Carol and Ed Gulley shared their lives a dairy farmers, but Ed had a particular stamp on how Bejosh Farm looks and feels. It is part museum, part Disney world, part art gallery, almost every surface has its own unique stamp and sculptures and feel.
I think in many ways, of course, Ed was always an artist and there are few surfaces at the farm that he didn’t decorate or paint or organize in one way or another. This gives the farm a special feel, unlike any other farm I’ve seen.
I walked around the farm today for a half hour or so and still very distinctly feel and see Ed’s presence everywhere. He was not like anyone else. He practically gushed creativity, although he never thought of it as art until Maria told him it was.
While the women were all working on the doorknob, I took a short walk around Bejosh Farm and ended up in Ed’s lair, his workshop which took up a full barn and two or three adjoining barns in the rear.
Ed was a collector and hoarder of farm implements, the parts and pieces and took he used to make his sculptures, lawn flowers, wind chimes and larger pieces. Ed collect screws and bolts and tractor parts all of his life, he bought them, traded for them, bartered for them and found them.
His barns could well be a farm museum, a history of industrial agriculture in American until the mega-corporations took over the industry and drove the family farms into the ground.
Ed’s workshop reminded me that nothing or no one can really replace him. This was his creative center, and you can tell a lot about someone from his creative center.
This was the place of his rebirth, of his home-grown creativity of his love for farming and of his creative spark.
Without him, this workshop is just another pile of stuff in a barn. I imagine it will be given away, sold or auctioned off one day, there are lots of valuable old farm tools inside. When I stop, I can see him, banging away at a twisted piece of motor shaft or strut, showing Maria and me his latest creation.
You would just not believe how much stuff he had that exist through three different buidings right through that door by the right corner up top. This is the work of a lifetime.
Ed loved being an artist, almost as much, I think as he loved farming. That kind fo passion is infectious.
It is quiet now in the barn, some people fill a space so powerfully than you can see them and hear them even when they are not there.
That is how Ed is. His spirit is all over this workshop and it is impossible for me to imagine anyone else working in there..
Carol has a rambunctious streak, she has a wicked sense of humor and loves to challenge and tease. She is very funny.
I haven’t see that side of her lately, for obvious reasons, but I flushed it out of her today. When Maria and I arrived at the Gulleys this afternoon to check on things, Carol with some help from her daughter Maggie was installing a new knob on the back door, the original knob had broken.
Carol presents herself simply as the loyal wife of her farmer, but we know she is much more than that, we’ve seen the other side of her. She is quite playful, likes to kid and living with Ed, she gives it back as fast and as hard as she gets it.
Carol knows the machinery of the farm as well as any man, she is at ease with tools and repairs and lines and pumps. With Ed sick, she is doing even more maintenance on their farmhouse, she is not especially domestic but she is quite skilled and handy. One day I’ll persuade her to call it “our farm” rather than “My Farmer’s farm.”
It is also becoming true, sadly. Carol rises to occasions, she doesn’t run from them, and she has a lot more decisions to make and things to repair and maintain now. She isn’t running the milking operation now, but she has found herself in charge of an old and creaky farmhouse.
Women Power. Carol, Maggie, Maria
She and I always kid with each other. She is used to dealing with pushy men.
She loves Ed very much, but he was a domineering, opinionated and stubborn man. She knows how to deal with men.
Today, Carol was struggling to figure out the knob and was having some difficulty. I suggested that perhaps I should take a whack at it. Maria laughed and Carol came at me with the electric screw.
She made a great face and when I showed her I got a photo of it, she grimaced again, but she is a good sport, she is used to me annoying her by taking photographs. “What are you going to do with this?,” she asked, even though we both knew.
“It’s going up on my blog for sure,” I said. “Time to show the real Carol.”
The knob installation turned out to be a demonstration of women power. I was pushed aside happily, of course, I know nothing about knobs. But Carol, Maggie and Maria did, they focused on the knob, made suggestions, twisted and turned screws and figured it out.
It is always amazing to me to see how collegial women can be when they work together, unlike so many men.
The new knob on the door is working fine now.
I sat with Ed for a few minutes. He managed a hello, and then fell into his own collapsed world. The only change I saw was that his left eye seems to be closing.
Carolyn Gale is an artist who lives in New Zealand. She is a very valued member of the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm, an online community of creatives who support one another and share their work free of carping and sniping and arguing.
