Izzy, Frieda, Lenore and Rose, watching Maria come out of the house. In sync.

   October 19, 2009 – Sunny, cool. Send off the novel. Rode my bike. Started thinking about the next novel.

One year ago, on this date, I had three dogs, two barn cats, 26 sheep, four donkeys, two steers, a beef cow, three goats, two hens and two roosters. I had a part-time Army: a hay supplier, tractor, a charge account at Agway, piles of feed and grain, a farm helper, a mower and brushhogger,  a hay supplier, shearer, farrier, a handyman working regularly on the farm, a garden designer and a gardener.
 Bedlam Farm had become something of a brand name. It was wonderful for my writing.
  I had a regular stream of animal stories, lots of animals to photograph, and was cranking out a farm memoir a year. I was married.
  This year is different. I still have Izzy, Lenore and Rose. Mother and Minnie the barn cats are here. Frieda the Helldog has come, and stayed. I am divorced. The livestock is gone.
  The farm is up for sale. I run it myself, with Maria’s help. Ben Osterhaudt comes by when something needs fixing, and since Ben can do almost anything, he fixes it.
  That’s quite a bit of change, and I am still in shock about much of it. The farm has always been a wonderful place, but walking out the back door one day last October 19, when the economy was beginning to stumble and crash, I looked up at the goats, the steers, the sheep and the donkeys and asked myself what, exactly, had happened to my life.
  Why did I have all of those animals, an expensive tractor, barns filled with hay, huge vet bills? Why did I have a life I needed so many people to run for me?
  For sure,  I enjoyed the animals, loved some of them, and they were surely productive for me. They sparked some books that were successful and taught me enough about life with animals to write a lot more.
  But the farm and my life were both out of control, I realized. It was an awful feeling. I spent weeks, months, frantically figuring out how to dismantle this small army of animals and people I was using to run life.
  And it seemed crazy, inappropriate, to have steers as pets when many of the farmers driving by each day were losing their farms and livelihoods. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have to worry about money. I did, and do, like everybody else.
  Writing is not a path to riches, much as I love it.
  I have to be honest. I had cracked up, in a high functioning sort of way.  Had I continued that way, my life would perhaps have imploded. It felt that way.
  I stopped sleeping, was in a nearly perpetual panic.
 A therapist suggested I had lost perspective, and touch with reality, and that old fears and traumas had erupted with a vengeance. We went to work figuring out why, and what I could do about it.
  Many people thought I had found the perfect life, and wished for one like it.
  Many were unhappy when I began dismantling it.
  You cannot live someone else’s life. You cannot live your life for someone else.
  A lot can happen in a year.
   Photography helped save me. So did Maria. So did the dogs.
 All sorts of things erupted when I got a camera, all sorts of new feelings.
  My life is very different this October, and will continue to be different. And much of it is the same. I am a writer and love writing about animals, dogs and people. I won’t stop doing that. I will continue to pursue a creative life, as I have.
 I focus on the dogs, where my focus belongs. My photography is evolving into work that is more challenging and creative. It is being sold as fine art and shown in galleries.
  I have just finished a novel, and am beginning work on a second. I’ve written one children’s book, and am nearing completion on two others. I appreciate the calm of Bedlam, a name that is no longer as apt as it was. I loved walking through the big and empty barns. And I have a girlfriend!
  I gave a party this weekend, in part to celebrate this transition. It marked the end of this extraordinary year, my own secret anniversary.
  I enjoyed the animals, learned from them, loved some of them. I do not miss them. I am glad they are gone. I appreciate living in a place I can mostly run by myself, and I am happy taking responsibility for my own life. What a gift.
   I learn every day that I have more work to do, that I face old fears and new responsibilities.
  But I can hardly believe the difference a year makes. I am much happier this year than last, something that is apparent. Apart from Maria, I have new editors, good new friends. I am managing my own life well, at least so far.
  Change is not always necessarily good. But it has been good for me. A lifesaver.
  My wish for next year is a creative storm. Improved photos, more of a wonderful relationship, new friends, a successful and entertaining return to fiction, a successful art show, workshops teaching story-telling, trips to neat places, life in a simpler home.
  In many ways, I hope it doesn’t change at all.