Day: April 6, 2013

A very nice woman and her husband came to the Battenkill Bookstore and introduced themselves. She is a long-time follower of the blog and she said many nice things to me, including her feeling that my photography always seemed to be improving. This was a wonderful thing to hear, and it filled with pride and gratitude. My photography is so important to me, it has released something so powerful in me. This afternoon, we walked on a hill near our farm and we saw the late afternoon sun setting on a neighboring farm. The camera picked up the green that is starting to come up, and the yellow of the sun, and the sense of the old farm  and barns sitting in the light, as it has for many years now. Life is a gift.

Every day we walk on a beautiful country road near us, it is long, side, rarely used by cars. Lenore runs into the muddy streams along the road, looking for scat and dreadful things to eat. Red, still not quite sure what a walk without work is, circles us, herding us. Frieda, always the hunter, is always scanning for prey. We used to walk on the path on Bedlam Farm, a beautiful path in the woods. We now walk on a road near our new farm, a beautiful road near the hills.  I loved the old path, but I do not miss it or mourn it. There are always paths for us to find, new things to find.

When I was a kid, and we went to the grand old circus that came to town in a big tent with wondrous elephants leading the parade from the train, I always saved up to buy some pinwheels which I would hang out of the car window. Usually they blew away if the wind was strong, or they just fell apart. While they lasted, they were beautiful, hypnotic and enchanting for  me. I have often dreamed of them. This week I stopped at a store in Cambridge, N.Y., and bought four of them. I put them up on the front lawn, right around a maple tree we planed last Fall, one of the first things we did to our new home.

I got a spade and put the in five or six inches. It has been quite windy the last few days and my pinwheels have stood up quite well, spinning through much of the day. Steve the UPS man, liked them and asked me what they were for. I said I wasn’t sure. They seem to represent the nature of life to me, beautiful, a whirlwind, fragile and filled with color. And most important of all, they are always spinning, just like life, never static. One day they will be gone, perhaps they will just take off in the wind, they spin so hard. Pinwheels are like life, I think. I am happy to have them on my law. They say life happens here.

Feeding time defines the morning, we don’t eat until they are all feed, and we join the sun rising each morning, a subtle celebration of life. The weekend is underway. Last night we saw the “Powerful Oz,” fun, overwhelmed by special effects, as is common. Still, we enjoyed it. This weekend I will work at the Battenkill Bookstore (this morning.) We will visit Bedlam Farm. We are having dinner with a friend. I will review the James Salter Novel and put up another of Florence’s journal entries. Tomorrow, the Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop is coming to the farm for a meeting.

I’m planning to cook my roast vegetable pizzas. It is chilly here. We hope to put up a clothesline. We are staying in bed reading this morning. Everyone is fed.