Last year around this time I felt my life was out of control. Was in the middle of a divorce, I had cows, goats, donkeys, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats, hay bills, water problems, money was pouring down the hill like spilloff. This year is different. The animals are gone, my life, as well as my psyche, perspective, expenses, are getting slowly and gradually under control, and I draw creative strength from this farm, taking photos, writing children’s stories, novels, short stories. A friend of mine – she lives on a 200 acre farm with her husband just a few miles away – told me today that I ought to stay on the farm, and take it off the market. Why, I said surprised? Arlene is not given to frivolous advice and is as wise as she is kind and soft-spoken. She comes from an old farm family, and has seen the ups and downs of my journey here. “It’s just your home,” she said. “I can tell.”
  I said I thought it was silly for two people to have a 90 acre farm with four barns. “I have a bigger farm that that,” she said, “and we plan to end it on ours.” She got to me, I have to say. I love Bedlam Farm.
  I told her there were messages in everything. Nobody has made a serious offer on the farm, and that is a message. With the farm under control, I love it here even more. Maria has a great space to work, and she loves it. I have written six books on the desk from which I am writing this. That’s a message too. My fiction and children’s books seem to erupt here.
  We have friends in Glens Falls, Manchester, Dorset, Saratoga, Cambridge. Restaurants we love. Doctors we trust. Friendly faces almost everywhere.
   I never seem to run out of photos here, and the dogs have all kinds of room to run and play. It is insane to stay here? I don’t know. Over the next few weeks, I really want to think about it and talk to Maria about it. I wouldn’t mind ending it here either.
  Maybe a couple of cows. Oops.