Fate is a dog who misses nothing, no deep sleep, no noise, food or other distraction keeps her from missing a sound outside, a footstep, a chain on a gate. Tonight, I came outside on the soft grass to take a photo of the Schoolhouse Studio, I barely moved a step before I saw this face peering out at me from the studio window. Was I going to the sheep? Opening a gate? Offering work?
She popped up to the window out of a sound sleep, said Maria, she is a dog who misses nothing.
Today I learned that my proposal for what seems (gasp) to be my 30th book has met with warmth and acceptance from my publisher.
Looks like it’s going to be published.
The final details, including payment, have yet to be worked out, but my editor said he thought my proposal for a book titled “Lessons From Bedlam Farm, 2016-2017,” was “lovely,” hits all of the right tones and offers animal and other stories that help illuminate larger lessons about happiness, community, responsibility, loss, compassion and commitment, along with other things.
He wants to buy it. You never know in this world, until the signatures are on the dotted lines, but I believe it wants to happen and will happen.
Simply, the book is an account of my life with Maria and the animals here at Bedlam Farm, from September of 2016 to September of 2017.
There are so many lessons that come from the farm, about life, death, all of the aforementioned. In just the past few weeks I think of the poor bear, the death of Deb, Maria’s decision to go to India and the overwhelming support she has received, and the rescue of four beautiful and homeless sheep, they have already transformed the spirit of the farm.
In February, when Maria goes off to Calcutta, I will be alone on the farm again, for the first time in years. I can’t wait to write that chapter.
The farm is a great teacher. When I moved to the country and bought my first farm in 2003, I wrote a series of best-selling books “The Dogs Of Bedlam Farm,” ” A Dog Year,” that chronicled life on the farm. I want to get back to that form of book, I see it as cross between E.B. White and James Herriott, they are both great inspirations for me.
Of the two, E.B. White’s experience – moving to a farm in Maine during World War II – resonates the most for me. His gentle, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and always thoughtful lessons and observations uplifted and entertained people during a troubling time. I hope to do the same. Herriott wrote of the peaceable kingdom that can be the world of animals, I see it here every day, for all the realities of life.
My life has changed since those books, and the biggest change has been Maria, who has transformed my experience on the farm into a powerful partnership centered on animals, creativity and encouragement – of one another, of others.
My first wife loved her good life in New York City, she did not relish my life on the farm.
We drifted apart and our marriage withered. The books ended up being about me, not us. It is different now, this book will be focused on animals, but will very much be about us. I know what it is to be alone on a farm, I am not alone here.
We have different work and different identities in many ways – we work apart all day, almost every day – but our lives on the farm are very powerfully connected, our lives on the farm are inseparable and entwined.
That is a huge part of the new book.
So is the wonder of daily life here, always different, always teaching me things I need to know. I want to pass those things on. My life, the lives of the animals, our lives together, my connections to my wondrous community here.
I can’t quite tally all the books I’ve written, if you add children’s books and self-published and e-books, then this is my 30th. That’s a lot of work and a lot of words. Like Updike said, some people talk endlessly about writing, writers write. I mean to go out of this world with my fingers on a keyboard, typos to the end.
I am actually quite happy to be writing this book. Publishing has changed so much in the past few years I sometimes don’t recognize it and sometimes wish I could get away from it.
Writers and editors rarely speak now, they usually only e-mail one another, and the sense of intimacy and partnership have waned. Young writers expect nothing else, and are used to nothing else, but it is still difficult for me to adjust to this new and impersonal corporate world. It is time for me to let go of the other ways, and be grateful that I am still writing books.
Creativity is as much about changing and learning to let go as it is about anything else.
I have gotten good at letting go.
As much as I love my blog, and am faithful to it, I also love books and I am unable and unwilling to leave that form of expression behind. I often say I will, but I can’t.
Fortunately this book will take nothing away from blog or my commitment to it. It comes, like my blog, right out of my life.
My 29th book, “Talking To Animals,” will be published in May of 2017. Hopefully, “Lessons From Bedlam Farm” will be published a year after that.
Maria says that as long as she has known me – that is going on 10 years – I have been telling her my life as an author books is over. But it doesn’t seem to be over, as she points out, and my heart and soul is grateful for that, for all of the challenges and frustrations of modern publishing.
I am and shall remain an author, for as long as anyone will have me, it is the only thing I have ever wanted to be or do in my life.
Dorothy Parker once wrote that misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation. Finally, after many years, I got irritated with myself. I love my life and work and will respect both, I hope I never succumb to lament and complaint.
I trust we will all slug out the final details soon after Labor Day, the publishing process is no longer warm and informal, but that is up to my good agent. They don’t get paid enough, really, between the time they spent dealing with crazy writers and the time they spent dealing with cold-blooded corporatists.
This book comes right from my life, every single day, and the lessons I learn here, every single day. My words, my pictures, the animals, my community, my wife.
And the love and wonder I feel here, every single day.
Like E.B. White, I hope it is useful and uplifting to people living in a perennial tsunami of troubling news and information. I want the book to be the antidote for that, a celebration of the meaningful life, sometimes an escape, sometimes a dose of reality. I want to make people think, but also laugh and smile.
I mean it to be entertaining and inspiring. Sometimes poignant, no human life is a perfect life.
Thanks for coming along on the ride. Somehow, and miraculously, we seem to be in this together.
Red has a rough day Monday, brawling with goats, rams, runaway sheep. We had a laser appointment scheduled for Wednesday at the Cambridge Valley Veterinary Clinic, we moved it up to this afternoon, these laser treatments are preventative, a response to Red’s growing arthritis issues and the injury to his spine when Chloe stomped on him.
It is working, he worked long and hard Tuesday, got rammed and trampled and raced through deep woods, but he did well and was able to work comfortably and well this morning. Cassandra and he are quite close now, mostly I just drop him off and pick him up. The laser treatments stimulate healing cells and loosen tight muscles.
He’s getting laser treatments every other week and massage in between. I’m very pleased with the results.
I’d love to sneak in and try it myself.
Out in the pasture, Maria leaned against her pony – these two are very right – and checked out the new sheep. Red was assisting, Fate was running in circles. Chloe loves it when Maria leans on her. These two belong together.
Taking a photo of Biddy, this morning, I realize how important photographs have become for my writing, how well words and photos fuse and work together, what a liberating impact pictures have had on my work.
We got Biddy yesterday, and i have been writing about her. You know she exists, and you know what she looks like, so I don’t have to describe her. And photographs greatly enhance my credibility – any writer’s credibility. One message accused me of making stories up, they seemed too good sometimes to be true.
I have embellished a story for sure, although only once in awhile – I can’t stand stories that are not good – but I do not ever make them up, and photographs don’t lie. When I say Red is herding sheep, you don’t have to take my word for it, you can see the photos.
I think the Romney’s are remarkable animals, I love their bearing, the way they look you in the die and defy you to photograph them. Biddy has a badger face, she seems easy around people, she is still getting used to Red, especially after their brawling all day.
My photographs and writing used to be two separate things, but increasingly, they are now one thing. Photographs free me to tell my word stories, the pictures tell their own. Since I got serious about photography, the blog traffic has more than quintupled, and I love taking pictures more and more every day.
I am eager to move to the next level with my infrared work, that means getting a larger, full-frame camera. To purchase that and have it converted will cost about $4,000. I’m not seeking assistance for that, I will figure it out, but I am eager for that other dimension. It can wait. We have a lot of irons in the fire.
