Wildermirth

Early Spring

2011-05-04T15:02:00.002-04:00

The garlic is up. The spinach has sprouted. Collards and leeks have wintered over. Daffodils, grape hyacinth, scilla siberica and wild tulips are blooming. The sky is gray today; the windows are speckled with rain. It's a day to read and bake cookies.

I need to find a new home for our horses, Gwen and KJ.
Now that Cate isn't here to care for them, it's too much.
I haven't ridden since I broke my shoulder in a fall when KJ took off at a gallop just before the opening of Pirates of Penzance last fall. (I was afraid I'd have to dance in a sling.)

I'm living alone now, and am happy to be so. To everything there is a season.
I have been reading a lot of contemporary Nigerian fiction in preparation for my trip in Septemeber. My Anthony is due to come home mid June, and I can't wait to see him.

Resurrection for Christmas

2010-12-15T12:43:00.002-05:00

I hope this Christmas finds you healthy and happy. I am both. Joe and I continue together slowly renovating the little farmhouse, enlarging and cultivating the gardens, planting trees, building a stone fence. We’ve winnowed our livestock down to two horses, several laying hens and a rooster.

Although it feels lonely this Christmas with both Cate and Anthony in South Dakota, I've decorated my homestead with a candle in each window, fir boughs and bows in the window boxes and an enormous wreath in front of the picture window. I have been making Christmas cookies, so many, that I am getting fat.

I was able to visit Anthony in Rapid City in November to see him perform the role of “Grandpa” in You Can’t Take It With You. Lionel Barrymore couldn’t hold a candle to him. I met his friends and teachers, and the whole time there I was filled with such happiness and pride. He’s doing well academically, socially and athletically. But most of all I am proud because he’s becoming a thoughtful young man of integrity, kindness and determination. Catie flew out to SD with me to spend time with her dad, brother, sister, Alia, and Staci, Alia’s mom. Cate has taken a leave of absence from Mount Holyoke while she sorts out many things that are troubling her. It is good for her to be surrounded by the love of her SD family. She plans to return to Maine in January, and has said she’d like to return to MHC in the fall of 2011. If you remember how hard growing up can be, say a prayer for her today.

A few nights ago I watched the film, “Precious,” and I thought about how invisible most of us are to one another. We make assumptions and are dismissive of one another. I think we work to avoid relationships. For me, I sometimes don’t want to be bothered. I’m afraid the other person, if I get to know him or her, will start asking things of me, will drain my time and resources, will expect too much. This has happened. If I open myself to others, it will assuredly happen again. There are many people seeking answers, wanting to be rescued, needing to be angry and to blame, hurting.

The temptation is to withdraw into myself, into a dry comfortable cave lined with books, to greet the sunshine, grow fruit and flowers and when it rains, stay indoors making pies.
But there, when the pies are done, will it just be me to taste them? When the seedlings emerge, with whom will I share the joy? I will want to go for a walk, and on that walk, I will meet people, sentient as I, bewildering. We can wander together or simply say hello and part.

What I forget when I seek to avoid relationships is that the other always brings something too, gifts--of insight, sensation, shared emotion, comfort, many unnamed or unnameable. Even the most needy, and scared, scarred souls have gifts to share, though they may not know it. So I will try to keep a heart more open to those who pass my way. I will work to recognize when I am on the verge of a dismissive shrug, a cursory opinion, a snotty look, a judgment, and I will smile and offer a hand if there’s something I can do. I will also know that time alone is essential and nourishing, that it will enrich my soul and reconnect me to the Source of all Life and Goodness, and will allow myself, without guilt, to go away.

May you be blessed, as the Light returns, may it shine warmly and nurture you.

Early Vegetarian Days

2010-03-05T11:45:00.001-05:00

My first vegetarian foray, an ode to vanity, took place freshman year of college.
I’d packed my favorite thrift store jeans, locked the door on my shabby, furnished single room apartment, and stepped into the cloistered, rarified atmosphere of a private school campus. Once in my room, I took another look at my work-study assignment: Main Cafeteria, and felt sick. A greasy face and hairnet would not improve my social life.

