Day: July 8, 2018

It is exciting to me to see a gifted artist move closer and closer to a wonderfully creative space.

Abrah Griggs just sent me her latest rough idea for a banner for the new  bedlamfarm.com under re-design. I love the type and font, the “Bedlam Farm Journal,” and I love the two  belly dancing sheep.

I told Abrah I think two of the same animals dancing is too much, it looks too much like a belly dancing blog or music or dancing site. Too much of a good thing.

I think we need another animal up there peering over the top or lounging over a letter or something but not  dancing – a donkey, a chicken or a dog even (yes, I know, I said,  I’m not looking for a dog, but it is another animal…consistency is for fanatics and ideologues.)

This is very exciting for me, though, I can sense Abrah is locked in and getting very close. I am much enjoying my interaction with her, she wrote about this project on her blog today. She said she froze initially – I think I sometimes have that effect on people – but then we started going back and forth quite honestly with each other.

I sensed she froze a bit, but I knew she would melt, and she did.

I know that honesty is what she wants, because it’s what she gives, and I know she thrives on that, as I do.

Collaborations like this always turn out well in my experience.

I love her work and sensibility.  She does wonderful work almost every day.

I love that I can talk openly with her about what I want and what I don’t want, and she will take it and make it her own. She’s not made of crystal and I love the process.

A banner is a personal thing, an expression of the center of my work and creativity. The blog , more than my books, is my voice now, my living memoir, my face to the world. This banner promises to be modern, smart,  different, arresting, and irreverent. Just what I want the blog to be.

It is wonderful to collaborate in that way and every time I get a sketch from her, I get more excited. I love my blog and work hard on it. I think every true creative freezes a bit on a new project at first – I know I on my  books, I always think this will never happen, I can’t do it.

And then it does happen, and I can do it.

It takes great courage to put one’s work out there again and again, for people to love…or not. We are close enough to touch noses.

I was following the story of the Thai soccer team trapped in the caves this morning, and I was reading about their soccer coach , Nopparat Khanthavong, who is said to love the team players “more than himself” and I thought of Ali and the soccer team I am sponsoring, along with the Army Of Good.

Khanthavong is 37 years old is the coach of the Wild Boar Soccer Team, and reading about him makes me think of Ali.

A former Buddhist Monk, he is said to be utterly devoted to the members of the team and gave them most of his food so they could survive. He is said to be emaciated and weak.

In America, there would already be a spate of lawsuits against him, but the Thai soccer team parents  send their coach a letter saying it was not his fault, and they did not hold him responsible. They said they loved him and were grateful to him.

The photos of the players remind me of the Albany Warriors (formerly the Bedlam Farm Warriors), they seem gentle, courteous, close-knit and appreciative. I can certainly see them wanting to go explore caves underground, I doubt Ali would let them.

Ali told me this morning that he and the team members here have been praying for the Thai soccer team and thinking of them all week.

Ali said his heart was breaking for the coach.  He knew the anguish he must be feeling, along with the parents.

He said our team is especially blessed, because they are given the support to go to safe and known places, he said his team would probably love to explore a cave, but he would be wary of a trip like that.

He said they are tough and strong, and he knew they would stay calm and work hard to get out. “We would make it out of those caves, I know they will too,” he told me.

I related to the stories coming out of Thailand, because I have seen the absolute love and  dedication Ali and the soccer team players have for one another. I have no doubt he would lay his life down for them if necessary. My heart was in those  caves all  week, and also with our team, now the Albany Warriors.

I felt the need to talk to Ali and I called him  and woke him up to tell him that four of the boys had been rescued from the caves and were safely outside as of this morning, he said he gave thanks to God. He said he would pray for the rest.

Ali also said he wanted to give thanks to me and the Army Of Good for making it possible for the team to go to safe and known places, he said this made the team safer, and his heart was with the players in the cave and their coach.

Soccer teams in Asia and other countries are not just about sports, they are about something much more than that, and I see that every time I visit Ali and the team I am blessed to sponsor, along with the Army Of Good.

There are stories and books  all over the world of the use of soccer to help outcasts, immigrants and refugees band together, drawn strength from one another, and assimilate into their own countries.

This is the story of Ali and the Albany Warriors, and I am proud to sponsor them, and grateful for your help. They are important.

