Day: June 15, 2017

Not to sound like a politician, I am especially pleased with myself today.

For nearly 15 years, I’ve been learning how to prepare this farm for the winter, and I think I am finally getting right on top of it. Today, the fifth cord of firewood was delivered by Greg Burch, and Brian and Sandy Adams brought and stacked 100 bales of first cut hay in the barn.

Hay stacking, like firewood stacking is an art, only the farm people really know how to do it, I could do it for years and not get it as neat and even.

I might get one or two more cords – we can always use them the following year – but basically, Bedlam Farm is ready for winter. I always think of June as the time to get serious about October. Planning for the winter is critical up here, you cannot plan much in the middle of an ice storm or a blizzard or in – 30 temperatures.

I remember the times I was caught in October with no hay for the winter, and that will never happen again. On the farm, we have two wood stoves heating the farmhouse, we use wood round the clock in the heart of winter, the heat is even and comfortable, the heating bill is low.

If takes time and experience to choose the right firewood source and to get the best first cut hay (I’ve ordered 15 bales of second cut hay to give the animals when it is especially cold. Our first cut hay costs $4.50, a good price, especially with all of the troubles farmers are having with the climate.

And it’s very good hay, green and moist.

First cut is not as rich as second cut, it is fine for donkeys and cows and sheep. We do add second cut, which is more nutritious in storms and bitter cold.

I get the most wonderful feeling – anyone with a farm knows it – when the barn is full of hay and the woodshed is full of good dry wood. And I’ve never been as well organized and prepared as this year – we’re all set, paid for and stacked, and it isn’t even July.

Puffing up my chest today. This afternoon, off to Albany to see the RISSE kids play soccer. More later.

I love walking the streets of Brattleboro, Vt. (Maria and I just returned from a one night anniversary celebration). I see things I don’t see much anymore in cities – bookstores, record stories, street people, kids, ordinary people, cafes with tables and chairs, coffee shops and cafes.

I love to wander through the old bookstores, crammed with books, and be reminded that books are still very much alive. At least there. Brattleboro is refreshing and inspiring to me.

The owner of the Shin-La Korean restaurant was shy about having her name used, but was happy to be photographed. She opened the restaurant 36 years ago, and is in the kitchen all day every day since. It is my favorite restaurant (and Maria’s) in Brattleboro, Vt., where we stayed last night to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary.

She wanted to know all about us. We wanted to know all about her.

Brattleboro, Vt. is an almost shockingly friendly and conversant place. If you stop in a restaurant to eat or into a shop to buy something, add five or ten minutes to chat. People want to know where you are from, what you are like. Talking to strangers is not considered an interruption to work in Brattleboro, it is the work.

The Shin-La owner loved my camera and told me about her husband’s photography habit. The desk clerk at the wondrously cozy and funky Latchis Hotel spent 15 minutes talking about the Weimaraner  in the lobby, and it wasn’t even hers. As we checked into the Latchis, Diane, the housekeeper on our floor, waved hello and said she remembered my camera well from the last trip. She stopped to ask how our year had been.

People hang out in coffee shops all over town, they can sit as long as they wish. Dogs go everywhere.

The owner of the Mystery  Book store downtown – one of the last in the country – rattled off the pub date of every famous mystery writer in the country and urged me to mind my step as I left the store. In all of our visits there, we have never seen anyone else in that shop.

In the vast used bookstore off a side street, the women behind the counter – she has worked there for nearly 40 years – tried to find a book I wanted rummaging through acres of used and new books piled to the ceiling, muttering a stream of consciousness rant about politics, social justice, her children, the sloppy nighttime employees and her love of social causes.

It took her awhile, but she found the book.

The owner of a used dress and bead store took his camera out from behind the counter and asked  me how he could change the depth of field. He told me the long and compelling story of his life as a business owner in downtown Brattleboro, the many customers who look at things only to take out their Iphones and search for a better price online. As I left the shop, he shook my hand and thanked me for talking to him about portrait-taking.

You don’t just walk into a shop in Brattleboro and buy something, that is considered rude. Commerce matters, but it is beside the point. I always get the feeling in Brattleboro that the individual is still more important than the corporation. I am greeted more politely and frequently on the streets of Brattleboro than for the rest of the  year anywhere else, even in my very friendly small town.

In a sense, Brattleboro is the town that chose not to change too much, perhaps one of the reasons Maria and I love it so much. There are no chain stores downtown, the corporate nation is held at bay, confined to nearby New Hampshire or malls far out of town.