It was hard setting up this group, and I made a lot of mistakes in the way I thought about online communities, but many good people hung in there with me and we – they – are making it work in a better way than I ever imagined.
Mostly, I just watch in amazement and delight – other people really run it – and that’s probably the reason it works so well.
People like Carolyn and many other artists and creatives are also the reason, they are talented warm and generous and full of enthusiasm and encouragement. Every day, there is wonderful writing and art in different forms.
Carolyn is a newcomer to the group, which is about five or six years old, and I have been just dazzled by her work, it is so vibrant and full of color and feeling. I saw this on the group the other day and messaged her just before some other people did, and I asked her if I could purchase this work.
I want to hang it on my study wall, there is a good place for it, and I love the color and feeling of it. Carolyn agreed – I had to push her to give me a price – and she’s mailing it to me. I don’t yet know how big or wide it is, it doesn’t really matter.
But I loved it and wanted to share it. I can’t wait to get it.
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”- John Calvin.
Tomorrow is my birthday, I will be 71 years old, born in the Lying Inn Hospital in Providence, R.I., to Eve Katz, my father was at home when I was born, he had absolutely no desire to be there, as was often he custom then.
The men waited outside, or at home, and swept in grandly when the bleeding was over. I guess that set the tone for much of my life. It is a new world.
I was the last child my parents had, and I never imagined being 71 years old, when I was young, the idea of being so old was really unthinkable. And I never thought I would live this long, my life was so filled with confusion and pain.
Here I am, I am a tough son of a bitch, as my friend Ed Gulley would say, I lasted this long and am still standing and full of myself and busier and happier than ever before. Isn’t that a kick in the ass? Crisis and mystery is just around the corner?
My blog here is my voice, and it has given me strength and direction. Maria is my life, my center.
I am married to an extraordinary person, and our relationship has given me a new lease on life, one I will not waste this time.
I saw this old barn the other day and went to say hello, you and me, I said, we are still on our feet and plan to be around for a while. The barn was like an old friend, battered a bit but quite proud.
It is true that you get wiser as you get older, and it is also true it is usually too late to do all that much good. The future does not belong to me. But I will use what I have learned and share my life.
Old men have no business being in charge, or telling other people what to do, they are too tired and cranky, their spirits too wary and reflective. You can know too much as well as too little.
I do not fight for power, I am happy to get out-of-the-way for the next generation. We made something of a mess of things, as most generations do.
My birthday is not a huge big deal, but it matters getting to 71 largely intact and with all of the parts I was born with, unless you count hair. I feel about 35 and I don’t do old talk or exercise in gyms, which I think helps to keep me alive.
The biggest change in my life is that I know when to speak and when to shut up and I sometimes need naps. Tomorrow, we are setting off after lunch for one of those sleazy motels Maria loves near Williamstown, Mass.
We will visit the Clark Museum, get Indian food for dinner, go see a play at the Williamstown Theater Festival, get breakfast at a funky yellow diner Thursday morning, come home early and get to work.
I realize that these are all things Maria very much loves to do (except the theater, which is what I really love to do) but isn’t that the point? I love doing what she loves to do, that is what makes a great birthday for me. I just learned that a few years ago.
Maria has reminded me that making love is the breath of life, and I hope to do some of that, it gives me a sweet and lasting glow, and reminds me that age is what you make of it, not what other people make of it.In those special moments, I am 21.
The impending death of my friend Ed reminds me to make good use of my time, and live fully every day as long as I can and as well as I can. Life happens every day, and one day in the not too distant future it will happen to me.
My dread is that I will have life a meaningless life, full of regrets. It’s not going to happen.
I like Maya Angelou’s idea of celebrations, it keeps me from dismissing the birthday as just another day for corporations to make more money.
“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you need to say your nightly prayer,” she wrote. “And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”
I vow once again on this birthday to not spend a day of my life mourning what is lost, lamenting what I missed, regretting the poor choices I made, writing angry messages to strangers, or envying a single human anything they have.
Next month, we get another dog, tomorrow I write on my blog and take photos and love my wonderful wife and see a play. Later this week, Red and I see some Mansion residents and help some more refugees. Friday, I will call a bingo came and sing out the numbers.
Can life really get any better than that?
Like John Calvin said:
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
