Farm Life – Page 7 – The Hillhouse

Offense and Owls

March 29, 2014March 30, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Waldorf Life2 Comments

Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to sleep in this morning. While I’m sure I could use the extra rest, my mind and body are awake now, and there’s no going back. Maybe it’s my age, or the two glasses of wine I had last night with dinner. Either way, I’ll take it as a rare opportunity to have the house to myself for a while, as Elihu continues to sleep deeply. And I know that boy needs it. Yesterday, finally in the car and on the way home after school, he asked me if this hadn’t been the longest week of our lives. Poor kid had been sick the way I’d been the previous week, and he plays a rather large part in his class play, so had been rehearsing all week as well. I knew how he felt. For me, the longest week of our lives had been the one just before.

In addition to the drama onstage, there’s been a good deal of interpersonal drama going in private. The situation with Elihu’s classmate – or with his classmate’s mother, I should say more correctly – finally came to a head. And after more than four months of my having waited to learn which of my many trespasses offended her so deeply, we finally got our answers. Let me tell you, this experience has taught me a few things. Firstly, there are many ways in which to live; you cannot for one moment take any of your own beliefs, values or customs to be the clear and obvious path. No matter how sensible you may think your own approach to life, I can guarantee that some aspect to how you live will offend or frighten someone. Secondly, every now and then you’ll need to apologize as humbly and simply as possible, without caveats or explanations – even when you know your intention was good and wish fervently for the offended party to get that. Yeah, sometimes I guess you just gotta let things go. It was a great exercise of restraint for me to pen a simple letter of apology (my third or fourth apology, but perhaps a physical card in hand will seal the deal) without qualifying myself. Just had to say I was sorry. And crap, I am. I will live differently from now on.

So, just what was it that I did to convince a fellow mother that her child should not be allowed to be in my or my son’s presence outside of school? Firstly, I used profanity. (Old friends will likely be nodding in agreement. This will not come as a shocker to some.) Last Halloween Elihu and I had been invited to join his classmate’s family and another one as well for some dinner and trick-or-treating. We met at an Irish pub, enjoyed a meal and a couple of beers (I waited to order one until I made sure the other adults were drinking. In the Waldorf community I’m usually careful to observe before I jump in. It’s still a fairly new world for us, so I watch things first…) Apparently, I swore ‘more than once’ during the night, and made a ‘sexually lewd’ comment when in my car, with the windows down for her boys to hear… I don’t doubt that I swore. Rain was coming down in buckets, and I was having trouble getting my kid’s elaborate costume in the car without smashing it. I’d had two drinks (not as an excuse, but hey, I don’t drink often, and when I do, I feel it, and so does my tongue) and I can totally see my cursing the damn thing as I wrestled it into the back seat. Yes, I am fairly confident I used profanity. And at the table too – I mean, what the hell? I’m finally out with grown-ups, the kids are running around the restaurant being silly and there’s a general volume level in the room that just seems to soften the blow – if not flat-out invite – words of color and emphasis. Ya know? Course I do admit to having far more of a potty mouth than would be acceptable in many homes, but then again I’d been hearing about “Jesus H. Christ and his twelve raggedy-ass disciples” since I could remember, and I’d known since an early age that many things in life weren’t worth “a pinch of sour owl shit”. Nuff said.

The bit about a ‘sexually explicit’ remark still has me scratching my head… I run through the likely culprits, and I find none fit. I admit that I enjoy punctuating language with an occasional well-placed swear word, and I have hung out with enough men and musicians to have become fairly adept at sexually crass expressions of speech, but man, I could not for the life of me I imagine what it was that I’d said. And she’d said she didn’t care to repeat it either, so I’ll have to give up on learning from this one. Hey, if she was looking for bad parenting choices, she might have found greater offense in the fact that I paid our $44 tab entirely with singles from my kid’s tip jar. I didn’t know we’d be joining them til the day before and hadn’t set any extra funds aside for it, so I was fairly panicked when the check arrived and I didn’t have quite enough… but Elihu did. Hey – I wouldn’t doubt it that this had me swearing under my breath! It had me feeling like a crappy mom for sure. I told him that I was using his money and assured him that next pay-day it would all be returned. Then I slunk over to the hostess’ station and asked her to please swap out my many small bills for some larger ones. I didn’t want the unnecessary embarrassment of paying our portion with forty-four singles… I was trying to stay as ‘normal’ as possible that night. But I’d used my kid’s money to pay for my beer and I’d sworn like a sailor. Not so normal, I guess.