This morning, I wake up feeling confident they will get those children out of the saves. There is much suffering in the world, sometimes it is overwhelming. How wonderful to focus on one piece of miraculous news that gives all of us hope.

I put up a rough sketch of the new bedlamfarm.com banner – this one above is very close, in my mind – and the reaction was mostly quite favorable. Thanks for your comments.

I am reading them all and learning from them.

Not everyone liked it:

“I don’t understand this new direction, however humorous,” wrote Claudia, “of anthropomorphizing the sheep, donkeys, dogs. Wondering what’s up?” She seemed a bit huffy, but she really answered her own question.

I told her I called it humor, to be humorous is not a crime or a betrayal to me.  I think we need to laugh once in a while, especially these days, and I just like it. It is not a statement about  about emotionalizing animals one way or the other Sometimes we just need to lighten up.

If people come onto my blog and smile, I would be delighted. Nothing deeper than that, I’m afraid.

A number of others asked a good question: why no dogs in the banner? And that is a  fair question.

I asked the artist Abrah Griggs to leave dogs out of the banner.  Abrah is so gifted, she has a great sense of humor and a great sense of irony, and that’s what I’m going for.

The reason for excluding dogs from the banner was two-fold.

First, many people come onto bedlamfarm.com expecting and hoping for a blog devoted exclusively to dogs and photos of dogs. Secondly, the dogs get plenty of attention on my blog, other animals don’t get enough.

Lots of people are annoyed when they don’t see a photo fo each dog every day, and they let me know.

I tell them there are many sites on social media devoted exclusively to dogs and cute pictures of them. This is not one of them.

I understand the love of dogs very well, as I love dogs very much, but the blog has evolved quite a bit since I started publishing it in 2007.

Dogs will always be a central focus of my life and my writing, but no longer the only one.

My publishers have held me in that cage for years now, and the blog has liberated me to write about other things I care about – spirituality, love, refugees, farmers, my farm, Maria, creativity, a meaningful life,  staying grounded,  the aging, donkeys, Ali, The Mansion, sheep, carriage horses, farmers, books, movies, and yes, dogs.

So I would like the banner to reflect that. It reminds me – and others – that the blog has broadened, it is about a life and much more, and dogs are a major part of that, but only one part, and not the only part. It signals my own sense of freedom in my work now.

I write almost every day about my dogs, and take many photos of them,  that will increase when Bud gets here, so I want the banner to reflect the broader range of my blog and my writing, I am, at last, free to write what I want, and it took a long time to get there. And it took the blog, my publishers would never set me free.

Believe me, you will see plenty of dogs, I love to write about them, and am eager to resume my Small Dog Adventure next month. But my role model for writing from a farm is E.B. White, the essayist and author who wrote with so much thought and grace.

Hope that helps. This is valuable dialogue for me, and hopefully for you, We will have some work to do on this banner, but we are very close, and I’m very excited. Please continue to give me your feedback.

One of the greatest gifts I can give my friend Ed Gulley is to ask him about milk prices, Ed has a speech about milk prices – very true – that he loves to give and will always give and that I’ve heard 1,000 times. He gives it at our Open Houses, he gives it at dinner, he gives it anywhere. It’s pretty good.

And I know it by heart, I can say it along with him. Gayle from San Francisco sent me a Gorilla T-shirt to give to Ed, he was delighted to see it. He’ll wear it shortly.

I tell him I’m happy to give him my Publishing Speech, but he isn’t very interested. Yesterday, we had a fascinating talk about farming, and the “Small Life,” and about his ideas about how dairy farmers like him can survive these very difficult times.

He is an artist, but also a farmer, it is deep in his blood.

Then, I led him right into the Milk Speech. He lit up, his eyes brightened, his mind raced. It is, in a way, his story.

I see that talking this way revives up, focuses him, he becomes more animated and articulated. It is very hard for him to be bed bound and helpless in this way, he told me he sometimes feels like a caged rat. In the up and down path of cancer, he was better Saturday than Friday, but still so weary, and his body is betraying him, more and more each day.

It is still possible to draw out his smile, I think his sense of humor will be the last thing to go.

He is more forgetful and in need of sleep. He had a slew of visitors yesterday, and he loves visitors, but it also takes a toll on him. Carol was hoping to get him outside for a ride or walk, but I do not believe that is possible any longer. He continues to sketch and do acrylic painting on glass (we sold his newest vase this morning.)