I can’t precisely put my finger on it, but there is something special about this Open House, something warmer, livelier, more focused.
Part of it is the depth and quality of the art Maria has assembled (above, a pincushion paradise by Jane McMillen), and up on the left the very beautiful knitted scarves by Suzie Fatzinger, who will be here spinning Saturday all day.
Maria’s studio is a wonderland, filled with great and inexpensive stuff, her eye for art is getting sharper all the time. I imagine a lot of these things will end up as Christmas presents.
When we imagined the Open Houses, we had two goals – to share our lives with the people who follow our work, and to celebrate the art of rural life. Maria and I have both veered off track at different times and for different reasons, but we are on track now.
This is Maria’s shot, I am here to greet people and show off the dogs, maybe give a talk and introduce some talkers. A lot of people have followed our stories – a couple from Idaho arrived in town today for the Open House and headed right to Battenkill Books, and, I imagine, the Round House Cafe.
Our town is hospitable, and fun to walk around. There is even a play – Peter And The Star Catcher – at Hubbard Hall Saturday night.
We are thrilled to see Ed Gulley’s great farm and folk art, some wonderful poets will read, as usual, the artists will all be here to talk about their work. And the dogs, donkey and pony will all be showing off, they know all about Open Houses.
Maria’s studio is crammed with good stuff, the farrier and shearer will both be coming on Saturday. A full day, the art of rural life on full display. She is making this art available to people who can’t make it, after many requests and complaints. If you are interested in buying a pincushion, you can e-mail Maria at: [email protected].
We are so grateful to have found one another, to be in our beautiful old farmhouse, to be living the lives we want to live. We are lucky to be able to share these things with you.
Every time I mention the sheep being shorn at the Open House this weekend, I get a number of messages and e-mail asking me why they are being shorn so close to winter. These are not annoying or intrusive to me, nor are most meant to be critical, they are from people who live apart from animals like sheep and are just curious.
I should be honest and say that I rarely answer questions posed to me on Facebook, mostly because I rarely see them. I want to talk about shearing, but I also want to be forthright and take a moment to explain why I can’t or don’t always answer questions on Facebook, and my theories about social media boundaries.
I have developed some comfortable and clear Facebook boundaries, and they work for me: I don’t ever argue my beliefs on Facebook or Twitter, and I never attack anyone for theirs.I do not answer personal messages from strangers.
I am not seeking unsolicited advice about my life or animals, I do not grieve for my losses on social media, or generally follow the grieving of others.
And I do not have the time to answer questions that I have repeatedly addressed on my blog, or that can be answered by reading the post or with a simple Google search. I know far too many angry and nervous people who have obsessive and addictive issues with social media, I do not care to be one of them. I’d rather spend my time writing, taking photos, loving Maria and the animals.
The most precious commodity of a writer or artist is the space in and around his head, and I work very hard to protect mine so that I can actually write and think. Facebook does not generally support that.
If you want the whole story, you have to read the blog, I’m afraid. I work very hard on the blog, and every day. I have explained at least a score of times on the blog why we sheer the sheep in October, and I will do it again here. I understand that not everyone can read my blog every day, and I respect that.
But I can’t really do anything about it.
Facebook is important to me, my blog feeds directly onto Facebook. But I see my writing online as a monologue, not a dialogue, I do not wish to be on Facebook all day, arguing or answering even the perfectly valid questions people have. Somehow, there is this expectation that if we are on Facebook, we are intimate friends with everyone on the earth and are always available to chat and argue, that no social boundaries exist between us.
That is, to me, invasive and unhealthy.
I’m not sure what being a “friend” on Facebook really means, we are all still figuring that out. But I don’t think it means we are close friends simply because we both have accounts.
Boundaries do exist and should exist. Psychologists tell people like me that if you pretend you are friends with people you don’t know, the day will come that they will hate you for not being their friend and consider you a liar and a hypocrite.
I am rarely available to chat, I am busy almost every minute of the day.
I don’t want to spend my time that way, and my friends are people I know and can talk to. That is not to say that my online world is not a community. It is, rich and deep and powerful. I share my life with them, and many send me precious measures I treasure and read carefully. (People send me the most wonderful letters to my post office box, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.).
But I don’t want to be online all day, I want to be thinking and writing. The space in my head is my life and work.
I go on Facebook once in the morning, and usually once in the late afternoon or evening, I read the replies if I can and delete the occasional hateful messages of broken people, the haters are like zombies online, they live forever and there are countless millions, they seem to reproduce without love or sex.
I reply to comments when possible and when it is appropriate. I enjoy reading them when I can. Sometimes we have remarkable discussion in the Facebook comments section. It just happens.
But back to the sheep:
Every farmer has his or her own ideas, but generally, sheep need to be shorn at least once a year, some breeds twice a year (their wool grows very fast.) People are understandably concerned about winter, and they should know that it takes sheep about six weeks to grow more than enough wool to stay warm in the winter.
The deep cold comes in January or February, so an animal shorn this weekend will be ready for the winter in late November. Beyond that, our animals have shelter available to them every day of the year, our Pole Barn is built to provide protection from the wind, sun, rain, ice, cold and snow.
Stock animals like sheep are extremely hardy, they are mountain and desert animals, they can withstand extreme heat and cold. Our sheep often sleep out in a snowstorm rather than take shelter, they love fresh air and freedom of movement, they don’t feel much of the cold. The only weather that bothers them are wind and icy rain together, then they come under shelter.
We shear twice a year for several reasons. One, it keeps the sheep bellies and rear open and clean, and also, Maria has the wool spun into yarn and sells it, our sheep’s wool grows fast enough to be shorn twice a year (shearers don’t generally shear sheep that are not ready to be shorn.) The wool is cleaner, the sheep healthier.