Then there was the owl. The one from which the two boys had removed feathers and talons. That I had allowed the boys to ‘dismember’ this creature was deeply offensive to this family’s Native American beliefs. (Blonde haired and blue-eyed child, I would never have guessed.) What we’d done that day had shocked the parents – so much so they weren’t even able to share it with me; these past four months I was none the wiser for what I had done. But I too had my own feelings about the owl….We knew this owl personally; it was our own Barred Owl – the one that always hooted at two in the morning and once sat on a branch above our heads and allowed us to look our fill at his black-eyed beauty. We’d shone a flashlight up at him and watched as he did what owls do. He would sit still as a stone for minutes on end, then in an instant rotate his head nearly all the way round. He was mysterious, grand and silent. We tired of watching him long before he flew away, and left him in the darkness again, telling him with our hearts how much we loved him as we headed back down the long driveway to the house. How grateful we were that he lived here. It made us feel deeply good to know that he was always somewhere about. Heartbreaking news arrived one day when neighbor Zac told us he had a dead barred owl for us – it had been hit on the road – and he’d bring it over for Elihu to see. We just knew it was our owl. It was with mixed feelings that we beheld the giant bird up close, but it was smashed and dead, all we could do now to honor it was to bear witness, maybe to save some feathers and talons, and to wonder how it was that such a creature survived year after year…

I’d saved the owl in an enclosed tub for several days (otherwise he’d have been dinner for someone else), knowing that Elihu’s classmate was coming over. I’d thought it would be interesting to see it up close, and the mementos would be an unexpected treasure. After all, how often do you get this kind of opportunity? I wondered at what else we could do; taxidermy cost too much. Leaving it out in the woods – as we do with sick, dead hens, that didn’t feel right either. Hell, nothing felt right. Might have buried it, but the ground was already cold and hard. So I decided we’d harvest what we could, then burn it with a little ceremony. Have not cultures been reverently burning their dead since ancient times? I got a woodpile ready as the boys began to learn just how hard it really is to remove feathers from such a robust creature. Pliers were required, and as for the talons, wire cutters were the only tools that worked. I can’t say that there wasn’t a slightly violent feeling involved in the process, but I kept reminding myself that we’d have these feathers and talons – and this remembrance of our friend – for years to come. (Butchering chickens is a kind of violent act as well, but we eat them, so we feel it’s only correct that we must know what it is so kill them, too.) I reminded myself that this creature’s soul had now returned to its creator – that it was now just decomposing matter. If life on a farm teaches nothing else it teaches this: once something is dead, it’s gonna get stinky and messy real soon. Unless you’re gonna eat it – get rid of it. When Elihu and I throw out dead organic matter – whether eggshells for the compost heap or dead hens for the resident raccoons – we always say the items are ‘going back to God’. And that, I believe, is the best way to throw things out. To release them back into the cycle; to allow them to integrate back into the substance from whence they came. Look, getting rid of a dead creature always evokes queer feelings. Sorrow, honor, regret, wonder…. finding a good point of resolution isn’t easy. The day my father was cremated was difficult for me; I still have a very hard time in knowing that his beloved body no longer exists in this physical world… But in the end, when soul and spirit have departed the mechanism, we are left with something that is indeed only physical matter. I don’t believe it hurts to remember the soul that once animated the body by saving just the smallest token. I still have a lock of my father’s hair…

So, after over four months of wondering, the case was finally solved. Foul language and removing parts from a dead owl were my unknown transgressions in the eye’s of our friend’s mother. But I still think that trumping these was the third and still unforgivable offense I’d originally thought was long off the table: that of having once posted an image of her happily smiling child on this blog. Upon learning her feelings about it, I removed all mention of her kid without a moment’s hesitation. I’d not only apologized in a couple of emails, but in person too. I made a point of checking in with her, asking if we were good now. She’d said yes, but clearly was being polite to avoid any confrontation (this is to me ironic in that by profession she counsels others). So here we were, back at the largest issue in her mind: the fact that I had exposed her child to the internet. A place she suggested in a recent email that I must certainly agree is known by all to be a ‘VERY’ (her use of caps) dangerous place. (The world itself is a dangerous place too, but one cannot stay indoors all of one’s life.) Ok. I understand how it can be, but do you really feel your child’s well-being is threatened by one lone image of his smiling countenance on a blog? Sheesh. I obviously do not share this woman’s feelings. But I respect that she feels the danger is very real. But besides taking action, and apologizing, what more could I do? No more, but no matter, the damage has been done. In her mind I had been crossed off the list. She wasn’t going to take any chances on a wild card like me.

In her mind proper values are self-evident, obvious. But in my mind, there’s an interesting twist to this whole thing… What I myself find a little hard to understand is that her child routinely rides on a motorcycle with his father… This is a risk I personally am not willing to take. When I lived in Chicago I once had a motorcycle, and I loved riding. But when I got pregnant, I decided that I couldn’t justify that kind of risk anymore. Someone depended upon me now – there was no room for accidents or injury in my life. When my child is out and on his own and no longer depends upon me, I may get back on a bike again. But not before. This for me is an unacceptable risk, one I feel is far more real and dangerous than mention on any blog. Amazing, isn’t it, how differently people feel about things? I’ve learned a lot from this chapter. One thing is for sure – I’m not going to go around sharing with folks whom I don’t know well that ‘I have a blog’. Too much of a hot-button issue. You just don’t know how it’ll resonate with people. Instead – from now on I’m simply going to say that I’m a writer. I like that better anyhow. And writers can use all the colorful language they like.