By Monday morning I’d hatched a plan.

“I can’t be around meat. I won’t touch it,” I told the woman in charge of listening to student job complaints.
I went further.
“I’m ethically opposed to it. I’ve been vegetarian for years. I’ve already checked with the cafeteria; there are no jobs that don’t involve contact with meat.”

She looked weary, sighed, and said she’d be in touch. Two days later I was reassigned to develop negatives of histoplasmosis cells in a city hospital dark room.

My lie haunted me. Convinced that I was being watched, I avoided looking at the hamburgers as I passed through the cafeteria line and left the Bacos off my salad. Thank god, I hadn’t told them I was vegan. Three months later I abandoned all caution and ate a chicken sandwich. From there on out, it was meat and gravy.

And further more...it's tasty.

2010-02-16T19:55:00.002-05:00

Since deciding to commit to eliminating food and material goods derived from animal cruelty, torture and killing, I've been experimenting with new recipes: sauteed hominy, sweet red peppers and broccoli, veggie quiche, spiced dahl, tabouli. It's been a while since I threw herbs and spices around so liberally or with such flair.

I've begun mixing Oakhurst skim with soy milk, and have sent Oakhurst an email to learn whether they receive any milk from factory farms and what requirements they have to ensure farmers' cows are well treated. I can't use dairy unless I know, and even then, what about calves born to bring on lactation? I don't see how it can be done.

A place of memories

2010-02-12T21:26:00.003-05:00

Here is the stone bridge in Vaughn Woods, a place where I love to walk. In the spring time Ladyslippers bloom on the hillside beside it. It is a place of many memories. Here my dear friend Rachel was married, and I, her woman of honor, walked barefoot down the trail in a summery batik dress and stood beside this waterfall to witness.
Farther up, the trail rises to a large grassy meadow. Claire, Tina, Yvonne, Barbara and I brought our children there the Sunday of Catie's First Holy Communion to celebrate our greater Holy Communion with joy, with life. We picnicked and the children ran down the hill to the stream to catch frogs while we lay in the sun talking. The children caught a snake in the act of eating a frog, and rescued it, although the ordeal cost the frog the skin on his rear leg.

At the end of Anthony's second grade children and mothers gathered in this meadow to celebrate and thank their wonderful teacher Heidi Long. We flew kites, and I wove head garlands from grass and wild flowers for the children to wear. They ran downhill and played in the stream and we walked with them, took off our shoes, and waded in the cold water.

Early one spring Stephany and I spotted baby eels (elvers) no more than 3" long under the stone bridge. We learned that elvers spawn in the Sargasso Sea migrate up tidal rivers into freshwater.
Many and many a time in all weather Tammy and I have walked these paths, taken off our troubles and put them in the other's hands to be turned over, soothed, wondered at.
It is a healing place.

Home for the Holidays

2009-12-04T12:20:00.001-05:00

Anthony will be home in 13 more days!

I Saw You Saw

2009-11-03T10:57:00.006-05:00

For Amy

I found myself inside a poem.
Having thrown out my red tulips years ago,
I had almost forgotten
That younger self in a pale blue johnny, fresh with abandonment
Skirting the potted plants, coy with the guy in detox
Though the sight of his un-apostrophed contractions made me wince.

When I got back my clothes and went into the dim-lit day room,
I found a man named Jesus singing to the cross.
Again and again he fingered the strings.
I sat on the table and sang though he never noticed
Or once looked up.

I’d sworn it to the sunflowers standing tall in a Missouri alley.
I will never, I said, deduct from my confession
The thrilling wonder at, the surge of need for
that makes the edges of the bluet distinct and clean

And now I find narrow file cabinets like long halls
A passage with no final purpose
Echoing, sterile, unadorned
So like the hospital walls,
that first entombed me.

How could I be back here?
I’d come so far.
Among the refuse the weeds will rise.
These still are my flowers.
They will transport me.

