Easter is a celebration of rebirth and resurrection, and the Tin Man, a great legacy of our friend Ed Gulley’s artistry, said goodbye. His legs and arms were coming apart, and  I didn’t want him to become an eyesore rather than a testament to a farmer’s passion for the artistry of farming.

I think he was one of  Ed Gulley’s most significant and most imaginative sculptures, but his time had come.

I decided to keep his head and plant him in the middle of my first raised garden bed. I bought the second from the Amish down the road, and a third is coming this week from Country Power, John Rieger’s farm and garden supplies store in Greenwich, N.Y.

I think Ed would love this solution; his head will be surrounded by beautiful flowers and, in the winter, covered up and protected from the snow and ice. I might even paint him one day.

Ed was a hero to me in many ways, he loved his family, all the animals of the world, his dogs, his cows, and his farm, and he came to love his art, finally a release for the surging creativity that was always inside of him. I’m glad he had to chance to show some of it to the world before he died.

I don’t know about the resurrection, but if it exists. Ed is upstairs boring the crap out of the angels with his endless ranting about milk prices. He makes sculptures out of whatever materials are available to him.

I’m glad we chose to keep the Tin Man’s head, it would have been even better to keep his heart, but he didn’t have one. He did have a brain. Ed had both.

It took Ed months to make the Tin Man, but he was so rusted and wobbly it only took Maria five minutes to take him apart. We said goodbye, thanked him and drove his remains to the American Legion metal drop-off at the edge of time. Perhaps he will shop up in another farmer’s tractor.

Once again, the landscape of our life changes. The Tin Man became the symbol of Bedlam Farm. as sid various dogs, chickens, and sheep before him. I’m going with the donkeys for a while. Like our lives, our landscape is constantly changing. Maybe flowers are the new symbol of the farm.

Miss you, Ed; wherever you are, I am sure you are busy and productive and sticking your nose where it does not belong. No one can give me shit the way you did.

The Tin Man’s head will always have a place with me. Love, J