Last night mom, Elihu and I went out to dinner at the iconic Hattie’s – a place where the fried chicken still tastes the same as it did forty years ago – and then enjoyed a show afterward at the high school. Each year they produce a top-notch quality musical. This year it was Footloose. Doesn’t seem old enough yet to be hip or ironic, but I guess it’s enjoying a resurgence of sorts, and in spite of having played some of the songs to death in wedding bands years ago, it was still fun to see. The choreography was impressive, and we all enjoyed it. The angel of serendipity was again on our sides; we got a parking spot in front of the restaurant, and then three seats together in the front row – and in front of the percussionist no less. Afterwards in the swarms of people crowding the lobby we ran into two girls we knew from their days at Elihu’s old elementary school – and it made me so happy to see them now as such talented, beautiful young women. It was a nice way to end the evening for Elihu to hug them and say hello. We headed out into the foggy night and in less than fifteen minutes Grandma was dropping us off at home.

The calm inside our house was such a contrast to the whirlwind week now behind us. We were delirious with anticipation of what lay ahead… ‘Imagine’ I said as we smiled to each other… ‘we have NO plans for two days!’ I tried not to dwell on the mountain of dishes, the baskets of laundry, the mess of recycling strewn across our yard… Yes, there was work to be done. But nowhere to be, no one to answer to…. no one to offend. And maybe, somewhere out in the vast, dark woods, there might still be an owl sitting patiently on a branch, waiting, like us, for the first faint stirrings of Spring…

Snowsick

March 23, 2014March 24, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Low Vision Life, Mommy Mind, Waldorf Life2 Comments

A week has passed since my last post, but it kinda feels like two. We’ve been so busy, and on top of it all, Elihu ended up getting sick too. (I’m still not entirely well over a week later; haven’t known congestion like this in a few years.) Last Wednesday night he came down with a blistering hot fever, and unable to move, he stayed overnight on the couch in his clothes. I stayed up most of the night watching over him. I knew he was benefiting from the ibuprofen, and as he slept at least he felt nothing at all, but still there was a fearful quality to the night. I couldn’t help but wonder how much more serious such an illness might have been a couple hundred years ago. What could an unchecked fever do to a child? I shuddered to imagine how things might once have been. To distract myself from worrying, I searched my shelves for something to read. Glad I hadn’t given away every single David Sedaris book I’d ever owned, because Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim was just what I needed. (I have a habit of giving away books to anyone who expresses an interest in them.) In general I don’t have a great memory, so re-reading a book is often just as good as reading it for the first time (it’s like that with me and jokes too – they sound like new material the first few times I hear em). I stayed up til well past two, reading, watching, checking, reading… Until, not wanting to truly screw up my schedule for days to come, I decided I’d stay and sleep on the couch with him. Just lucky that I wasn’t on the school schedule the next morning, and luckier still that I was able to beg out of my remaining commitments without too much stress. There are occasions where I can leave Elihu for a short time, but there was no way I was leaving him alone like this. Yeah, being a single mom can throw a logistic monkey wrench into things sometimes. But this time, thankfully, it all worked out.

Still with a sore throat and boogers obscuring his ‘n’s and ‘m’s, my kid got back on the horse and was belting out his lines as King Midas in the fifth grade play rehearsals on Thursday (man, has he got pipes – charisma too. And you can see how much he enjoys throwing out those lines and living large into those gestures. I couldn’t help smiling ear-to-ear watching him). And then there was the gentleman from the Philadelphia Orchestra who came to play cello and speak to his class on Friday. That afternoon in the car ride home Elihu couldn’t stop telling me about it, and how moved he was to hear this man’s stories and to hear him play. After supper he went to the living room and spent a long time with his bass, mostly working on his bowing. After a time he called to me in the kitchen, “Mama! I got it! I got it! I got that sound!” Then I heard him laugh, and overheard him say quietly to himself “I just love playing this bass.” After I finished tidying up I joined him at the piano, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t come up with some of the grooviest little patterns. We had a very musical jam. I began to think that if he’s playing like this after just a few months at it – and at the age of ten – he’ll be a musical peer of mine in very little time. And likely he’ll surpass me. Yeah, I think that’s pretty much a done deal. But I can definitely live with that.

