Rosemary is settling in, getting closer, letting us get close. She’s coming to terms with the existence of Red, which rattled her for a day or two, I continue to be impressed by her stately bearing, her proud posture, her eagerness to walk in front of the flock, her beautiful wool.
She has stopped looking for her former flock and is settling in with this one. Zelda was the leader our sheep, but I sense that she is deferring to Rosemary, she seems happy to turn the reins over. Rosemary is looking me in the eye, these days, and focusing on her new home. This, to me, is a sign of intelligence in a sheep. She is quite beautiful, and her bearing is impressive.
Her previous owner fell on hard times, but I feel that Rosemary was well treated and quite grounded. She was getting a lot of feed before, we only do that in the dead of winter. Rosemary will be slimming down a bit. When I approached her with the camera today (the IR for this shot) she stood her ground and looked me in the eye.
Life on a farm is varied, it ebbs and flows, presents itself often in ways I never imagined. I never imagined owning a pony, I never imagined spending days on a determined campaign to control the vicious flies that are drawn to horses. The donkeys suffer the flies, they spend a lot of time in the shade of the barn, refuse fly masks (they quickly remove the masks from each other, we lost a lot of masks that way before we gave up.
Lots of horse owners keep their animals inside the barn all day to keep them away from the flies. Chloe is restless and indifferent to almost anything. She is loving her daily evening hose-downs. I love doing it.
But you can’t really solve the fly issue without the donkeys, as flies lay their eggs in the manure of equines. Since we got Chloe, we’ve been investigating our options, this year we launched the fly wars. It is three-pronged.
One we remove the manure from the area of the barn quickly. Two, we put a fly mask on the pony during the day. Three, we got a hormone based feed that the horse and donkeys eagerly eat, it passes through them and stops the flies from re-producing. No insecticides.
We know we will never get rid of the flies completely, but people who use this pellet feed – they just need a small amount a day, say it can reduce flies by 70-90 per cent. And the donkeys and horse think they’re getting treats, they gobble it up.
Ideally, we should have started the feeding in May, before the flies really get going. But we should be able to see a reduction in the flies before too long. A farm is about life and death, change and growth. I am forever faced with problems I have never faced before, in this way, I grow and adapt.
Fate loves running, it is her passion and purpose. Her joy is infectious, I love to see her running in the open field, she runs with complete abandon and unbelievable speed. Fate loves love, running is an expression of her enthusiasm for it, I think.
Life goes on, and things change, but some things leave a hole in your heart when they leave. Soon, it will be a year since O’Hearn’s Pharmacy was bought ought by Rite-Aid and closed. There is one independent pharmacy left in our county.
Bridget, whose family ran the pharmacy for more than half-a-century was part of the heart and soul of our town, she was always there for anyone who needed her. I will always remember the people lining up at her counter to ask for help and advice. They always got both.
Bridget held forth at this tall counter, now stripped of the medications and vitamins she sold there. I met her there to shoot her portrait for my upcoming portrait show – Cambridge People. It was wonderful to see her and talk to her, but it was also difficult for her, she loved her pharmacy and helping people.
A person of great faith, helping people was not a burden for Bridget, but a joy. It was a joy for all of us to know she was there as well. She is happy in her new life, working part-time at a pharmacy in a nearby to, selling real estate, which she loves. Bridget is a people person, as long as there are people around, she will be finding things to for them and with them.
She loves matching people up with good homes, she says, and I am sure she is great at it. This was the sign that was outside of her store at the end, and I pulled it in to be in the photo of her in her old perch, where she dispensed medicine and advice.
I went to see Bridget at O’Hearn’s Pharmacy, closed now for nearly a year. It was emotional for me, Bridget helped me so many times to navigate the health care system after I had my open heart surgery, she helped so many people in our town. It was an emotional visit for her also, I could tell.
I wanted to shoot her portrait for my portrait show at the Round House Cafe this September, and she agreed to meet me in the empty pharmacy, for so many years a busy center of our small town, a focal point of our community.
Bridget’s pharmacy is sorely missed, people there felt so known and she was so available and sympathetic. I followed her all over the store shooting a 100 pictures, but I love this shot, when she stood behind her counter, and where she held forth, worked the phones, made up the medications, dispensed guidance and advice.
In small towns like ours, people had callings, not jobs, and nothing is more revealing of that than the transition from small community pharmacies to monster chains who sell cigarettes right next to medicines. I had had to explain my circumstances to Bridget, she knew more about me than any of my doctors wanted to know.
Bridget comes from another time, when pharmacy was an art, when people have personal relationships with their pharmacist, when the walls were filled with Hallmark Cards, when people understood health insurance and pharmacists were their critical links to doctors and the health care system.
When I was suddenly checked out of the hospital where I had open heart surgery, I had a dozen prescriptions to fill and the chain stores were closed. I called Bridget at home, and she told me to stop by and drop them off at her house. Early the next morning, they were all waiting for me.
Bridget’s Pharmacy took in dry cleaning, sold gifts and jewelry and was a favored stop for Christmas presents. People in the town were almost fanatically loyal to her, but the cost and complexity of dealing with insurance companies and the government wore her down, as it has so many small businesses in rural communities.
People struggled to pay for my medicines, but I never knew anyone who was denied their medications because of money. There was always a way.
In our world, only the big can survive and rural communities have been stripped of their local, community-based institutions. Bridget and her pharmacy were a precious focal point of community, part of the heartbeat of our town.
It was good to see Bridget again, and to photograph here. Bridget is a person of great faith, she loves people, and that was one of the reasons she was such a great pharmacist, you always felt welcome there, known and cared for. It never seemed a bother or a burden for her to care for people, it always seemed a joy. That made it so much easier for everyone.
When people in my town got bad medical news, the first place they came was to Bridget, it was common to see Bridget huddle in a corner with someone, helping them wipe the tears from their eyes. And she helped them beyond, also, delivering medicine if it was an emergency, available day or night.
I was very happy to take her portrait, happier still to include her in my Portrait Show.
