Day: September 1, 2013

Red is the man. He greeted hundreds of people, was petted and hugged by most of them, he put on a show four times in the sheep pasture, herded the sheep each time with focus and skill and great responsiveness. Our farm is smaller than the original Bedlam Farm, but also more compact and intimate. If the first Bedlam Farm was a grand stage, this is a more personal and accessible one. It is perfect for us in our lives now. I never tire of working with Red or showing off his great herding skills, I am grateful every day for the generosity and compassion of Dr. Karen Thompson, who helped rehabilitate Red, who saw the great generosity of spirit in this wonderful dog  and who brought him to me and refused payment for him.

Such selflessness is not a common thing.

If Red was the man of the Open House, Maria is the woman. She converted her Schoolhouse Studio into an art gallery, drew some gifted artists into the Open House to sell and show their work, she worked for weeks making wonderful potholders, pillows, quilts and fiber paintings that practically flew out of the studio, she helped conceive and promote the Open House and make it such a success. Maria has grown as the Open Houses have grown, she is an inspiration to me every day and a reminder and challenge to be open, compassionate and generous in spirit.

Our neighbor Sadie hears the donkeys bray all the time, but said she didn’t need to meet them, they sounded too loud. Today, the donkeys made another convert Sadie marched into the pasture with her mother Sarah and she patted each donkey on the nose. She will be back.

How great to have the opportunity to show off these wonderful animals to so many curious people. I got to explain the legend of the cross on the donkeys’ back, talk about their intuition and affection, their intelligence and independence. Must have brought several hundred people in to see the donkeys’ in small groups, I definitely have a future as an animal tour guide if the writing thing doesn’t work out. The donkeys are in to Open Houses, Simon was braying loudly in complaint while we moved to do sheepherding in the outer pasture. He got enough attention to satisfy even him for a bit. Lulu and Fanny were right in there cuddling with him.

I am learning to be more careful with my diabetes, I forgot to eat  and was running around in the sun and when I went into the house to check my numbers, they were the lowest they had ever been and I was feeling odd. I caught it in time, learned my lesson. You can control diabetes but you have to pay attention to it. If Maria hadn’t pushed me to go into the house and eat, I might have had some trouble. Diabetes requires an attitudinal change, I can’t shrug it off. Low blood sugar is just as dangerous as high blood sugar and if you are running around for hours in heat and humidity talking to people, you have to be aware of yourself. I got the message.

Mary Kellogg has read from her wonderful poems at every Open House Maria and I have held, and she graced us with some old and new poems today, powerful writing about her happy and independent life. There were some firsts. Frieda came out off-leash and lay quietly as Mary read, as I read from the “Second Change Dog” for the first time, as Red and I did a therapy dog training demonstration and as I talked about the importance of understanding prey drive in dogs, something people hear little about but which bears very directly on understanding and training them.

Frieda did beautifully, I couldn’t imagine doing that a year or so ago. Flo slept underneath her rocker on the porch as usual but stayed away from the crowds. There was such a good feeling there, you could touch it. When we did our first Open House, many people told me I was mad, writers don’t open up their homes to readers I was told. They do now, and they should if they are comfortable with it. We couldn’t have been more comfortable, I could not be happier or more grateful about this opportunity to share my very wonderful life and the people and animals in it. After the talk, we all visited the donkeys and watched Red herd sheep, and we did that another three times.

The September Open House was wonderful for us, many hundreds of people, donkey visitations, herding demos, talks and readings, art and lots of connections. One of the nicest was the members of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, a group of more than 500 people who have formed a wonderful creative arts group on a part of my Facebook Page. More than a score of people traveled from different parts of the country to see the farm and meet one another in person, and this group has become a very real community. Really, it brought a lot of people to tears to see how hard the members of the group worked to come and meet one another, how far they came, how happy they were to see each other.

I’ve fantasized about a real digital community online for years and to see this one take such deep and creative hold is inspiring and very, very affirming. Jeff Anderson ran a digital slide show of the group’s work for those who could come and those who couldn’t.

Beyond that, the Open House feel wonderful, uplifting and engaging. Maria sold about 30 potholders, all of her pillows, most of her scarves, I sold five photos,  Maria has really figured out how to sell them now. Marilyn Brooks sold two of her enchanting landscapes, Jane McMillen sold a slew of pincushions and Maria’s sister Fran sold nearly a dozen of her mini-gardens and Kim Gifford sold a bunch of her notecards.

Red did four different herding demonstrations, there were eight or nine visits to the donkeys, Red, Lenore and Pearl greeted the crowds (and the Labs ate a lot of apples off the ground.) Maria and I are as exhausted as we are happy, the four hours was jam packed every single second, we are grateful for our friends Jack and Kim Macmillan, who helped us organize the art sales and handle the crowds and parking. I don’t have an exact number of people, I think it was between six and seven hundred people. The mayor of Cambridge came by to thank us for bringing visitors to the town, that was very cool.

The day had the greatest feeling to it, the donkeys basked in all their attention,and I love bringing attention to them, donkeys are in danger of being forgotten. We thanked everybody for coming, everybody thanked us for letting them come, and lucky we feel to have a place to live that brings so much pleasure to people. We will do it again next year, in June and September. I’ll write more about it tomorrow, frankly I’m just a bit worn.