Day: July 2, 2016

It says something about the spiritual bankruptcy of our culture that hanging clothes outside on a line is illegal in  thousands of wealthy or pretentious communities in America. Think of the environmental impact of that curious bias, which forces millions of people to use many tons of chemicals, enormous amounts of electricity and other energy, and denies future generations the joy of knowing what clothes dried by the sun and wind actually feel and smell like.

Many communities claim clotheslines are a sign of poverty and ugliness, are trashy in some way. They have lost their way, they ought to build a clothesline in every new backyard, they are the pennants and symbols of family life.

If we have forgotten what animals are like, and what farms are like, we have also forgotten the meaning and simplicity and connection to nature that a simple piece of rope and a pulley can bring. We much appreciate our clothesline, and when I saw Maria out hanging our clothes on the line, I thought this was one of the most purely American images I could post on July 4th weekend, I wish more people could experience it.

I feel sad for those many people in those many states and communities who believe a clothesline is emblematic of ugliness and decay. They are very wrong. I am grateful not to live in such a narrow-minded place.

Note: In an earlier version of this post I said 19 states ban clotheslines. That’s not correct. Nineteen states ban clothesline bans, but many thousands of communities and developments across the country do ban clotheslines.

In my life, as in the Bible, I have been drawn to the idea of the Peaceable Kingdom. In 1820, the Quaker Minister Edward Hicks began a series of paintings devoted to Isiah’s biblical prophesy of a peaceable kingdom, one in which animals and children lived together in harmony and trust.

in a sense, this was my dream when I purchased the first Bedlam Farm and moved my heart and life to the country. I wanted to create my own Peaceable Kingdom, true to the vision both of Isiah and Hicks, a farm where loved and cared for animals could live in harmony with one another and with people.

To a great extent, I have been successful, especially since I met and married Maria, and she came to pursue this dream with me, although we rarely state it in so open a way. When I went to New York City to see the New York Carriage Horses and to see if they were abused, I could see right a way that they were not.

Animals that are well fed, loved and cared for are very different from animals that are not. You can see abuse in an animal in seconds, they react to people in a very particular way, are skittish and frightened and often aggressive. I learned that once animals understand where and when they will be fed, and know they will be fed enough, and every day, and that their wounds and pain will be eased, and that the people in their lives with never harm them or treat them roughly, they become peaceable.

They do not fight one another for food or space or shelter, they rest in safety and in the open, they interact with one another without conflict or excessive domination. Animals have their ways, their traits, their places, but I am very proud of the fact that only once in my life with animals – this was Simon with the blind pony Rocky – did any of my animals ever turn on the other and harm them.

And even then, Simon was just doing his job as the leader of his equine pack. Disabled and infirm animals are a dread danger in nature, they draw predators to the herd and are forced out or killed. Simon was just being a donkey. Our dogs herd the sheep every day, more than once, the sheep have never been harmed or damaged by our dogs, they graze contentedly just a few feet from them.Flo has finally accepted Fate and permitted her to share her part of the world.

We have a diverse crew here: imperious and territorial barn cats, active and intense border collies, donkeys, a pony, sheep. They live in harmony, with one another, with us. We trust them with ourselves and other people, they trust us and other people. This is the Peaceable Kingdom that Isiah and Minister Hicks imagined, and I still believe, despite all of the ugly news that rains upon us, if it is possible for them, it is possible for us. So this photograph worked for me on many levels, Flo and Fate standing together on the grass, Red sitting quietly in the background.

Our Peaceable Kingdom.

Nurturance is often described as the human social behavior of supplying material and emotional support to the young, the helpless and the weak. You might describe a garden as being helpless, it will wither and die without weeding, nurturing, water and attention.

A gardener might well be described as supplying material and emotional support to the plant or flower. I see Maria do this every day to the animals as well as the gardens. I embrace nurturance and practice it. I consider training a dog to be a form of nurturance, I am showing them how to live safely in our world.

I love to water plants, I do it faithfully and eagerly, it is a form of nurturance. So is grooming the donkeys and pony and giving them carrots. Maria and I both save food and bring it to the chickens, even thought they have plenty of feed. This is a kind of nurturance.

Maria has never wanted to have children, and I respect that, that is her right, but children lost out when she decided that.

She would have made a wonderful mother. Animals are drawn to nurturing souls, they instinctively feel safe around nurturing people. So do children.

In our political system, we are continuously asked to offer nurturance to the poor, to refugees, to the weak and helpless. Some people are drawn to nurturance, some turn away from it, often blaming the helpless for their troubles and seeking to push them away. I love Maria for many reasons, but nurturance is a major reason, it is her faith, she practices it every day, with people, with animals, with plants.

She says I am a nurturing man, and I believe this is so. I ache almost every day for the two children I lost so many years ago, I was never able to provide support or comfort to them, and I know this left a huge hole in my life that will never be filled.

I do not warm up to people or animals nearly as quickly as Maria does. I am fond of her pony, but ponies are alien to me. I am warming up to Chloe, I am getting fond of this headstrong, independent, imperious but loving creature. Chloe is shockingly smart and intuitive, she and Maria  communicate easily and well. I can usually get her out of the pasture without a halter,  and every time I come to the gate, she offers me a kiss, I kiss her on the nose, and then give her a biscuit or carrot.

I’m like a dog, if you kiss me on the nose often enough, I will come around. Chloe is lots of fun, and I love her personality. She is like Maria, headstrong, willful, loving and intuitive. Inevitably, I am coming to love her.

It’s a gender thing, I suppose, Red has girlfriends all over town, Fate has boyfriends all over town. I’m not sure how this attachment works, but Fate is close pals with our friend Bob at the town dump. On Saturdays, we bring her there, she starts wiggling and whining with excitement a mile a way. No matter where Bob is or what he is doing, he comes out to find Fate with a biscuit, sometimes in his hand, sometimes in his mouth.

I call it the biscuit kiss, Fate reaches forward very gingerly and takes the biscuit out from Bob’s teeth, eats it and licks him on the nose. In our town, the dump is part of our community, they know who we are (since my open heart surgery, the only way I can carry a garbage can is to sneak it out of the car when Bob isn’t around). I tell him I can carry garbage cans, he doesn’t care. We talked bears, Bob said he was out turkey hunting and a bear was sitting by a stump watching him. He say she can’t hunt for bear, he just can’t do it.