More’s been going on in the background of our life here too; an unsure relationship with the mother of a beloved classmate has had us both very depressed. Elihu and I have carefully scrutinized the past six months of our shared history with his family, and we have a couple of guesses as to why she’s avoiding our invitations, but none we’re absolutely sure of. I think it may well have been my careless use of the either ‘white trash’ or ‘redneck’ – something I used to describe the population up in their mountain neighborhood way back when I was a kid (the implication being that it was before moneyed folk – like them – had moved in. Oops? Crap. It was said with a sense of humor, no offense to anyone intended.) Hey, I’m the first to admit that my own joint takes on a rather white trash sort of look at times – chicken poop on the front steps, an overflowing recycling bin and a number of retired tube tvs poking out of the melting snow… But I think the terms ‘white trash’ and ‘redneck’ are more about an attitude than a reliance on food stamps or backyard junk piles. (The piles eventually go – but getting rid of them costs money, something we ‘white trash’ folk don’t always have to spend on gratuitous garbage removal. !)

I’d also taken Elihu and his friend to a Subway for a quick snack once. Not the kind of place we go to more than a time or two a year – but yet Elihu’s concerned it was a bad move, and one his friend’s mother can’t forgive. Me, I wonder if it isn’t the blog – she’d told me once in a very curt way to remove any mention of her child from it, all images too, and so I did. I had felt horrible about the whole thing, apologized and later asked her – in person – if we were good. “Yes, of course” she’d answered. But maybe not. You can imagine as a mother how sick I feel for my child, who himself has literally wept over this in frustration. And her child often avoids eye contact with me too when I mention the topic of a playdate. He’s a very open and cheerful child, and the contrast in body language when I bring it up is a bit startling. I feel sad for him as well, can you imagine the inner conflict he must feel at the subject? I watch the two of them playing together so joyfully in school, and my heart hurts for the situation. They’re going to be classmates for almost another decade, so we must figure this out. The not knowing how or why we got here is simply grinding away at me. So too is the realization that it’s going to take a confrontation of the issue to see some resolution. No matter, I gotta figure it out. It’s weighing on both of us pretty heavily, and it’s not a nice way to live. If email number five on the subject of a playdate is ignored as the previous one was, or if a terse, cryptic reply comes back as in earlier communications, I promised Elihu I’d ask her about it directly. Can’t wait til this chapter is in our past. It’s adding a good deal of stress on both of us and it has to be fixed, but I fairly dread the process.

Lately I’ve been jonsin for some Taco Bell. For me, it’s the kind of place I visit like once a year (kinda like Subway – only I don’t exactly ever jones for that place), and then I’m good. Sated. Got my fix, don’t need to feel guilty either cuz it’ll be a while til I’m back. Elihu and I had some errands in the Taco Bell part of town so I suggested we try it. As soon as we walked in and Elihu asked if they had ‘tacos al pastor’ I knew we were in trouble. I explained that it was ‘stylized’ Mexican food. “Oh”, he said, “You mean it’s not Mexican food at all. It’s the Amercian version of Mexican food.” Kinda. I guess. So we made our choices and took our seats. Off to a bad start when the iced teas they offered were not only syrupy-sweet but carried with them a perfumey essence which clung to the plastic cup after poured out… He tried mixing in some water to dilute the tea but gave up after a few sips and stuck with plain water, albeit perfumed with the aftertaste of mango-flavored iced tea. “Why are there advertisements everywhere in here?” he asked me with growing agitation, waving his arms at all the posters encouraging the clientel to supersize a drink or grab a new food creation. “I don’t even want to know what they’re telling me, but I can’t help but read them. It’s annoying!” “Yup, they got ya” I answered with a small amount of genuine sympathy, but let’s remember that this was my jones, and I was totally digging every bite. Elihu wrestled with his taco supreme for a moment then set it down. “You know the way you rode the Vertigo at the county fair – for me?” “Yeah” I answered. “Well this is me doing the same for you.” I looked up at him. “Thanks baby, I appreciate it.” He went on, “I don’t want to ruin it for you, I want you to enjoy it. And I’ll try to enjoy it too, but I don’t think I can.” He paused and looked down at his food. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think I can.” He worked at a few more bites but then stopped again. “And this music! How can I eat peacefully with all this energy coming at me? It’s like the cafeteria at Greenfield. I’m beginning to feel like that…” (The cafeteria at his old elementary school was in fact one of the final straws for him. Loud, chaotic and bright, the place would bring on panic attacks and have him sitting alone at the far end of a long table, hands over his ears, head down and doing his slow breathing exercises to calm down. No one could have been more sympathetic than me, and the remembrance of that scene also helped me in deciding that school as we knew it had to change.)

I’d thought he was merely making an observation, but he really did seem to be growing more uneasy the longer we sat there. I hustled to get my annual fill of that Taco Bell thing over and done. I’d secretly hoped to have turned my kid onto a new guilty pleasure of pop culture, but I could tell that I hadn’t come close by a long shot. ‘Hm’, I though to myself hopefully as I slurped up the last of my Pepsi, ‘maybe he’ll get it when he reaches his drinking days…’ We wrapped up our mess, apologized to the universe for creating such waste, thanked the woman at the counter for our meal, and left the bright lights, loud music and super-sweet soda behind.

