to
when my wife called me back to life.
I walked into the grass sea,
into the cool breeze.
Above me, the clouds painted a story.
The grey and blue to the east are violent colors
(an American knows).
White and pink streaked peace above.
The west looked unsettled.
Maybe a new tale will rumble tonight?
Below me, a symphony of life.
Under the sea
of grass,
frogs rejoiced
and crickets lent their voice
in praise of the cooling rain.
Above the pokeweed trees,
barn swallows chased dinner.
Thunder shot across my ears
and the horses flashed across my eyes
away,
from the collie
who loved to work
which I slipped back to
when my wife called me back to life.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
"Rainy afternoon in the barn"
"Milking 2/26"
Bailyn greets me with a moo.
She is angry about her overnight separation from Boaz
(her steer calf growing bigger by the minute)
even though this has been the pattern for weeks.
.
A little alfalfa hay and she quiets down into our routine.
I wash her teats
and work ointment onto them
and for a moment the barn smells of a pine forest.
Faint cherry smoke passes my awareness
as milk begins to pulse into the pail.
Across the barn aisle,
the chickens practice their innate archaelogy
Unearthing bugs, grubs, seeds
and the occasional piece of slate
(a clue into the barn's past, a tale I've heard from neighbors of a third story, a bell tower and a hurricane.)
Out in the yard,
Sheep chew their cud.
Chew, chew, chew, chew, pause...
Wide eyed, their cheeks fill with regurgitated grass
as if they're pleasantly surprised.
After a while of zoning off into my thoughts and the rhythm of my hands,
the pail is full.
Inside the woodstove is warm,
the air is dry
and the dogs snore.
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