24 March

Monday: Bedlam Farm Diary, Vol 2. One family’s farm

by Jon Katz
Bedlam Farm Diary

There is a reason, I’ve learned, why they call it the family farm. Family is perhaps the most important part of the Rouse Farm. The kids and adults are around one another all day, and Judy spends as much time with Lyly as she can. I loved watching them walk up the road together after they let the cows out. Lyla is at ease among cows as her mother and grandfather are. Judy work is brutally difficult and relentless but she always finds time for her two daughters.

I’m proud to report that my second “Bedlam Farm Diary: Vol. 2” will be on the Rouse farm, and on Judy and her father Ed. It is wrong that family farms are perishing, and I am eager to show some of what will be lost. I have a ton of editing to do, but I hope to put the video up this coming Monday.

24 March

Meditation, Rouse Farm

by Jon Katz
Meditation, Rouse Farm

On the top of the hill facing the big pasture, one of Ed Rouse’s cows found a good spot to take in some sun and do some meditating. Cows know how to do that. On family farms, cows live pretty good lives. They are milked, then go out to pasture all day, and can sit in the sun or shade and contemplate the world around them. In the farms of the Corporate Nation, they spend their lives on concrete, never going outside. Something is being lost.

24 March

The Everyday Art Show. Planning meeting. June 4-5

by Jon Katz
Everyday Art Show: June 4-5 at Bedlam Farm

Maria and Frieda met with Ben Osterhaudt to talk about lighting for the first Bedlam Farm Pig Barn Art Show to be held June 4 – 5 in the Pig Barn, which Maria is converting into an art gallery. The first show, “The Art Of The Everyday” will show the work of five artists – Maria, Jack Metzger, Serena Kovalosky, Diane Swanson and me. It will celebrate the conversation of everyday objects into art, from photography to gourds to quilts and potholders to sculpture and painting. The art will be for sale, and Maria has decided to preserve the Pig Barn pretty much as is, but needs some track lighting to show off the art.

Gardenworks, which is nearby, can offer people attending the show food and farm produce and other good stuff.

The show will be open to the public, and will be the first of hopefully many art shows and exhibits Maria is planning for the Pig Barn, which was used to slaughter pigs from the farm and the nearby towns. The brick cauldron structures are still there.  It’s a beautiful space and Maria will curate this and other shows.

24 March

Bedlam Farm Notecards: The Big Barn. For sale

by Jon Katz

I’m happy to say that the new signed Bedlam Farm Big Barn notecards are printed, and are up on the Redux website for viewing and for purchase. The big barn is one of my favorite continuing series,  honoring barns and marking the seasons. They are sold in five-packs and singly, and thanks again to Christine Nemec of Redux for suggesting that the photographs be sold attractively and inexpensively as notecards. She is all class.

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