Snow began to fall yesterday morning, and while we it didn’t have us screaming in frustration the way it did even a week ago, I can’t say that it wasn’t a bit disappointing. The only good thing about it was that it served to temporarily cover up the awkward, pre-Spring phase of our property. Because this is an ugly time of year for our immediate surrounds; wind-strewn items from the recycling bin begin to poke up through the snow across the yard, great swaths of driveway gravel pushed by long-gone plow trucks top off the crusty snow banks, various cages and animal toters used throughout the winter to nurse house-bound birds remain half-embedded in the ice along the driveway, and fresh chicken poops litter the trampled snow pathways through the yard. Yeah, it’s a fairly depressing sight, but made tolerable by both a dusting of fresh snow – and also by knowing that before terribly long it will all be different. Soon we can rake the gravel back to the driveway and stash that bird paraphernalia in the garage where it belongs. And hopefully soon we’ll discover our shovel again, which fell over somewhere before the last big storm and lies ironically under a foot of snow.

While we yearn for Spring, Elihu also years for his father. For a break from me. Because it’s just the two of us, all the time. And while it’s a precious thing, it can reach its limits. I take my breaks here in my chair at my computer, I have my virtual community of friends on Facebook, but Elihu, he is isolated. He’s very good at being an only child, he can pass hours drawing, reading, practicing or even playing with blocks. But he’s kind of fed up lately. And I get it. And of course, my heart can sometimes break for it. He’s called his father several times recently, but there hasn’t been much time to connect. Dad’s either arriving or departing – or he’s at a restaurant and his food’s just come, or it’s too loud, or he has to sound check… I feel the disappointment in my son as he clicks the phone off. I ache for him. I wish that he could just see his daddy already. He’s been good about it all; many are the times he’s begun to cry and wish aloud that he had a mommy and a daddy at the same time. But these days he seems to be taking it more in stride, if there is such a thing. Maybe it’s all inward now, maybe it’s because he’s maturing, I don’t know. At least the countdown to his Easter visit with dad has begun. It’s given him some hope, something to look forward to (plus his sister’s visiting from England and that’s got him very happy indeed). So we limp through this long stretch, our eyes on the path ahead…

Making our load just a little lighter (scratch that, make that a lot lighter!) was the news we received just yesterday that the house at the end of our driveway will not be built this Spring, in fact the whole deal fell through. Hooray! As our neighbor casually said, it’s merely ‘a respite’, but hell, we’ll take it. Elihu and I high-fived each other and shrieked in delight. He later followed up by expressing a thought aloud: “Thank you universe for keeping the field as it is. We are so grateful that it is a field and is continuing as a field.” He’s big on stating the ‘isness’ of things; not that we are hopeful that something might be, but grateful that it already is. He will often correct me when I use finite terms, as he insists that I need to see the desired outcome as already existing – or continuing to exist. While I can admit first introducing these ideas to him, I’ve long gone out of the habit of living them – it’s he who’s taken up the charge of visualizing things as he’d like them and remaining grateful in advance of receiving them. Lucky to have my own personal life coach in the house. !

And I just may need a little life-coaching to get through this last, snowy stretch. It’s been an exceptionally long haul. May the memories of warm, scented breezes and the buzzing of bees keep our spirits aloft as we await the end of winter. Because we are as tired of the snow as we are of being sick. Oh please, come Spring, come soon and heal us….

Goose Gone

February 3, 2014February 5, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Pics1 Comment

This morning will be our first day in half of our time here at the Hillhouse without a resident goose. It’s already been a sad enough time for us, and this is adding to the emotional toll. But in spite of the tears I watched my son cry in the rear view mirror as we left Maximus at his new, beautiful home, I know that things will be ok. Maybe even better. At least that’s what we hope.

Because lately, things had gotten worse. Perhaps because of plain old cabin fever, or perhaps driven by an ancient imprint on his being that made him vent his unexpressed urge to procreate in other, more violent ways, or some other unknown issue, whatever reason was to blame, Max had killed four hens over the past week and had very nearly killed our one resident rooster. That last one was a bizarre and bloody incident, and I knew at that point we’d turned a corner. I did have the means to separate them – either keep the recuperating rooster on his own in the small brooding pen, or confine Maximus to the same small space, but neither was appealing, as it represented another chore to do each and every morning, each and every night. I need all my birds in one place, and I need ease of maintenance. And I will not tolerate violent behavior. If I were retired and had no job but to tend to my flock and home, it might be acceptable. But at this time in our lives, I can’t stop to settle disputes like this. Change was imperative.