By Monika Riney
November 3, 2009

Cate's Birthday

2009-10-15T20:23:00.002-04:00

My girl is nineteen. When did this happen? She's driving a car, going to work and breaking up with a boyfriend. Yet for the most part her requests are simple and easily met. We went to Petco to buy her a blue Beta fish, to Shaws for a carrot cake, ice cream and a dozen roses. We're going to get cozy in flannel jammies to watch a movie she selected. I am going to try hard not to fall asleep.

I taught NAPPI today and planted garlic.

Summer

2009-10-12T14:16:00.001-04:00

rain

Baby Coming Soon

2009-04-21T15:50:00.004-04:00

We clipped Hermione this weekend, and now her bulging belly seems huge. Set her up in the maternity suite with plenty of soft bedding. Must track down a baby monitor, and get the birth kit ready. I believe she'll give birth before the week is out.

Drove to Denmark Sunday to have Ally Baba sheared at the SheepFest. Farm cap on the truck, two hours of winding roads, Cate in the truck bed with Lemony Snicket and a Chai latte keeping Ally calm. Stopped in at JimBob's Variety, and learned the Sheep Fest had taken place the day before.

Drove down the hill to look at the lonely spot, and found Linda Whiting sweeping up. She took a look at Ally, was impressed by her immense obesity and dense fleece. I asked if she knew who might have a Romney ram for mating. Well, I followed her to Julie Libby's house up the road and bought Jeremiah on the spot for $150. He's a handsome, docile ram and ought to get Ally with a couple lambs when he gets his fall tryst.

Spring mud

2009-04-09T10:02:00.003-04:00

Will the rain never end?
Puddles and ooze. The animals look damp and resentful.
We're all impatient to be tramping the yard.
Last Sunday I planted Amish peas and spinach, moved the lemon balm and hyssop, transplanted cauliflower and pulled up a couple salsify which had wintered over well.
I'm itching to get back into the garden AKA mud pit--hoping the sun will rub hands together.

Stephany is arriving in Boston late Saturday night, and I can't think of a better Easter gift. We haven't seen her in three and a half years. Can't wait till she sees the farm!

Homestead in Spring

2009-03-12T13:43:00.004-04:00

A thousand things to do starting with, where do I put the poop?
Snow is three feet high still in the back field, but muck (i.e. manure, rotted straw, urine, a couple frozen cracked eggs, maybe a small chicken carcass) is a foot high in the cow shed.
No wheelbarrow's going to make it back to the dung heap. Hell, it's up to my thighs.

Heavy snow broke the frame of last year's chicken tractor, and it needs to be hauled off to the dump. Is it worth it to part it out, pull the nails out, roll up the chicken wire, which isn't even rusty yet, break the 1x2s into stove wood. Damn it. I know the answer, although I'd far rather drag it onto the back of the pickup truck and haul its ass to the dump.

Bother. I should have never started painting that shed if I wasn't going to finish because for months now, nearly a year, every day it's been advertising my refusal to commit to completing a simple task. I can shut the curtains on the unpainted drywall, but the half-bald shed continues to mock me.

hammering air

2009-03-11T08:41:00.000-04:00

In a small town people kept saying, “You’re not like me. What’s the matter with you?”
Maybe she needs help, doesn’t understand the rules.
Maybe she needs a refresher course, a remedial course.
We offer those.
Friday nights at the high school football field.
In winter we use the gymnasium.
She can’t focus. She won’t focus.
I’ve tried with her, but she doesn’t care; she simply doesn’t care.
Let her be then.
But she’s disrupting the whole thing. She’s being stubborn, that’s all.
Don’t tell me she can’t understand plain English.
We’ve got to make her do it.
We’ve got to force her to do it. She’s disrupting the whole thing.

