I lay out with the sheep the other day, became one of the flock, was surrounded by them and the sound of their tearing up grass with their flat teeth, it was a beautiful experience to be in the middle of the flock, they paid no attention to me or my camera, they grazed all around me, Griselle almost walked right over me. A fascinating perspective, to be a sheep for awhile.
I am grateful to live in a home with a back yard view like this, it touches the heat and lifts the soul.
One of our cynical friends joked that we were taken for a ride when we took in four Romney wool sheep, but I smiled at the jibe. We got a lot of sheep – maybe $1,000 worth or more – for free, and we got to rescue four beautiful animals, and I got to take some neat photos and Maria gets some quite amazing wool to sell as yarn.
I would say that was a great deal all around. The Gang Of Four have revived my dormant affection for sheep and interest in them, they will all be shorn (open to the public) at our October Open House, on Columbus Day Weekend (Saturday and Sunday, 11 to 4). There will also be spinners, talkers, poets, donkeys, farmers and a band of wonderful artists here showing their work.
My portrait show will also be available for viewing at the Round House Cafe.
I took this shot of Rosemary’s wool this afternoon, I am very fond her and knocked over by her wool. Maria and her yarn customers will be very happy this year, I think. This wool is unusual and eerily beautiful.
For Maria and I, the toughest challenge is learning to relax. Neither one of us really knows how to do it, and has ever done it much, especially when we are at home. There is so much do to on the farm, from caring for the animals and the dogs to working on our blogs, writing, art and photography.
We tend to work all the time, we are both obsessives. When we wish to relax, we have to schedule it and delegate one another to remind each of us to stop, to walk, talk, read, listen to music, meditate. Even then, we usually fail. One or the other of us out doing an animal chore, walking the dogs, brushing a pony, taking a video, doing some researching, making some beautiful thing.
We hardly ever stop. Today, the hot weather finally left, we went out to breakfast (a rarity), ran some errands, mowed the lawn, visited the donkeys and pony. Then, we looked at each other (tonight we are having dinner with the Gulleys, the Bards Of The Farm) and said at the same time, “hey, let’s relax. We both sat out on the chairs by the apple tree and read for awhile.
It lasted almost an hour. Maria said she had to move and got up to mow, I (I mowed earlier) came in to put up some Sunday photos. We are trying.
Monday, my portrait show goes up at the Round House Cafe, which re-opens after a week of cleaning and restoration. The portraits are hanging on the Round House walls, there will be a reception for the subjects and the public Sunday, September 18 (next Sunday) from 2 to 4 p.m.
I’m grateful to people like Treasure Wilkinson, a big-hearted animal lover and spiritualist (Dreamcatcher), for letting me take their photographs. Treasure could be a portrait show all of her own.
The idea of the portrait show is to celebrate community and to honor the people who stayed behind to live and follow their dreams in rural America, the place the politicians and economists left behind. These people stayed behind, they were not left and keep the idea of community alive.
Treasure is unique, she adores animals and helped to bring us the Gang of Four. She claims to only smoke a few cigarettes a day, but I have not ever seen her without one. She wants us to take in a baby goat, but I don’t think so. She sleeps with one of hers.
These subjects work hard, have callings, not jobs, and are the faces you will never see on the evening news. But they are really in so many ways the heart of the country, of our community, of rural America. The portrait show is a privilege for me, and a major step forward in my photography.
I hope to work hard and learn more about portraiture, it is the art of capturing the soul.