Both Elihu and I forgive our beloved goose for his actions, because we know that he was simply acting as he was programmed to. He’s a goose, yes, and he has diligently guarded our property against strangers and unknown vehicles as well as an assortment of predators, but he’s had a softer side too. And since Elihu and I personally knew him in this quiet, tender way, it’s been a bit harder on us. Most folks have little sympathy for Max anymore. My mother especially, who for the past few months has used the most venomous tone when suggesting we get rid of him (or a bit more light-heartedly implied he might end up on a platter). Piano students must pull in close to the house, brooms are left leaning against trees to be picked up as tools of defense, people call ahead when they visit, and the UPS guy just drops the box by the garage and splits. Yeah, it had become a drag to have a guard goose. It wasn’t always thus; my theory is that when he was biologically speaking still a gosling, he was rather charming. He was never threatening, in fact he lived up to his breed’s reputation of being good with kids and people in general. But I believe things turned a corner last year when a certain spark lit within him and he became a young gander.

It first started one day as I was squatting down at the hose to fill a five gallon bucket. The container was white, about Max’s size, and I too, appeared close to the ground. Something in him clicked, and he began honking as he beat his great, six foot wings and ran down the hill from the coop to join me. But rather than stop short to watch as he had so many times before, this time he made a clumsy attempt to mount me, scooting me encouragingly beneath him with his long neck, clearly hoping I’d acquiesse in some cooperative sort of posture. In the moment I didn’t get it, and actually thought he might be attacking me, but he did not hurt me. He nibbled at me gently, but didn’t bite. He cupped his wings around me, but didn’t hit me with them. I was a bit flustered, so I stood up, and instantly he came to, as is he’d been overtaken by some strange force and was now embarrassed and self-conscious of himself. I stood back and watched as the mysterious behavior came over him once more, and he began a second, unsuccessful attempt to get busy with the bucket. First he tried to get on top of it. The bucket fell over and he seemed encouraged. He tried again, but was flustered at the way it rolled out from underneath him. Then he took another tack, and tried to enter the bucket, head first, but found there was no room, and clearly no satisfying end to this choice either. Poor Max. Poor, dear, sexually mature Maximus. He was being just as he was born to be, and there was no natural outlet to his deep, innate desires. Oh dear. I even wondered if I might surrender myself to him just once; crouch down again and give him some feeling of success as he did his best… Flashes of Swan Lake came to me – the strange morphing of a lover into a swan, the strange netherworld of a horrible manbeast – and I quickly dismissed the idea. No, this poor guy was on his own. And we knew if we’d gotten him a mate that it would likely throw off the relationship we two had with him. It’d be him and his gal against us. He’d defend her, and we’d be on the same end as the UPS guy.

After keeping the convalescing rooster in our kitchen for a week – and then our adjacent mudroom as the sour stink of chicken grew – I found I’d reached the end. The nightmare of the Studio’s new situation had just been discovered, and I suppose it was that which tipped the scales. I had too much to do, and if I might have justified a more labor-intensive solution to the bird problem before, I sure wasn’t about to now. I made up my mind that we had to find a new – and good – home for Max. I was resolute, and it was fixed in my heart. On Saturday a tiny voice told me that we should drop in on our neighbors (the ones with the old model T) and pay a visit. I had nothing in my mind about Max specifically, but of course he came up in conversation. They suggested a family in the hills that might very likely take him. I held no high hopes, but imagine my surprise when I dialed the number upon returning home that day, and before I could even offer my backstory, the gal on the other end simply said “I’ll take him”. I’d heard they were not only softies for animals, but that they were good to their animals. The two don’t always go together. I was beside myself with joy, and shared the earpiece of the phone with Elihu as she began to tell me about her pond, the fields, the way she had things set up…. Elihu covered his mouth to stop from squealing with joy. We made arrangements to come by with Maximus the following day. Wow. Ask and ye shall receive.

It’s one thing that we found Max a new home, it’s another that we have visiting rights, it’s still another that they’ll likely continue to call him by his name, but for me the crowning discovery in all of this is that Maximus now lives on a farm that I’ve admired since I was little. When I first got my driver’s license and was free to re-discover all those hidden-away places that my parents were always whizzing past, this was one of the places I came to. Many a time have I put on my flashers and pulled to the side of the road just to stop and gaze at this lovely farmstead. Nestled in the shelter of wooded hills, its open fields undulate up gently to meet the forest, there’s even a two acre pond behind the large farmhouse…. I cannot possibly imagine a more perfect home for our beloved fellow. He’s the only breed of his kind, he’s white and stands taller than them all, so we will easily be able to pick him out when we spot the flock dabbling in the low, swampy patches of the field.

When we dropped him off, the husband and wife owners took us on a short, circular walk around their outbuildings to see the other critters; pygmy goats, a strange, miniature donkey (named Brea – and man, what a sound she makes. Yeeks.) a sheep and some fine looking chickens. In the pasture across the way were a shaggy bull and cow, each with longhorns the likes of which I’d never seen but in images of far-off places. They too were miniature. Was there a horse? I seem to think there was… it was really a lot to take in for a first-time visitor. Above our heads a flock of some twenty or so pigeons wheeled in the sky… this place was heaven. As we walked, Max walked with us, tipping his head every so often to take in a new sight, stopping to listen to the whereabouts of the resident flock of geese. They were loud and rather raspy-sounding, and every now and then Maximus would himself honk, and we both noticed that his tone sounded so much richer and deeper. He was more beautiful than the others, we thought, and now we could hear that he was much more sonorous a goose, too. We were proud, and perhaps just a bit sadder still at having now compared our baby to these strangers. Eventually our visit came to a close, we got into the car and left Max, a bit confused, behind. He talked to us as we drove away, running beside the car as he’d done so very many times before, walking us to the gate where his new mama was waiting to let us out. That’s when Elihu started to cry. In this moment, this bird was still our Maxie, he was still engaging with us as he always had, he still knew us. We both knew in our hearts that the next time we came to see him, he very likely would not.