Morning Litany

2009-03-04T09:57:00.001-05:00

“There’s nothing in this house to eat. When are you going to buy food?!”
“Tomorrow after work.”
“If you don’t have money for lunch will you at least find me something,” Cate asks through a mouthful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
I display three varieties of Nature Valley granola bars.
“I’m sick of those.”
“Almonds?”
She nods and I hand her a fat pack of raw almonds, which she tucks into her backpack.
“Carrot sticks and hummus? Pita?” I take down a storage container.
“No, Mom. It gets all gross before lunchtime.”
“A can of Chef Boyardee? Look, it has a pop top.”
“I can’t take stuff like that because then I have to stand in line for the microwave and it takes up my whole lunch period.”
I look at the large bowl of Empire apples on the table. Cate rolls her eyes.
“I know.” I take a large orange from the refrigerator.
“You don’t have any money?”
“Cate, take this, will you?
“Eh, I won’t eat it. I hate to peel oranges.”
“Listen,” I say, “when you’re in college I promise you can always come over for a bowl of cereal.”

Left Better Blind

2009-02-20T15:57:00.000-05:00

It wasn't that the promised letter failed to arrive,
An absence sudden, conclusive,
Though sharp salt, is called predictable.

It was the waiting.
Empty canister whispering to anguish
Tamping frog swamp swallow black.
Faith bone, oh telling bead, held fast.
With dawn, inevitably, slow crumpling
Honor's bridge gives way to rising floods.

Monika Riney 2/ 2009

Mid Winter Blessing

2009-01-27T15:17:00.003-05:00

Winter now. At night the stars are alive, the Milky Way is misty. White shouldered trees are steeled against the northwest winds. Beyond the field where the horses snort and paw, fir trees stand black against a smalt horizon.

Inside the house is glowing; Moose the big bulldog stretches under the table; Chloe, the terrier is curled on a chair. I'm knitting socks and dishcloths and painting. I'm poring over seed catalogues, drinking tea and planning.

"Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough, thy winds, thy great wide skies." I well believe Edna St. Vincent Millay was a Mainer. This is Eden, and I'm going to buy that spinning wheel on time. Hermione is at the Stover farm, having her tryst with Midnight, and hopefully she'll come home with a doe or two to birth in May.

Tangible and intangible

2008-08-06T15:28:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned in my last entry: I learned to spin.
I know, I said it myself when the notion first struck me--"Seriously, Monika, like you need to add one more thing to your To Do list. You're baking friggin' pies, growing a huge garden, making pesto, keeping bees, canning jams, scrubbing up all types of animal crap, you knit, you sew, you're renovating the house and trying to help two kids grow into compassionate, intelligent adults while holding down a full-time job. Why don't you just set the bar a little higher?"
But surprise--I love it.
Call me a spinster, I don't care. I'll never be able to complain, "I can't seem to spin a thread."

After lessons Elizabeth gave us each a drop spindle and five balls of roving. Roving is a long snake of wool fluff that comes from carding fleece. One ball, grey w/ pastel bits of pink, blue and yellow, looked like a good prospect for my beginning efforts; it was ugly, homely, no great loss if I made knots.

Oh, I was wrong.

Lovely, it was so lovely as it spun and then was wound onto the spindle, like following a road

discovering as one goes, pleasure in the unexpected: a patch of violets beneath a thatch of rough grass, a pale yellow leaf on the surface of a darkened pool, a mossy log, a toadstool.

It was almost a living thing, responsive to tension, the varying rhythms of attention and distraction, conversational pauses creating lazy slubs, contradiction, tight, fine, overtwisted threads, altering its shape but not its nature. I spun enough for a hat.
The yarn, irregularities, texture and surprise knitted became a landscape, soft colors grouped themselves suggesting images emerging from grey morning mist.
It is not, as you may think, hyperbole.
For those who have eyes, let them see. Its beauty was its own thing, independent of metaphor, though I rely on it to explain.
I gave my love my hat, my Joe.

Spinning living colors

2008-07-31T14:50:00.010-04:00

At work, a mason jar of bright pink phlox stands beside Cate’s self portrait drawn in shades of green, a narrow leafed bonsai, a photograph of Howard Nemerov. On the coat hook hangs my jute bag, and inside, my spinning. Yes! I’ve learned to handspin with a drop spindle, and I love it. I’ve spun three balls of roving, and maybe that’s enough for a hat.

