Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

26 March

Tuesday Morning, Bedlam Farm Journal: Bright Colors. Sun Is Out, I’m Off To Look At Guns

by Jon Katz

It’s never fun to shoot one of your animals, but it is sometimes necessary to ease their suffering. My rifle is getting rusty, and I want a simple and efficient gun, so I will look at some.

The rifle is hidden away and locked up for most of the year, but I’ve had to use it twice already for suffering ewes; plus, we have rabid raccoons and skunks; there is no alternative but to kill them before they go after an animal here.

I’ve also got to get my new glasses adjusted. Then I’ll be home for writing and chores—going to the bank, shopping, etc.

Two things work beautifully on the farm: our compost toilet is excellent, and the roof doesn’t leak. I left a box of chocolates on the porch for the Amazon drivers; they seem to be working day and night.

In addition, we have a grade-A barn cat and rats and rodent killer. The rats have taken off after a few rounds with Zip.

I have one more Leica Akademie lesson before I graduate. I’ve learned a lot from them.

Zip is also working out, and then some. He’s also cleared out the pigeons from the hay loft—no more mice gnawing at the walls. He’s a born Barn Cat.

 

Bright colors in the morning get me started in a good way.

I love experimenting with different colors. Every time I use the camera, I learn something new. This warms me up in the morning.

The Internet Spelling police have vanished. I think we chased them away. When it comes to truth, these people are like Dracula in daylight; they have to crawl into their corners and coffins when the truth appears.

25 March

Color And Light Special Report. Yellow Calla Lily’s Are Back, So Am I, Thanks To You All And My Friend Sue. They Were A Turning Point For me

by Jon Katz

The Calla Lilies are back, and I am happy to see them. I went to see Sue Lamberti at the Cambridge Flower Shop today, and she took me right to a bunch of yellow Callas. I loved them all over again.

Sue has been reading the blog and has a beautiful grasp of what kinds of flowers I want to photograph. We have become friends, and she is a good one.

Her shop was stuffed with beautiful flowers (Easter is close), and she quickly led me to some new yellow Calla lilies in a pot. I bought a pot of these flowers that I could take care of and then plant in my raised garden bed. I also got some other flowers. I can’t wait to misspell their names.

 

Curiously, Calla Gate was a turning point for me. I embarrassed myself by being stung by ridiculous people who got their jollies off watching my blog so that I would make another Dyslexic mistake. And I bit.

I wasn’t prepared for an assault like that; this group was unhinged and cruel at the same time. I was happy about my Calla photos; they brought me down. They cared nothing about spelling, only the people who mess up. Trolls have supernatural powers and know how to hurt, which is why they need to be ignored.

That’s what dries them off.

I also wasn’t ready for the outpouring of messages from scores and scores of people I had never heard from before and many who had. In the end, the snotty notes vanished, and people told me openly how much the blog had come to mean to them.

That shook me out of my fog.

They wrote the most beautiful messages of support for me, and they were distraught at seeing me almost voluntarily demeaned by the saddest people on the Internet. That is saying a lot.

I thank them for sensing my hurt, propping me up, and making me food good about myself. I want you all to know that I heard and felt your messages; they brought me back to myself.

They also helped me to come out in the open about my Dyslexia and stop being shamed by people with no heart or feeling for others.

I woke up, began laughing, and got my perspective back; I believe I drove the broken people off with indifference, a love of flower pictures, and a wise-ass disposition. I don’t like to argue, but I often love to fight. It’s a contradiction, for sure.

This was a significant turning point for me; I learned once more who I am and who I want to be. I ran off the obnoxious and broken people whose passion is writing strangers and trying to hurt them.

They’ve all gone away, cowards and shallow people at the end.

For a while, I was no better.

It’s easy for me to slip backward, especially when it comes to Dyslexia; it has been a soft point.

I am grateful for all that support, which woke me out of my trance and gave me the strength to see who I am and wish to be. I honestly didn’t know there were that many of you before. We are a community now, and think of one another.

I do not want to be a person who takes that noxious stuff to heart and runs from it or dignifies it by fighting with it.

Sue asked me if I was ready for another round of Calla controversy. No, I said, there will never be another controversy like that, not on my blog or my life. I learned some big lessons. Thanks so much for riding along with me on this astonishing journey. I am different from it in some ways. They did not harm me; they did me a lot of good, the very thing they hate the most.

