6 June

In The Deep Woods

by Jon Katz
Crisis And Mystery
Crisis And Mystery

In the deep woods,

crisis and mystery,

are just around the corner,

the data of the deep woods is a rushing steam,

a dog moving through the water,

the scat of a bear,

snakes slipping beneath the leaves,

the leaves whispering to one another,

and to me: be prepared to live your life,

every day.

To fight discouragement,

with every breath,

and bit of strength.

6 June

Frieda’s Time

by Jon Katz
Frieda's Time
Frieda’s Time

Writing my next book “Second Chance Dog,” I spent a lot of time researching Freida’s life, tracking her history. I was helped greatly in my research by a woman who owned Frieda with her husband while Frieda was a guard dog protecting his auto body shop near Glens Falls, N.Y. She had been purchased by a “breeder” in the Adirondacks who sold Rottweiler-Shepherd mixes for $50 as guard animals. I’ll spare the details of Frieda’s treatment, but I did learn she escaped from the auto body shop, was loose for several weeks and came back pregnant. When her owner learned this, he put Frieda in his car drove up the New York State Thruway and let her out of the car near the Warrensburgh, N.Y., exit, the entry to the three-million acre Adirondack Park.

Frieda lived in the Adirondacks for several years. I imagine she had her babies and they died in the wild or survived and are roaming those woods still. Frieda made her way South back to the Glens Falls area and avoided the ASPCA for many months. When she was finally captured, she was in the shelter for nine months before Maria walked in the door and took her home.  I learned while researching the book that she saved a family by alerting them to a fire. She spent years protecting Maria, and watches over her still.She is a wild girl still, filled with love, loyalty, instinct and prey drive. But this is her time to be safe and secure, loved and protected. She does the same for us. She is, in fact, the Second Chance Dog.

6 June

Lulu’s Crossing, First Day. Adapting. Lessons.

by Jon Katz
First Day: Adapting
First Day: Adapting

Animals helped me survive, they helped show me the meaning of adapting, their greatest skill and lesson. They do not agonize over the past, worry about the future. As much as any Buddhist master, they live in the moment, all there is is what is now. What a lesson for me, for us. Lulu is not explaining why she couldn’t cross, not worrying about it, she moved across the new bridge to the think grass in her new meadow with her herd, and she was at ease, at peace. Animals are great teachers for me, as long as I listen to them and open myself up to their messages. Yesterday, the gate was an obstacle she couldn’t cross. Today, it was simply a way over.

6 June

Lulu’s Crossing. First Day. Learning To Love. See Who’s First In.

by Jon Katz
First Day
First Day

The first day in the new pasture was easy, natural. Maria and the donkeys and Red just walked across the new bridge and into the newly opened old cow pasture. There was something graceful and sweet about it – I am putting up some photos in an album on Facebook. Those of us who love animals know the particularly sweet pleasure of creating lives for them that are healthy, and nourishing and that offer them the chance to live their lives in a free and natural way. There were many good and solid reasons to clean up the mess around the new pasture gate, but to be honest, it was really for the feeling Maria and I got watching Lulu (she who is first in) and Simon and Fanny head into a place that they will surely love. It is filled with food and fresh water, nooks and crannies to explore, a hill or two to climb, bushes to eviscerate and nibble on and grass to the horizon.

Doing this for them is a gift for us. Through animals, I began to learn how to love. I began to understand empathy and generosity – because they cannot speak, we have to speak for them and think about them. Animals brought me to people, as they did with Maria, as they did yesterday when the Big Men In Trucks came to meet me and help me out. As they do every day. We separated the sheep from the donkey so they would just be left alone for the day to explore the new pasture and we closed the gates behind Lulu’s Crossing and we went in to do our work and leave them to theirs. I enjoyed taking photos of them. More on Facebook, more later and for many days to come. (Rainstorm tomorrow, back in the Pole Barn.)

6 June

Strong Women: Stannard’s Farm Stand

by Jon Katz
Red At Stannard's
Red At Stannard’s

Stannard’s farm stand is just down the road from our new farm and when they open in April life changes for us. They become our grocery store until October. Red and I go there every day to get berries, carrots, vegetables for my pizzas and vegetable casseroles. Melissa Stannard is one of the strong women I photograph, she sighs and just looks right into the camera.

She and the other women at the farm stand work brutally hard seven days a week, out in the orchard, in the new greenhouse, at the cash register. Some of the people who come in are nasty (usually New Yorkers) trying to bargain for a zucchini, most are nice. I love eating fresh fruit and vegetables, my body changes and thanks me for it every day, it is some of the best medicine I have ever taken. Red has his friends there of course, and is welcome, he seems like a spirit, moving in and out of my life. When Stannard’s closes in November, I have to go back to the supermarket and buy my fruit from South America. That system seems backwards to me, I appreciate the chance to buy my food from nearby farmers who grow it. The fresh blueberries and strawberries are amazing.

When the sky is gray I drive down the road to Stannard’s to see Melissa and joke with her and the other strong women there and soak up some color and light. This, I believe, is how we were meant to shop and eat before the economists decided family farming is inefficient in the global economy.

 

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