Our Allie baa Baah is, it turns out, a Romney ewe. This afternoon, in exchange for a burlap sack full of her wool, I’ll learn dyeing with natural plants (goldenrod and tansy) and Elizabeth, the teacher, and I will pick the vegetable matter out of Allie’s fleece to prep it for carding.

Anthony is still in South Dakota, and Cate is on Prince Edward Island. Everyone on the farm is swell. Two weeks ago our Sumatra hen surprised us by appearing from under the hen house with a dozen peeping balls of fluff. What a bustling, bossy mother she’s become, looking after her chicks, keeping them in line, warming and sheltering them beneath her wings.

I think of chicken metaphors and similes, so timeworn they’ve become clichés. Now I know what it means to be “a mother hen;” it’s a high compliment. “Before the cock crows,” is early.

We have a new family member, an angora goat, named Hermione, from Elizabeth at Spinnakees' Farm. She's gentle, potbellied and still shy (Hermione, not Elizabeth.) Her fleece is a lovely blend of silver, gray and black, and like Chloe with one ear up and one ear floppy, Hermione has one horn long and one stumpy. Since Hermione’s buckling left for another farm on the day we brought her home, she came in milk.
I’ve learned to make goat cheese. Easy, then roll in in a blend of herbs--amazing.

Playing with fiber and planning to dye is awakening my creativity (oh, yes, I planned that pun.) At lunch I purchases 30 skeins of embroidery floss, a vivid tactile palette. Yesterday I bought beads.
I’m thinking of dyeing unbleached muslin, sewing and stitching and beading it. I’m tired of drab clothes.
I don’t want to do the same old dame, expected whirls and flowers, sun, moon, butterflies and oak leaves. So I ask myself—what moves me?
Here are some answers:

hands ☼ faces ☼relationships apparent through posture ☼ birds on a wire ☼ my underwater world ☼eyes ☼weeds ☼alleys ☼ broken things ☼things unexpectedly exposed that shouldn’t be ☼old people ☼stubbornness ☼ masks ☼bowls ☼ genitals ☼ snakes ☼ anguish ☼ euphoria ☼

June Notes in July

2008-07-14T13:45:00.006-04:00

Monday, June 16

Day I: Post Office called at 6AM.Twenty-five rare breed mystery chicks are cheeping to go home. What an array—some w/ black bodies and white pompon heads, tiny bald eagle impersonators, some w/ sparrow stripes, one with feathered feet.

Day II: Found two nearly lifeless, chilled, trampled chicks--so trampled their bodies were flattened and they barely open their eyes. Sadly I tossed them on top of the garbage. “What are you doing? They’re not dead yet, are you, fellas?” Joe said, taking them off the top of the trash.
Joe has opened a small chick ICU in our bedroom, equipped w/ box lid, heating pad and small squirt gun with which he administers warmth, hydration and encouragement. It is one of the most endearing things I've ever seen a man do. Ah, my Joe.

Day III: Peeping kept us awake until nearly 4 AM, but when I woke at 6:30, it was unsettlingly silent. The black chick has died, but the yellow fluffy one is alert and hopping around. “I knew you could do it, Joe says. “See, and you were going to throw her away!” Too weak to be returned to the rest of the crew though.

Joe is smitten and says we’ll have to keep this one separate from the others. She’ll be his, like Isabelle who used to follow him around, come into the office and lay her egg in the corner on his pile of dirty T-shirts. We need to think of a name.

Day IV: We wake to find the chick who was recovering is rigid and cold. Maybe the heating pad wasn’t working. Maybe—but Joe says he gave her plenty of water. He turns away. “I’ll bury it, ” he says thickly. “She tried to make it.”