 

I also got some other flowers and went right to work on them. I’m too distracted today to learn their names, but someone will let me know.

I can plant a new flower in the flower beds to keep it alive.

Sue’s flower shop is packed up for Easter, and there is hardly room to move around, but it is pretty beautiful. Sue hid in the middle top; she felt safer back there. Sue is a bit nervous about selling all those flowers, but I have little doubt that she will. She is the real deal. Thanks in no small measure to her, I’m on a roll.

 

 

I love the soft yellow. It’s hard to capture with a Macro camera, but I get there if I stick with it.

 

This flower has a heart.

 

Zip post-storm. I’m watching some birds from the back porch. He did not match them; they vanished high up into the trees.

25 March

My Gabriel Garcia Marquez Monument, At Long Last

by Jon Katz

I’ve never loved a writer more or since than Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

He wrote some of the best books I’ve ever read in a brilliant, creative, and unique style. Only Marquez could write like Marquez.

When I lived in New York City, a bookstore on the East Side kept his books in a particular pile waiting for me when they were published; they knew I would come for them.

As a reporter, I dreamed of traveling with him to Cuba to watch Yankee baseball games with Fidel Castro. They were best friends. What a dinner that would have been to write about.

And I always did, and right away.  A new Marquez book was a special event in my life.

My favorites are One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle Of A Death Foretold, Love In The Time of Cholera, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Of Love and Other Demons, and A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, a book I read but lost and forgot, it is on the way.

He wrote with the heart and a massive heart about ghosts, spirits, love-sick men, and demented dictators.  I loved the photo of young Marquez; it said a lot about him. I know no one remotely like him. He’s been dead way too long.

Last week, I ordered a portrait of Marquez online (a Canvas Print by Everett), which arrived today in a box frame. I also realized I had never read his autobiography, Living To Tell The Tale. It looks familiar. It came today, so I have a Marquez monument in my stuffed and crowded office.

I’m making room for it; the portrait is going up on the wall where I can see it. It says a lot about writing at its best.

He inspires me, casts a spell,  and makes me cry.

 

25 March

“It’s Awesone, Says Sarah: “Boxes Pouring In. Three Very Inexpensive Choices And Requests From The Pantry Today: All $10 or Under. All Are Needed.

by Jon Katz

As you can see from the photo of today’s Amazon food delivery to the  Cambridge Food Pantry this afternoon, the Army of Good is howling.

Today,  besides anything you want to contribute, I’m focusing on three foods in great demand and low or no supply for the Cambridge Food Pantry, which works day and night to feed hungry children and their families. The price of the requested amounts is small, but the benefit is enormous—hungry children and their families can eat.

Here are three desperately wanted and needed foods priced at $10 or less.

The least expensive choice is $3.99 for Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli. $3.99 buys a pack of 4 (15 ounces each)

Understandably, Huggies diapers are in great demand at the food pantry; all of theirs have been taken by the families they feed. For $9.94, we can buy size 5 Huggies baby diapers,  which are 19 in count. The diaper need is urgent.

Also in great demand (the Pantry is out of tuna fish) is Bumble Bee Chunk Light Tuna in Water, 5 oz cans (10 pack, wild-caught), 22g Protein, non-GMO, gluten-free, Kosher, 5 oz cans, pack of 10 cans, $10.

This is a nutritious favorite for lunch and dinner.

If you wish to search the Pantry Amazon Wish List, please go here and choose what you would like to send.

Thanks so much for all of the food you have sent. Even I am stunned by the food pouring in day after day, and I know how the Army Of Good delivers repeatedly. What good people you are; I wish I had the right words to thank you.

25 March

Attention Credit Card Blog Donors

by Jon Katz

As of today, we’ve canceled credit card donations. The processing service was becoming prohibitively expensive, and most donors used Paypal, Venmo, or mail. That is unchanged. Their transmission fees are much smaller.

Credit card donors will receive an e-mail notifying them of the cancellation. I hope those whose credit card donations are canceled will consider re-subscribing or donating through Paypal, Venmo, or the mail: Jon Katz, Blog Support, P.O. Box  205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

We need your support. Thanks.

For details, you can go to the Support The Blog site on the blog. I appreciate your support, and this money can be much better used than going to credit card transmission companies. The cost was becoming more significant than the donations.  – jon

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