My wife is very happy today, we have a new tiled kitchen floor, designed by her and Joe, our Tile Man. As you can see, the two of them have bonded, but he is gone, at least for a few days (he’s returning to tile the bathroom in yellow), and I don’t see them running off together. They were getting pretty close, but this is changing. When she heard he has nine grandchildren, things cooled rapidly. My former girlfriend is not into cooking, even less into lots of small kids.
The kitchen floor is a great event, this was becoming an issue in our relationship, when Maria gets focused on something, you don’t want to be standing in the way. More and more she was glowering at me, suggesting I didn’t take the floor seriously, didn’t “get it,” didn’t notice the filth. The muttering was getting ugly, and today I can do no wrong – lots of smiles, kisses on the nose, pats on the head. I even have several pairs of socks in my dresser.
I supposed women are different from men, a notion I am always wary of, but usually that is a good thing. And the tile floor really has brightened up the kitchen. On to the bathroom We are thinking yellow and blue tiles.
This is my favorite of all of my photographs, it is of Maria and Rocky out in our pasture shortly after Maria and I began caring for him, just as the two of them developed an extraordinary bond with one another – me and Rocky too, to be honest. As often happens with life, things did not turn out as we expected. Simon and the donkeys rejected Rocky, he declined in health and we had him euthanized, one of the toughest decisions we have ever made in our time together.
But this photograph, taken just a big storm approached, captured their timeless connection, spoke to me of the love in Maria, the bond between the two of them, and the timeless connections of people and animals. I was planning to enter the photo in the Washington County Fair Photo Contest, but there was a mix-up in the deadlines, and the deadline has passed. So I can’t enter my photos.
I decided to make a turn and will sell this and the four other Washington County Fair photos at the Bedlam Farm Open House on September 1. Maria will be showing them on her website. I think it’s a good fate for these photos, all among my favorite, I like the idea of them going out into the world. I am disappointed that they can’t go to the fair, but I’m not into struggle stories and laments.
As a writer, I am used to using words to tell my stories, as a photographer I am learning the hard and difficult lesson that sometimes images tell a story much better than my words. Hard for me to get that. This week, a new ritual has developed under the apple tree in the rear pasture, Simon and Maria pick apples for Simon to eat. Simon loves this ritual, it is the kind of work donkeys love to do. Maria does it intuitively and this photo says to much, it’s all about love. I am grateful to my wonderful Canon camera and my developing eye to let the photo speak for itself.
I was walking in town with Red and a woman came up to me on the street and introduced herself, she said, “I just want to tell you something, I read your blog every day and it makes my crazy, I just don’t like it.” This was an unusual greeting in my small town, and I asked her why she didn’t like it, and she said. “you’re always talking about what you think. You think this and you think that, it gets to me.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I asked her why she read the blog every day if it bothers her and she doesn’t want to hear all of my many thoughts. “I don’t know,” she said, “maybe I need to be bothered and your thoughts annoy me less than some others.” I took it as a compliment, sort of, I never think everybody is going to like what I say or do, what would be the point of that? A blog is a relatively new thing in our world and my relationship with my readers is very different than the relationships writers used to have with readers. I love the blog, am very connected to this community, and I am always working to keep it up to date. So today, some new things to share with you.
– My name is finally up on the masthead right below bedlamfarm.com. I never thought to do it until an artist friend, Leslie Parke asked me why it wasn’t there. It ought to be there, and now it is. My name on my blog, finally. That feels good.
– The blog is now smart phone friendly. Those of you reading it on your smartphones have noticed – many of you have e-mailed me – that the blog is easier to access on a tablet or smartphone, the graphics made for thumbs not fingers. Thanks for the appreciation, by year’s end, half of the blog’s subscribers and readers will be reading it on a smartphone.
– Credit cards. By the end of week, there will be credit card buttons up on the subscription page along with Paypal. This will make it easier for subscribers who don’t have Paypal or don’t with to use it, it is a major step in the evolution of the blog. The blog is no longer an appendage to my work, it is my work. A friend said he was surprised by the frequency of posts and photos on the blog, how do you do it? It’s my work, I said, I work as hard as you do in your job. He never saw the blog as serious work, some people still don’t. I do. You can subscribe to the blog for $3 a month – a new addition for the financially pressed – for $5 a month, for $60 a year. I am not accepting contributions and donations thanks, the blog is not a charitable enterprise or a noble cause, it is just my work.
The blog remains free to those of you who can’t afford to pay for it or don’t wish to. Some point in the coming year, access to the content will be limited. It will be free for a day or a week, and that will continue, but to get the full range of content, people will have to subscribe. This used to bother me until I understood that writers need to be paid for their work like everyone else. Now I like it a lot.
I also want to share that I am working on another e-book original, “Love And Light From Bedlam Farm,” a color collection of some of my photographs – the dogs, the donkeys, landscapes, chickens, cats, sunrises, farmscapes. They will be sold digitally only, the price is not yet determined. I chose the photos I love the most and that got the most response – some are heartwarming, some are inspiring, I think, some are just plain fun. I’ll also be doing podcasts in the fall on a regular schedule.
So stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted on the credit cards. The buttons will go up a day or so before they are working. Big move for my blog, for my life. These changes, this blog, the photos, they are all important and expensive. I am grateful to be paid for my work.