The Bee Whisperer

2008-05-29T10:17:00.006-04:00

Afterward, as I was holding an ice cube to my eye, Anthony said, "It's just like if a giant took the roof off our house and said, 'Oh, look! Isn't that cute? They've almost finished the bathroom! And then the giant started going for the chicken parmigiana. If we had guns, we'd shoot him."

I was planting La Ratte potatoes in the garden when Judy and Mac pulled up. I'd lured them out to the farm with my web blog stories (voila) and they'd come to check out the action. As I tried to find words later, ('Stupid' was just too easy.) 'reckless', 'impulsive', 'show-off' came to mind. Mac kindly volunteered 'over-confident.'

But back to the potato bed. Despite dirt-caked hands I gave Jude a hug and we stood beside the dwarf apple tree looking out over my labors. The electric fence posts are up; she commented on the colorfully painted hives and we walked back. The bee suit was in the garage across the lawn in the opposite direction. Too far to trouble going back.

We approached the hives, and Mac wisely kept her distance; Judy ventured only a little closer.

I removed the top cover and empty top hive body, and we could see through the oblong hole in the inner cover several bees moving around in the lower hive body, focused on their tasks. Judy asked if all the workers were females and I began to brag about how of course they are female as I lifted the inner cover fully off the hive.

We could now see dozens of bees scurrying over the tops of the ten frames. Hive bodies are open boxes containing ten frames. (Imagine ten windows inserted parallel to one another inside an empty box. Instead of glass panes the frames contain beeswax cells filled with honey, pollen or brood. ) In order to truly admire the natural genius and industy of the honeybee, it is necessary to lift the frames out of the hive body. On each frame one will see comb, produced with wax from the bees' abdomens and shaped by them into precise hexagonal cells, later filled with brood (larva), uncured honey, capped honey and pollen of a variety of colors. The surface of the comb is thickly covered with hundreds of bees. (A hive is comprised of between 10,000 and 35,000 bees.)

Proud my husbandry and their industry, I lifted a single frame from the hive body to point out these various features to Judy. What? Was I stupid?!

Dozens of defenders flew onto my face, my bare arms, into my hair. I felt a sting on my arm, eyelid, shoulder, scalp, back, my arm, arm, ear, ear, arm. When a honeybee stings she excretes alarm pheromone that labels her victim 'enemy'. The pheromone, which in high concentrations is detectable by humans, is said to smell a little like bananas.

As I quickly retreated from the hive up to the house, the water spigot and Joe, I tried to detect it, and was comforted in a small degree that after sustaining forty or more stings, I did not smell bananas. I knelt under the faucet, ran cold water over my head and the drama was ended.

Then came the fussing and scolding from Joe, inspecting the swellings, administering ice, the swearing to demolish the hives if I was going to be so reckless. I defended my attackers and greatly chagrined, carried on entertaining my friends.

A Bride for Orpheus

2008-05-28T08:58:00.007-04:00

It was an arranged marriage, and it was overdue.
Orpheus, our peacock, coming into his testosterone, has been staring hard at chicken hens and fanning out his tail feathers (which are still turkey brown). He begins to rustle and shimmy like a broadway diva.
"Shake, shake, shake, shake your boody." Cate and I chant.
The favored hen is oblivious, continues to peck cracked corn, and Orpheus pivots and goes into a backward moonwalk. Last weekend we watched him going through his routine, Tammy, Meg and I, laughing hysterically.
He needs one of his own kind, said Tammy.
Well, come on then, I said, and we drove out the Pisgah Road to see Danny St. Hilaire.

Danny was looking thinner. He's thirtyish, with a long ponytail and several facial piercings, quiet, congenial, usually high. I told him what I was after; he noticed how pretty Meg is at 16 and commenced to give us the grand tour.

In the barn, a large hen under a heat lamp brooded protectively over 14 mottled chicks. Danny pointed out a banty rooster acting sentry, and warned us to watch our ankles.
The rooster was a handsome fellow, black with gold wings, and looked, as Tammy pointed out, just like a pirate. His ruffled comb set rakishly atop his head, and he was wearing what looked to be black velvet pants.
In the stall stood a long horned heifer and bull. I've got a bull out in the pasture twice the size of him, Danny informed us. We raised our eyebrows. It was a large bull. I couldn't put him on her though; she's not open, she'd never calve it.

