Something’s up with Red, he has been gulping huge amounts of water and experienced a sudden and sharp weight gain – eight pounds in just a month. He’s being tested for a bladder infection and we’re doing a screen to check on his kidneys. He is alert and active, sleeping and eating well, my guess is a bladder infection but I’ll know in a half-hour or so. I have to say the Cambridge Valley Veterinary staff was impressive, chasing Red outside with a plastic try to get a urine sample in the brutal cold, they did it in a minute.
Red was at the groomers today and Eileen Quackenbush, our groomer told me Red had gulped down four bowls of water, I noticed him gulping water from the heated bucket in the pasture as well.
I am learning all the time that I need to expand my definition of what a good photograph is, the best photos are often things I would not normally think of photographing. This morning, we awoke to the arctic wave that has been hitting so much of the country – in most places worse than us – and the wind made it painfully cold, the donkeys would not come out of the pole barn to eat their hay, it hurt to breathe. Maria went out into the pasture to empty the cans of ashes from the wood stoves, and I thought, wow, this is a photo to capture the sense of cold, even desolation out into the pasture. Chores are the master of any farm, they don’t care about the weather, there is no putting them off or avoiding them. I think the core of being on a farm is responsibility, and so we are out there, every morning, every afternoon, the thread of our lives together.
Some tree limbs have blown off the trees in all of the storms and we leave them for the donkeys to gnaw on, it keeps them busy. Seeing Maria out there in her green hoodie, woven jacket and pink boots I thought the photo captured something of her hard work, energy and creativity, even out there. In New York we will sleep late, our fingers and toes will be warm, at least for awhile.
I can close my eyes and picture this scene in just a few weeks, when the pasture will erupt, the donkeys will be out grazing, we will sit on the Adirondack chairs and plot the Dahlia garden, meditate, have coffee and tea. Just a few weeks away.
Flo is learning how to stay warm, I let her out this morning and went out to do the barn chores with Maria and when I came back into the house, she was dozing on the sheepskin on top of Maria’s chair in the living room. I don’t know how she got in, she must have slipped in the door when I opened it. Flo is quite regal, she has the cat’s sense of entitlement.
I am mesmerized by the Facebook topic I posted on the weather yesterday, hundreds of people from all over the country talked about the weather in their area, the reach and audience of the blog always astonishes me, people from every part of the country and much of the world. I posted another topic on FB today and will give a free copy of “Second Chance Dog” to the coldest poster or the neatest photo or comment.
I have finished my work on my Kickstarter project – seeking funding for equipment to complete my opus on “Talking To Animals” which many of you have been reading about for years. Kickstarter isn’t simple, a lot of thinking, writing, verifying – e-mail, bank account, credentials. I like the site, it is for real, and the range of projects seeking funding is quite astonishing, a new way for artists to get a new kind of grant. My project – “Talking To Animals” – will not be up and running for a couple of days, I’ll keep you posted.
I’m seeking $9,000 to buy a new camera that is fast, powerful and good in low light. My current camera, which I love, is wearing out. I will need roughly 360 pledges of $25 apiece to get the equipment I need, and I imagine this will be an e-book and paperbook. I am offering rewards – notecards and free books – when the project is completed sometime next year. I can’t quite imagine what will happen here, this is very new ground for me. It is another step into the future, the use of the Internet to involve consumers of creative content directly with the creatives. No middle-men, people like supporting work that interests them, or so I am told. Photograph animals is tricky, I need a fast camera, fast lenses, good work in low light with moving subjects.
I want to break some new ground when it comes to talking with animals, I have been working on this for 15 years, dogs, barn cats, chickens, goats, cows, donkeys, sheep. I have learned a lot and it is time to pull it together and share it. Animals do not communicate in words and narratives, but in emotions and movement and instinct. I’m excited about this, and eager to see what happens, I have never sought funding in this way but the world is changing and so am I. I simply can’t do it on my own, and publishers don’t pay for this kind of thing anymore.
I have learned so much, myself and from Maria. My animals are affectionate, response, safe around people and each other. Much of this has to do with communicating what we want and need.
Tomorrow I am off to New York for several days, I won’t be blogging but Maria will, you can follow us on her blog if you wish. We are going to see my daughter Emma, some movies and plays. I hope to see Jesse Dailey, the subject of my book “Geeks,” (he is awaiting trial on charges of molestation and grouping, which he passionately denies, it will be good to see him.) Saturday I’ll be talking and signing books at the Chatham, N.Y. Public Library (3 p.m.), the final stop on the “Second Chance Dog” book tour. Good reviews continue to come in for this book, I am grateful.
One more day of brutal cold, then just cold, which will seem quite warm.
