Day: March 4, 2014

As many of you know, I’ve struggled for some years about selling my photographs, I offer them for free to anyone who wishes to use them in any way they want, that remains the case. I love the idea of my pictures gracing computers, being printed out and shared, my little points of light sailing out into the world. Notecards are a good way to sell some photos and help recoup some of the costs of printing them (you can’t really charge enough to make much money, to be honest). It is also a good thing to do for people who can’t afford framed or matted prints.

But it has been hard to figure out how to print them cheaply and well, price them inexpensively, choose them intelligently. So I dropped it. Maria has revived the idea, we both noticed the passion and intensity of cat lovers and we have two barn cats who have had interesting times at Bedlam Farm – Minnie, born a feral kitten, transplanted to Bedlam Farm, recently lost a leg in an animal attack. And Flo, hiding out in the woodshed for a year or so before deciding to take over the house and my lap. So Maria chose four Minnie and Flo photos and we printed 100 sets of them at A & M Printers,  an excellent printer right here in Cambridge. They did a very fine job of printing and at a very fair price, one that makes it possible for us to sell them cheaply.

We are selling them in packs of four for $20 plus shipping (details on Maria’s site). They are all signed by me.

Maria was right on this one, she is learning all the time. People want photos of Minnie and Flo, especially on our eclectic porch, especially with Red in one of them. We put them up for sale Tuesday morning and more than half  are gone already and we like the idea of moving them all quickly so we can print other series – Red and Zelda, the donkeys. We don’t want them lying around for months, we want to keep them flowing out to you and out of here. I learned during the last book four – for Second Chance Dog – the importance of incentives and rewards. So we are offering some.

To the 50th buyer, a signed paperback copy of my short story collection, Dancing Dogs. To the 75th buyer, the notecards will be free. The 100th buyer will be given a  signed and personalized copy (me and Maria) of Second Chance Dog: A Love Story.

We are spending a lovely evening at the dining room table tonight signing, folding and putting the notecards into envelopes, talking and petting dogs. (Some Frieda and Lenore dog hair may be in these packs.)  We just realized the importance of incentives while signing and sorting them. I like doing it this way, Maria and I have great fun. I like seeing my photos used in this way, it is also a chance for Maria to make some money for her art work.  I think we are figuring this out. So you can check out the notecards  here. Maria takes Paypal and  checks can be sent to our post office box: P.O. Box 2502, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. As soon as these are sold, we will go ahead on the next set, I think Red and Zelda and the sheep. Details on Maria’s website.

The winter pasture,

cold and haunting,

clinging to life,

begins to say farewell,

it’s cold frost,

turning to tears.

Spring light is ringing the bell,

beating the drums, sounding the call.

The winter pasture clings to life,

showing off it’s piercing beauty,

it’s crystal sky, it’s frames of mist and frost.

the winter pasture is like that, blessed and doomed,

once it has known such divine beauty.

All the beautiful images of winter,

see against the sky,

through my misting lens,

you paint a picture,

winter pasture,

of the wounds,

that will never heal in me.

You can be the most beautiful thing,

and the darkest, all at once,

please forgive me the dream of spring,

the colors of the world are

coming to life,

their warm breath,

just over the mountain.

say goodbye, I hear those trumpets calling.

My heart is lifting up.

We went out to Bedlam Farm over the weekend, our first visit there since it was rented to a very nice family with three children.  We thought we should just take a look. The house and grounds are in great shape, we are very fortunate in our tenants, they not only pay the rent promptly, they are taking great care of the house and the grounds. It has been a hard winter up there for them, they are going through a lot of firewood and doing a lot of snow removal.

The house looks lovingly cared for, Marybeth did a wonderful job painting the downstairs hallway and Maria and I had never seen the kitchen looking so neat and clean. We’ve rented the farm until October of 2015 and we both found we just don’t think much about it anymore, it feels like someone else lives there now, which is true I suppose. The new farm has been such a creative and connecting place for us, we are so busy and engaged there that we just don’t look back much.

This has always been my way, especially recently. People e-mail me every day and ask how the farm is, how the tenants are doing, how the place is. I don’t think about it much, the farm is fine, the tenants great. Bedlam Farm was a very powerful place for me, I wrote a bunch of books there, was changed forever there, I found Maria there, Rose and Izzy and other animals in my life died there, it is such a beautiful place, so much happened to me there, some of it wonderful, some awful. But it is not my place any more, not really, and I have a life to live in our new home, which we love, and which is just as important in its own way.

As I’ve often written, nostalgia is a trap, I am not inclined to look backwards much, every day is a gift to me, a chance to find love and be loving, to write well, to take photos, to share my life with such a wonderful and loving person. I don’t feel the need to look back and dwell on what I have lost or left, I have no reason much to look back, I will always love Bedlam Farm, I look forward to the day when it finds the loving people it deserves to own it and care for it. It will change and transform, as it did me, it is that kind of place. We don’t need to check on the farm, it is in good hands. It will be a good while before we return.

I pass this farmhouse fence every now and then, it speaks eloquently of the winter. And of the passage of time.

We are graining the donkeys and the sheep as the arctic cold has returned again, it gives them an extra shot of energy to get through the cold nights, and we think most of the ewes are in season. Some people just toss the grain out, Maria likes to explain what she’s doing to the sheep. As far as I’m concerned it’s Spring.