Danny slipped through a wired door and into a large cage that held four peacocks. High-pitched squawking, wild wings beating, the air was filled waist high with dust. Danny sneezed and sneezed again. God damn! my allergies, he said.
See this one with the green neck. I could sell you her. These three have been on her a lot. She needs a break.
Thus we bought Ophelia.
I couldn't wait to see Orpheus' reaction, but it was not the romantic reunion of like meets like I had imagined. At first Orpheus totally ignored her and for several days kept parading his stuff for Goldie Hawn, the chicken hen he fancies most.
He and Red, the Rhode Island rooster have had fierce battles over Goldie. I don't know what she's got between those chicken thighs, but she's a man magnet.
Orpheus neglected Ophelia to the point that the other hens were ganging up and pecked the back of her green head bloody. I was pissed off when I saw that, and gave Ophelia her own pen for a few days till her head healed.

Now this morning, as I'm out hanging the wash, I see the Peabodys, on the stroll for breakfast. He's her strutting escort, and she follows five steps behind.

Cate and Hilary Go Skiing

2008-05-01T08:57:00.002-04:00

In gorilla suits. Cate's on the left. Hilary is wearing the flouncy polka dot scarf.

Bees, Babies and Brooding

2008-04-30T14:22:00.011-04:00

My bees arrived yesterday!
Cate has painted flowers, fruit and candy on the outside of our hives; she is enamoured and wants her own bee suit and veil.
One hive we've named Bee-Loved, the other Bee-Sweet.
It was grey and rainy yesterday, and since nasty weather makes bees angry, they spent the night in their delivery box in the garage and I will hive them this afternoon.

Belle, our Nubian doe, is still holding onto her baby--her babies? Goats kid twins 65% of the time! Joe cleared space in the garage so I can transfer my seedling flats, for they have taken over my kitchen, and now the cats are knocking them about. We suffered a tomato casualty last night.

This Saturday, May 3, is the first day of the Farmers' Market, and I think the last time I was this nervous I was waiting on a blind date. Both engender the same worried questions: Will they like what I have to offer? Will I have enough? Will I make any money?

Our Homestead

2008-04-24T13:54:00.011-04:00

News from the farm; we now have an official name--'Wildermirth Farm'

In case anyone wonders, here's how our name came into being:
1993, Tammy and I sat in her car beside a tumbledown house on Beedle Road while a warm spring rain pelted the roof. We'd come to dig lemon lilies from the dooryard. Weeds had nearly suffocated the remains of the garden. Peonies, iris, phlox were in dire need of rescue. I knew the woman who's once tended these blossoms would welcome us coming by to untangle, transplant and assume responsibility for those she loved.
Old Mrs. Wildermirth, I called her, thinking of joyful laughter amid the wild.

Empty chatter

2008-04-02T09:36:00.003-04:00

High winds this morning blew the cow shed door against the feed cans, frightened the chickens.
Moose stood in the window on his hind legs barking.
This morning I discovered that UPS had delivered my hives, left them in big boxes in the garage; with Joe's help, I'll knock them together tonight, paint them tomorrow.
I'm baking bread for my beekeeping class; it's rising now.

This morning we tried to talk about probability, objectivity, experiential knowledge, Anthony, Joe and I, and it was a big wet spaghetti bowl of nonsense.
I'm restless.

Falling Forward

2008-03-25T16:16:00.002-04:00

My life:

Interviewing for a teaching job I tried to show off my spiffy new, as yet untried curriculum for the requested 10 minute presentation. Mistake. My brain couldn't keep up with my mouth which kept blabbering inanity emphatically. My funny anecdotes and engaging examples were Nil, nada, non-existent. My mind was blank as printer paper, bits of thought scurried across the canvas and disappeared into dark corners to hide and pant heavily waiting it out.