I believe there are all sorts of good health reasons to shear sheep twice a year. The area around their butts gets filthy when the wool grows, clogged with urine and feces and manure-laced dirt. The wool around their underbellies can get matted or felted. It is very important, I think, for the sheep to be shorn in advance of summer, for their own comfort and mobility.
By October, most are more than ready to be shorn again (not all.) If they are not shorn, their wool will be a filthy mess over the winter. Some spinners put jackets on the sheep to keep them clean, that has never worked for us. They just take them off.
If any are pregnant (we might have four), it is very important for them to be shorn for health and hygienic reasons.
There is absolutely no discomfort for sheep shorn this time of year, they will have more than enough wool for even extreme cold by Thanksgiving. And if for any reason they are uncomfortable, they have good shelter available to them every day and night of the year. They don’t need all of their wool to be warm, just an inch or two.
I hope this helps understand sheep shearing and my approach to social media.
I appreciate the questions and the opportunity to answer them, I just wanted to explain why I can’t answer them all the time. If you are truly curious about our animals, read the blog. We explain everything we are doing there. And thanks for caring.
Your sacred space, wrote Joseph Campbell, is where you can find yourself over and over again. Thomas Merton also reminded us that you don’t have to go to a mountain or a monastery to find your sacred space, any basement or attic, or room with a door can do.
In our world, a sacred space is an absolutely necessity for anyone seeking to heal, think, be grounded, peaceful, or spiritual. We need to be alone sometimes in order to think, we need a place where the arguments can’t come in, where there are no notifications, no broken people on Facebook or Twitter.
It’s fine for people to love their devices, I love mine, but I know I need to be alone, in my sacred spaces, in order to grow, listen, understand myself.
“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning (or on your tablet or smart phone), you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation.
At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred space and use it, something eventually will happen.”
Maria is very familiar with the idea of the sacred space. Her studio is a sacred space, so is the woods, so are the donkeys.
My study is a sacred space, I do nothing there but write and think. So is the big barn, the sun peeking in through windows and boards, the smell of history and family. And my chair in a corner of the living room, where i retreat at the end of the day to think, read, listen to music.
In this season of rage, we owe it to ourselves to be alone and think for ourselves. Every time I express an opinion on my blog about politics – I try to do it rarely – I get these messages from people who are terrified that other people might think for themselves, it is literally frightening to them. They try to remind me who to hate and why I should hate, and what he-said and she-said and he-did and she-did.
I love to think for myself. I don’t want the advice of other people. I don’t need to know who they love and who they hate, or why. It is not of my business, I have no interest in it. Sometimes I think the very idea of thinking is in peril, we are so quick to pin labels on ourselves and others and hate the people we don’t agree with.
How do we stay grounded in such a time of accusations, anger, fear, disrespect and cruelty?
For me, a sacred space is the answer, Joseph Campbell was wise to write that sacred spaces are essential – an absolute necessity – for anyone who wishes to think, be in peace, heal or put our own thoughts into our heads. And it’s true, you need not go anywhere. Sacred spaces are anywhere we feel safe and alone. Check it out.
I spend some of the sweetest times in my life in my sacred spaces, I always had them, even as a child. They have saved my life.
Joseph Campbell said the role of the artist is to explain the color and light and shapes of the world. He might have been thinking of Ed Gulley, who dug up a huge chunk of twisted meet and saw a goose. His “goose” is in our yard now, it’s coming to our Open House. Ed is asking $200 for it, it can be purchased at the Open House or by e-mailing Maria – [email protected]. The goose had great character and elegance to it, Maria and I were both thrilled to see Ed’s art advancing so dramatically.
He is the real deal, he gets it. Happy to share these images with the people who can’t come as well as the people who can.
I am excited to share with you the creative bursts pouring into the farm this week as we prepare for the Open House. Maria has done a brilliant job of connecting with some gifted artists and celebrating creativity, ours and theirs, and hopefully, yours.
Ed Gulley is a remarkable story, he is lifelong dairy farmer, at first sight he seems to be more at home in Duck Dynasty than an artist’s studio, but he has the soul of an artist and the sensibilities of a poet. Ed is evolving rapidly, his outdoor farm sculptures – made entirely from discarded tools and engine parts on a farm are creative, surprising and surprisingly authentic, especially for what we think of as art.
Like Maria, Ed uses discarded materials, his “hot dog” sculpture above is made of a hammer, a long curved spring and some horseshoes, all native to the farm. He dug up the spring one day and saw the dog. Like me, Ed recognizes the beauty of the true farm, they are not sylvan and postcard-pretty, they are raw, congested, filled with junk and debris.
Ed is turning that debris into art, in between the grueling work and schedule of the farm, and supported by his wife Carol. The two have translated their energy into a new and already popular blog, the Bejosh Farm Journal.
Ed’s hot dog sculpture is $75 (it would probably cost about $20 to ship it from here) and it is in our back yard, going on sale Saturday and Sunday at our Open House. That is an almost shockingly low price for an original out door work like that, it hasn’t yet gone to Ed’s head.
I tried to buy this one myself – I want it for my desk – but Maria says that isn’t fair. If someone who can’t make it to the Open House wants to buy it, e-mail Maria – [email protected].
Ed is the real deal, I have never seen anyone unleash the creative spark as skillfully and authentically as he has. And he still looks like he should be on Duck Dynasty. Somehow, I see Ed and I as being very much alike, for reasons I don’t quite comprehend.
Maria and I both understand that most of our readers and blog followers don’t live anywhere near Bedlam Farm – our blogs are not local – and a lot of you have asked that you be included. This is one way to do that. I love Ed’s hot dog, I doubt it will last long. Wait till you see his Goose.
