Day: September 1, 2016

Maria can testify that I am a maniac on the subject of firewood and hay getting to the farm before winter, I can’t really rest until it is ordered and stacked in the barn. (The barn cats love to sleep all the way up at the top.)

I was walking in Brooklyn when I saw and listened to a voicemail message from Sandy Adams, who runs Up and Over farm with her husband Brian. A week or so ago I ordered 90 bales, and the message said they were bringing it over this morning. When farmers have their hay ready, they just bring it.

If you’re home fine, if not, it comes anyway.

The message said if we weren’t home, they would put it in the barn.

When I called Sandy back, she said the hay was in the barn and stacked, all 90 bales. She had promised the hay would be in the barn “before the first snow flies,” and she and Brian are as good as her word.

I was concerned that we weren’t home to pay her – I pay bills right away, especially to hard working farmers.

I said I wasn’t home and was it okay if I paid her in a few days, and she laughed, dismissing the question. This is one of the many reasons I love living the country, you can still make deals on a handshake and your word, and Sandy knows she will be paid, and I appreciate knowing her and and Brian doing business with them.

They are what people here like to call “good people.”

As they also like to say up here, we know where you live.

I can’t say enough how good it makes me feel to have a woodshed full of wood and a barn full of hay a month or so before the first hard frost is due. These bales are big and good. It is a blessing to find such a good and honest source of hay.

When we got home from New York, I went right out to the barn and turned the lights on and smelled the hay and looked at it. I say my hay prayer over it,  I blessed it.

I said thanks hay, for coming here and being here and feeding the animals. It is, according to the farmers and the forecasters, going to be a hard winter and thanks to this good a fresh-smelling hay, the sheep and donkeys and pony will do fine. We even got 15 bales of second cut for treats and for energy in the bitter cold.

But most days, they will get first cut.

After all, said Brian, you don’t want to have Thanksgiving Dinner every day of the year. Surely not.

Maria and I were walking through Times Square on the way to Penn Station – the crowds of tourists clogged almost every inch of sidewalk – when I looked over and saw a mother and child sharing a plate of food for dinner, crouching together by a shoe store, there was something tender and loving about the two of them, they took turns eating, heads bent together, I have been wondering all night what their story is.

I did not wish to interrupt them by asking. I turned around to switch lenses and they were gone, the image seemed so incongruous in the middle of Times Square on a concrete walkway, yet it was also familiar and comforting.

I went to Brooklyn today with Maria to meet my granddaughter Robin, and I was happy to see Miss Pearl again, some of you may recall that the lived on the first Bedlam Farm until my daughter pleaded with me to let her take Pearl to Brooklyn seven or eight years ago. It was  good decision for her, for Emma. Pearl is a grand dog, a champion show dog, she has two titanium legs and the sweetest disposition of any dog alive.

Emma has given her a wonderful life in Brooklyn, exercised her thoughtfully and well, provided her with the best care and showered her with love. Pearl is quite old now, we have thought for several years that she is nearing her time, she has slowed down quite a bit and is still for much of the day.

She remembers me and Maria as well, it was nice to have her head in my lap again. It is clear to all of us, I think, that Pearl was waiting for Robin, hanging on to  see her and get to know her. Pearl has already lived a long time for a lab, and it is wonderful that Robin will get to experience so sweet and faithful a creature.

I just got home and I’m not quite ready to write about meeting my granddaughter, I’ll do that in the morning. Maria and I walked for miles in the city today after seeing Robin and we are worn out.  I just wanted to share Pearl’s photo before I went to bed and her touching reality and devotion to Emma. Seeing her, I doubt it will be long now.

I think Pearl hung on for Robin, I’m sure of it.

Dogs and donkeys can sense babies in wombs, I’m sure she heard Robin’s heart and heard her move.

She wanted to be there for this chapter in Emma’s life, the two are woven together.

Many people thought it was awful to send a Yellow Lab to Brooklyn, it was one of the most living animal decisions I ever made, she could not have had a better  home anywhere. Now, she is here to see the next chapter, one she will miss.

I’ll write about my visit in the morning. Good to be home and see that Brian and Sandy Adams brought over 90 bales of hay and put it in the barn. I love this about the country, they didn’t care if we were home or not, they stacked in neatly and beautifully, they told us they weren’t worried about payment today, they know we’re good for it, some deals in the world are still made on trust and handshakes.

We are ready for winter. Pearl, you have a great heart, I can hear it from far away.

Yesterday, Red kept an eye on things while Maria picked cucumbers from our Three Sisters garden. This morning, it is still dark, Maria and I are heading for the train from Albany to New York, an hour or so away, so we can get to Brooklyn and meet my new granddaughter, Robin.

She is less than one week old. This is a passage, I understand, I am setting out to understand what my new role as a grandfather means and for Maria, there is uncertainty, a new experience for her. I hope she will find a role for herself in this new part of our story, she is viscerally loving but open to new experience but treading on strange ground, as she wrote last night in her post “Visiting Robin.”

The role of the step-grandparent is perhaps even more complex than mine.

I am bringing a load of grandfatherly offerings – my own children’s books, some toys, a Dr. Seuss book called “The Places You’ll Go,” that Maria chose. I have the sense today will be exhilarating and exhausting. We’ll be back later tonight,  which is Thursday. I hope to take my new granddaughter out to her first lunch in the world.

I love life, it is rich and ever changing, and keeps bring me amazing gifts, if I remain open to them. We both love the train ride to New York, we hold hand and stare out the window together.  I am discovering my self every day.