Day: March 11, 2016

I brought Fate to the sugar house at Pompanuck today, she made her presence felt. She jumped into the fish pond in pursuit of some fish, she plunged into a pool near the garden, she ate compost, she raided the chicken roost, did not bother the chickens but grabbed a two-foot long loaf of bread the bakery had left for the chickens to eat, carried it all the way down the hill and brought it to me and Scott as a gift.

She pursued chipmunks and moles, moved a few chickens around, explored the bakery, which she once raided and liberated some bread and muffins. She spent some time cuddling with Scott and checking on me.

I was afraid she would leap into the boiling vat of sap Scott had been cooking, but she was good in the sugar house. She was covered in mud and soaked when she left, she the farm was more or less intact. The car will smell a good while. The good news is that while she explored the farm happily for two hours, she stayed close, came right away when called. She is a wonderful dog, and we are blessed to have her.

It would not surprise me in the least to see Fate drive the car around and parallel park it on some street. She came with me and Red to Pompanuck Farm today to sit in the sugar house with Scott and seemed about ready to drive up the hill in search of chipmunks and chickens.

Last week, I drove my friend Scott down the road to see Bejosh Farm, the home of Ed and Carol Gulley. He was blown away  by the folk and farm art Ed has made out of discarded parts and debris from the farm (there is always a lot). He especially loved the Mr. Blockhead sculptures (I have one of them in my office at home).

So today I went down to the farm and bought one of the Mr. Blockheads and brought them to Pompanuck Farm and the Sugar House, where Scott and I have spent so many wonderful hours boiling sap and bullshitting. Our rich friendship grew there. Scott was amazed and delighted by his new Mr. Blockhead, he loves him. We put him in front of the sugar house for now, and he’ll be moved later up to the main house and bakery on the farm.

I hear from people every day telling me how much they love Ed and Carol Gulley’s Bejosh Farm Journal, they are getting visitors and followers from all over the country. We are pushing Ed to have his own art show sometime later this year. You can check out Carol and Ed’s blog here, and also subscribe. Their goal is to capture the real life of the family farmer, and they are doing so with humor, stories, videos and thoughtful observations.

Ed is also going to use the blog as a vehicle for showing and selling his unique and compelling art.

The blog is great fun, but if you read it, you will also learn a lot of serious truth about food and the farmer’s life, and the farmer’s challenges. Ed is also a student now in my writing class, if his voice gets any stronger, he’ll melt his computer.

Twice a day, I take Red and Fate out to the side pasture, I give Red directional herding commands (there are no sheep) and they get to run at full tilt, something I think is wonderful for dogs like border collies to do twice a day, but not for too long or more often. Fate, it seems, does not have the full prey drive to move sheep or herd them fully, she has explosive energy and loves and needs to run.

Red has enormous stamina and presence out in the pasture, and he also runs effortlessly for long periods. This running keeps both of them in shape, gives them an outlet for the enormous energy well-bred border collies have, and is always a joy to watch. Even Fate rests after our running time, although not for too long. Red is nine years old now, Fate is one, and when she explodes, she runs faster, but he more than holds his own.

When we do this, the dogs brace one another, Fate keys off of Red and circles in the opposite direction, often lying down or hiding in wait for him. He seems not to notice, rushing along on his beautiful outruns. One of the border collie purists once messaged me, she was outraged that I was giving directional signals without sheep, it was a violation of trust,  she insisted, and I talked to some herding trainers, and learned once again not to listen to people who have nothing better to do than tell other people what to do.

It is a sacrament to me to learn for myself, I learn this almost every day of my life. I love giving my dogs the chance to fully live the lives of dogs, insofar as is possible in our world.  So at the request of many of you, I shot a video of the running dogs this morning and put it up on You Tube.

This weekend we gain another hour of daylight, exciting day in farm country. Maria and I are color and light people, daylight matters. We survived another upstate winter, and winter blinked, it didn’t show this year. It is messing with us, we will are shivering from last year. We brought the head out on the porch from my study, we’ll put some flowers in there when it is time, Fate came over, of course, she is not into minding her own business.