Oh mind, why did you abandon me in my hour of need?

Sanguine. I've told everyone in the office I'm sanguine. The old, it's-out-of-my-control so "everything happens for a reason" crap we buy into when we can't affect the outcome. When did I become the kind of person who hijacks and hyphenates phrases because she's too lazy to make an effort to find the right word?

Darling girl

2008-03-07T00:08:00.007-05:00

Sarah Koenigseker
July 4, 1991-March 5, 2008

Oh child, I can still see you and Cate in the back seat of the Subaru dancing your Egyptian dance. I tried to imitate you, and we laughed till tears streamed down our faces. All those late nights and passed notes, middles school crushes, secrets, the pizzas, the plans for you and Cate to go to NYU.

Wasn't it just two summers ago the cop caught you and Cate writing dirty words in sidewalk chalk in front of the high school. You both were so scared you were crying, and I made you go back with a bucket of soapy water to wash it off. Oh Sarah, love--not yet seventeen.

When the Bough Bends

2008-03-06T10:14:00.007-05:00

Ready or not, change has come.
The office was shocked and somber yesterday for word is the commissioner has scheduled a July guillotining, and one of the biggest heads is on the block. As a member of the entourage, mine may be too.
I am anxious, but another part of me is calm, even curious.
Have I finally grown faith in life or my ability to make do?
On the side of Sweetwater Mountain in Alabama, no money, no sink in which to wash my face, nobody to keep me company at night, only my ’63 Rambler piled with books and clothes, life seemed unadulterated and true. Meals came from the Christian ladies who were as happy giving as I was grateful to receive. The people I met made me laugh and cry, and on the mountain dogwoods bloomed pink and white near the cold, rocky stream.
It’s a privilege to have the chance to live by one’s wits and the good grace of the world. It may be one I enjoy again soon.

Shedding winter

2008-03-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

Sleet last night; the farm bell is encased in ice and it is hard to believe that those dead looking sticks will ever turn back into fruit trees. I am listening to a light and innocent piano waltz. My co-workers chatter behind my earphones. Someone left me card with a watercolor print of pink wild roses.

Musing in pajamas

2008-03-04T21:17:00.000-05:00

Clad in flannel jammas at my kitchen table sipping ginger tea, I’m thinking how can I transfer a photograph life-sized onto a sheer white panel curtain so that it appears as if my young great grandmother is standing beside my window.

I was ill yesterday, my bones ached, my skin was pale and my eyes were rimmed so that it looked as though I’d worn mascara then had a good, long cry. I left work before noon came home and slept, drank Gatorade, tried to read a dishonest book and slept again till morning. Tonight all sounds are amplified: the dog’s nails on the wooden floor, the running water, the drone of the computer, my son shifting in his chair.

Run to some silent place. My mind whispers, “O WORLD, I cannot hold thee close enough.” And it is a prayer almost, not that I hold the world, but that it hold me securely, drive away the urge to fling all steadiness away, shed responsibility like dirty clothes. But no water could cleanse this sin, and I’ve been naked before.

Oh, Monika, you’re so prone to hyperbole. You all might as well know that from the outset.

What grows there?

2008-03-04T15:43:00.000-05:00

Basil is growing in tight green clusters at my house under the lights. There will be pesto this summer, and Charentais melons, Brandywine tomatoes and my heart will grow rampant as zucchini. Is this sentimental? How without being sentimental do I express the yearning that fills me when I look out on the western horizon as the sun sets over the trees? It’s like a rumbling thunder and I long to break into rain.

Not knowing

2008-03-04T15:35:00.001-05:00

Begin with the small things. Begin with what you can touch: a stone, rose quartz. Tammy keeps a hunk of rose quartz the size of a small radio in her refrigerator, next to the eggs on the second shelf. If you have been working in her garden, pulling weeds from the Goblin daisies or separating crowded astilbe, if you have been working and your muscles are sore and you want to lie on the blood red loveseat, among the lush cushions, press the arch of your foot against the rose quartz and close your eyes.