Brattleboro has protected its small businesses and the individual of its citizens. Everyone on the streets is not rich and buff, like Manhattan or Brooklyn. Everyone is eager to tell you their story and hear yours.

You get the sense that people matter there, not just growth and money. There is a middle and working class in Brattleboro, and they can afford to live in town.

We had dinner there on our wedding night, and our one-night jaunts to Brattleboro have become a central part of our life. Brattleboro is full of sights that are becoming increasingly rare in America, especially in big cities, where the wealth build their lavish monuments and the residents are driven away by the rising costs of rents and homes.

Not only are there no chain stores in downtown Brattleboro, there are no million dollar condos either. People matter, the idea of individuality is precious. Maria and I feel completely at home there.

I shop for clothes once a year there,  in Sam’s massive outdoor store. I bought two pairs of jeans two blue workshirts, a belt and some underwear. When I couldn’t find the second pair of jeans, I didn’t go online, I asked a salesman – they give every shopper a free bag of popcorn there – and he dug out the pants that I wanted.

That’s it for me this year, I have all the clothes I need. I bought Maria a $15 dress off of a rack on the street, and she got me some prayer beads. Exhausted from  the Open House, two took long naps, long walks, found a lovely Turkish restaurant downtown and had lamb salads.

Brattleboro is the town that choose not to change, and I hope it never does. We had the nicest time there.

We are pondering a last-minute name change for Leroy, since he hasn’t really been called much of anything yet.

Anne Davis posted a message on Maria’s Facebook page the other day. “I feel way too sorry for him,” she said. “Way too much will be expected of such a young puppy,” she declared.

I was uncharacteristically speechless when she told me this, although we both did start to laugh as the dog pens, crates, treats, puppy training, special puppy food and chew sticks and balls began to pile up in the house.

Really, Anne? Sorry for Gus? Perhaps Anne ought to read the news or visit her local animal shelter.

Will we be helicopter puppy parents? Push him towards Yale or Harvard? Perhaps we ought to start saving for guitar lessons.

We do expect a great deal of him. We expect him to be happy, healthy and much loved. It’s tough to be a puppy in Maria’s house. Wish I could try it.

Maria and I had a fierce and brief fight this morning,  a kind of gender fight, I think, because I want to hire someone to patch a gaping hole in our roof where a bird had a nest last year.  Snow and rain comes right into the hole.

Maria says no, no way, there might be babies in there. I said the hole is growing and every time it rains, the roof is rotting and we do not have thousands of dollars to repair a roof at the moment.  It doesn’t matter, she said, wait till winter.

I thought she was going to throw me out of the car. We took some time off, but this argument will resume. I did wonder at someone feeling sorry for our puppy.

Sometimes these kinds of  Facebook messages make you laugh, sometimes you want to cry. Really Anne, replied Maria, there are so many people and animals on the earth to worry about, why not worry about one of them? What is sad, I suppose,  is when people lose their perspective. I am still getting messages from people telling me it is cruel to take a puppy home after eight weeks, they need more time, 10 weeks,  a few months, even a year.

I encourage the senders to mind their own business, but on social media, that is literally like taking a pea to an onrushing tank.

We are thinking a lot about Leroy as the time draws near for him to come home to us – a week from Friday, to be exact.  Friday, we are going to find a good pet store and buy more supplies, we want to be ready.

This morning, we returned from a one night visit to Brattleboro, Vt. to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. We talked about the puppy much of the way there and back.

Driving through the beautiful green mountains, we started talking about the puppy’s name. As a border collie owner, I always give the border collies a single-syllable name,  it is quicker to say when shouting commands in the field.  Our other dogs, Frieda, Lenore, had two syllables.

I started thinking about Leroy’s name and another name popped into my head: Gus. Leroy might be a Gus, I said to Maria, and we both started saying the name out loud. Maria was the first one to say, “he’s a Gus. That’s just who he is. It’s a nice smushy name, just like his face.” I said I liked it because it was an old-fashioned, working class kind of name, a no-nonsense name, and it seemed to me that Leroy was a Gus, that was just the way it seemed. He seems a gentleman to me.

So we both agreed to think on it for a day or so. I called Robin Gibbons the breeder and asked her what she thought of “Gus,” and she said she liked it fine, it was up to us. “He’s your dog,” she said. I told her she wouldn’t last long on Facebook.

So we are leaning that way. More tomorrow.

I hope Anne feels better. I’m a little worried about her.