After Elihu’s tears finally stopped and he’d had a moment to just sit in silence and thought, he told me from the back seat on the drive home “Mommy, that’s the kind of farm I want when I grow up. That kind of farm.” I agreed with him quietly. There was nothing to say now. We knew we’d done the right thing. In fact, we knew we’d given Maximus a far better life in this new place than we were ever able to give him. We knew all of this. But still, the sadness in the car was heavy. Coming home was strange. For years we’d been greeted by that familiar head atop that long, graceful neck, the curious tilt of his head, the peering of that eye, the initial assessment; stranger or family? Family. Max would walk alongside the car, then meander off to do his thing. Shortly after we’d go inside, he might follow us up the back steps and just sit down outside the door, as if wanting simply to be near us. In warmer months, an open kitchen door almost always meant a goose in the kitchen before too long. But a house is no place for a goose. And we’re no substitute for a family of his own kind.

Last night, as we lay down to bed, we looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling of Elihu’s bedroom and wondered how our beloved Max was, right now. We had learned that the geese there slept outside – rain, snow or shine, no matter. A far cry from the treatment he got here – heat lamp on cold nights, the kitchen on really cold ones. Would he be ok? Would there be a lot of fighting as he sorted it all out with the other ganders? We realized that Max had never even seen another goose until that day. He’d only ever lived with chickens or people. We guessed by now he knew he was a goose. We prayed that he was able to nestle in with the flock to share in the warmth. We prayed that he’d get enough sleep on this first night. It took Elihu himself over an hour to finally drop off. I too had some trouble sleeping, and somehow felt our homestead to be missing something on this first night. I took a last look at our coop, now goose-less, and sighed. Our lives were changing in so many ways, and I had to go with it. I reminded myself once again that while change is sad, there are new, joyful things yet to come into our lives. Change makes way for the new.

And we here at the Hillhouse are getting ourselves ready for a whole lot of new things to come…

Our beloved ‘snow goose’, Maximus. He finds the sweet spots where he can graze, mid-winter.

(He is in actuality a “Lavender Ice” which is, as we understand, the newest registered breed in North America. The breed is supposed to be friendlier than other domestic geese, and good with kids and pets. Our experience tells us this is partly so, but in the end, he is still a goose. And geese are tough birds.)

On his way back up the hill to the coop.

In the coop with his very best bird-friend, male Guinea fowl, Austin (lowest rung to the right)

Mama enjoys a final moment with Max.

That lovely face.

Elihu feeds Maximus his second favorite treat – he loves frozen peas best.

Maximus waits around for more, even when Elihu’s gone back inside.

The kiss goodbye.

A very sad time for Elihu and me both. We hope Maximus goes on to enjoy the best life a goose could ever know. That’ll make it a little easier to adjust to a goose-free life here at the Hillhouse.

Chill of It All

January 27, 2014January 29, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind, Waldorf Life3 Comments

How does the oil go so fast? We had a delivery less than a month ago and yet tonite I see the telltale signs of a tank below the intake level; the thermostats dipping below fifty and that ominous blinking green light on the furnace. So it’s time to share a bedroom again, time to heat the kitchen with the Brady bunch double ovens. We’ve ridden out times like this before, and I know it’s ultimately going to be ok, but when I got back from checking on things in the basement, Elihu was in tears. He said he could ‘just feel the negative energy in the house’. ‘Well, kid’, I think, ‘waddya want? I can’t fix everything all the time. I do my best, and that’s all I can do’. I don’t say what I’m thinking though. I keep my mom cool and put a positive spin on it – it’ll be like camping, it’ll be cozy – like it must have been in the old days. I remind him we don’t live in a tent or a longhouse – can you just imagine? (I don’t think I have the stuff to live like that.) So no matter how the next twenty-four hours pan out, we have electricity, and at the end of the day it’s a lifesaver. Glad we have Mario Brothers on a night like this. Need a distraction besides homework.

