4 April

Good Night From The Love Dog. Being In The Moment.

by Jon Katz
Being In The Moment
Being In The Moment

Spiritualists talk a lot about being in the moment, about not looking back or looking ahead but knowing where you are and accepting it. To me, this has always been one of those ideas that is easier said than done. Like many of the people reading this, I am a worrier. I look back at things I wish I have done, and ahead to things I ought to be doing, hope I will be doing, or fear I will be doing.

It is only in meditation that I have begun to understand this notion of being in the moment. I light a candle, turn down the lights, take off my shoes, breathe deeply and think of myself as sinking to the bottom of the sea, but not drowning, floating down into the darkness and the quiet. This is all there is for me, this quiet, this darkness, this sensation of floating down to a peaceful place, beyond messages, obligations, the worries and anxieties and pressures of the modern world.

This has taken me a long time, years of practice, of success and failure, of repetition. Our lives are so busy, so loud, so fragmented, there are so many intrusive and disturbing images swirling around us, that I see I need to stop, to leave this world behind to find my moment, my moments. They have become precious to me, powerful and calming, I feel the creative spark down there and am called to the work of my God. It is bigger than anything I face on the surface, bigger than life, money, conflict, aging, illness or death. It is barren of all feeling but love. It is a loving place and safe, beyond the reach of anything but my own consciousness, my own heart and soul.

Up above, it is so difficult to find quiet and peace, floating down it simply becomes more peaceful and quiet by the moment. In this space, I am alone with myself, I experience no sensation but the one of drifting quietly, of floating into peacefulness and mystery. Here, I understand the notion of being in the moment, of shedding the thoughts and concerns of the material world. It is a spiritual place for me, I see color and light as I descend, and it just gets quieter and quieter. For me, that is reality, that is the boundaries of my world. In the moment, for a moment, one moment at a time.

4 April

Simon’s Spring Portrait

by Jon Katz
Simon's Spring Portrait
Simon’s Spring Portrait

It’s April, so time for Simon’s annual Spring portrait. My donkey pal looks a lot better than he did when he arrived. The donkeys are already out grazing, bits of grass are popping up. My gift to Simon this year will be fencing the grass and shrub in the rear of the pasture – donkey heaven. Todd Mason will come around next Month and we’ll figure it out. When I went out to get in the car this morning, the Prince Of Bedlam Farm was waiting for me.

4 April

Strut In The Mirror. A Potholder.

by Jon Katz
Strut In The Mirror
Strut In The Mirror

Life is curious. A few minutes before he went after her, and was sent to glory, Maria started working on a Strut-inspired potholder, the rooster in the mirror. As she often does, Maria captured the essence of this vain and beautiful creature, preening in the mirror. I asked her if I could have it, and she said yes, so the beginnings of the Strut potholder – it was never completed – will go up on my office wall. I love this potholder. I am in awe of the way Maria took potholders and made them art.

4 April

Obit: The Life Of Strut

by Jon Katz
Life Of Strut
Life Of Strut

Most people who have lived with roosters have had to kill one or two. They are curious creatures, they embody the best and worst of men. They are loyal to their hens, protective to a fault, selfless and vigilant. And like so many men, they preen, bully, have too much testosterone running through their veins. Occasionally, there is a calm one, they do their work and tolerate the people around them. They are unusual.

Strut was a good rooster, to the end. He kept his hens together, stepped up in front of any danger – dogs, strangers. He looked out for hawks and foxes, kept watch. The hens would hop up and sit on chairs, but Strut never rested. He was always on guard.

He was beautiful – a Swedish Flower Hen. He was a natural photographic subject, he loved to pose and the light and the camera loved him. We kept telling ourselves we had found a good one. Until he wasn’t. It happened rather quickly, as things on farms do.

Maria came up to the feeder while I was putting hay out to the donkeys. She looked upset, angry. She said Strut had attacked her. For the past few weeks he had been coming at both of us, but a stomp of the foot or kick in the chest seem to stop him, back him off. Yesterday, that didn’t work. He scraped Maria’s leg and kept coming. Maria said she was furious, she could have killed him if she had a gun or stick. Maria and I both have many issues about being attacked. It makes us crazy mad.

But I wasn’t mad at Strut. As with Simon when he attacked poor Rocky, Strut was just being a rooster. Something in their genes makes them cranky and violent as they get older – just like some men – and I’m sure it seemed to him that he was protecting his chickens. Maria was in her studio and she asked me to wait a day or so to make sure, but I knew I wouldn’t. Once I saw the blood on her leg, that was it for Strut. No coming back from that. It would happen again.

I walked out to the pasture, sighted him in my rifle – I am not a bad shot, really.  He was marching the chickens up and down the fence, up on a rise, nothing behind it. A good safe place to shoot, a clear shot, he barely seemed to notice me. I came to within 10 feet and took aim.

The last thing you want is to miss, and have a wounded bird or animal rushing around in pain, impossible to catch. So two quick shots to the heart, one to the head to make it quick. It was, really. Farmers generally prefer a knife or hatchet, they string the rooster up by his legs and chop his head off. They don’t like to waste bullets on a chicken. I like the rifle, quick and bloodless.

It was ethereal. The hens ran off and vanished, as they do when there is trouble. The donkeys, intuitive creatures who miss nothing, all stopped eating and stared at me. They know me, trust me, they didn’t run or spook. The sheep froze, as sheep do when there is close danger. For a few minutes, the farm was a tableau, frozen in time, nothing moving. And then, as if by some secret script, everyone returned to their lives. The hens appeared, pecking for bugs, seemingly with no memory of Strut, for all of his faithful service. The donkey started eating again, although they were watching me closely, and then, the sheep.

A small moment on a farm, a thing of little import, yet a thing. I did not come to the farm to shoot things or kill them, I don’t object to it,  it is what some people do, but not what I do. Except when I do, like the rooster. I have shot a lot of things in my time here, it is part of running a good farm.  Rabid skunks and raccoons, sick sheep, a dying fox. Maria struggled with this at first, she understands now. Nobody needs to be attacked by a rooster. Nobody needs to be attacked by anything. The next one could be a kid visiting Simon.

This morning, Strut was a faint memory. The hens came out and are marching around the pasture.  The Leghorn laid an egg. The barn cats have found the sun. The sheep are resting by the pole barn and the donkeys are inspecting the shrubs by the fence. I’m working on my book, Maria is making chicken potholders. Ironically, the one she was working on yesterday was of Strut looking into a mirror. I asked her not to sell that one, to give it to me. Don’t know if we want another rooster or not. Maria was upset for a few minutes, and then not. She felt responsible, of course, but she wasn’t.

Photography is an act of intimacy, and so I feel the loss of Strut personally, another good and foolish man, a member of the Bedlam Farm Men’s Club. He wasn’t listening, of course, men generally don’t. He was a good rooster. Until he wasn’t.

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