Our heating oil guy is wonderfully reliable, and if he can see his way to a delivery of less than his usual minimum, or if I can get a bit of assistance from mom, it’ll be crisis averted. I’m not thrilled about needing him so often though (nor do I feel good about always going to my mother when the shit hits the fan), and it’s got me scratching my head about our oil use. I turn the heat down to fifty when we leave during the day times, and at nighttime I don’t usually go above sixty-eight, and in fact try to keep it closer to sixty-five most nights. So what’s going on here? I don’t know, and not knowing has me a bit panicked. Mom had told us to go ahead and look into pricing out having the attic insulated, but this past year it just didn’t seem an expense worth getting into. Now I think I might have to take her up on it. Can’t do anything about it now, but I’m certainly motivated to get moving on it as soon as we’re able.

But for now we just gotta get over this hump. I look ahead to my own long-term life plans and I find myself yearning for a life without all this relentless cold and snow. I never thought I’d be one of those folks who gave up the great Northeast for North Carolina, but it’s beginning to feel like an option. I’ve always loved the seasons, and I’ve felt incredibly blessed to live where we do. And I’ve always thought our modest house was just perfect. But will it always be? I reflect on all the upkeep. Hmm. Maybe I might return one day to apartment living. That has its appeal, too. Who needs a garden and chickens? It’s all so much work – plus it’s the kind that gets harder as one grows older. I begin to flesh out this idea for a minute. Imagine having no driveway to plow, no shoveling, no frozen water troughs to keep on top of, no threat of frozen pipes or the reality of a house with frost on the inside of the windows. Although the thought of a simpler life appeals in this moment, it also kinda feels like giving up, wimping out. But right now – from the inside of my rapidly-chilling house – it seems like a Utopian existence. My mother speaks with contempt for those who flee the northern states for the south. They’re clearly not made of very strong stuff. And while I myself had never seriously considered spending my aged years anyplace other than this house, or at least this part of the world (this latitude, more accurately), I begin to long for a more moderate climate with less rigorous heating requirements. I know the globe is heating up, but tonite it sure doesn’t seem like it.

Other stuff’s weighing on my mind tonite too. A friend responded to my recent post, the last one in which I called attention to my tip jar. I had thought it a fairly polite post, nothing terribly whiney about it (not so much more than the usual, I suppose), but she pointed out to me that most people had it hard. That it wasn’t just me – and that folks weren’t in a position to help with all of their own burdens. Yeah, I can totally see that. I’m sure many folks are working extremely hard at surviving. But you don’t hear about it, cuz they’re not writing about it on a public platform. And I get that not everyone will agree with what I write. But that’s kinda the point here – my goal is to express myself without censorship. Guess I have to be ready to accept the occasional consequences. But I still stand by my post; the point remains that I have had tens of thousands of visits and only five donations. Ya know?

And then over supper Elihu disclosed to me something that one of his classmates had expressed to him about his mother not being thrilled with me. This child is delightful, and he and Elihu each ask me all the time to organize a play date. I haven’t done so in a few months only because I’ve been rather beset with life – but it seemed we were approaching a good time to get it going. But apparently, I’m not seen as ‘Waldorf enough’ by this kid’s mom for her to feel comfortable with setting one up. Or at least that was the gist of things in this kid’s words. And I know we’re getting into second generation, he-said, she-said territory here, but nonetheless the news was a bit shocking. I know that I do allow my child to play video games – but damn, he has chicken chores, practices his bass without prompting and finishes his homework. Plus he reads like crazy. And can identify hundreds of birds (without benefit of color) because he looks through field guides as a hobby. And he honors and thanks his food before he eats. Honestly, what is the problem here? Again I run a little internal monologue to myself… ‘you probably live on your smart phone, lady. That sure aint very Waldorf…’ Hell, I don’t even have a smart phone. How low tech can one get?

My life is generally a sweet one, and I know I have the love and support of so many friends, but I find myself stuck on these two things tonite. Man. I try to be a good person, I try my very best to show kindness to everyone I interact with – truly, I do. And I’m not full of shit here – I sincerely want a good, equal and honest relationship with everyone I deal with. My main goal these days is to live with as much transparency as possible. So I don’t get it. Maybe in my desire to please and get along there’s some element of timidity apparent in my demeanor – or perhaps even an impression of seeming aloof. I have been misinterpreted in the past for appearing unfriendly when the truth of the matter was that I was just trying to be neutral and unprovocative. It seems here I may have had the opposite effect. Oh crap. I am at heart a big fucking wimp. I can’t tolerate not being liked very well. Maybe I need thicker skin. Hmm. Maybe that. Or Xanax. !!

Gotta get back to it. Dinner, homework, a little time going over my new music on the piano. Bedtime will be sweet relief. A big, warm bed and a little time to just forget it all and chill.

Post Script: The heat’s back on, but not without a few glitches in the form of micro leaks which may be compromising the system’s ability to work at maximum efficiency. Ah, but it’s working. Seems with this super cold of late we’ll have to economize even more with lower temperature settings. I’ll end up sounding just like my mother… “if you’re cold – put on a sweater!”

Coasting

January 24, 2014January 24, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Flight, Mommy Mind, Waldorf Life4 Comments

What comfort can I take from life right now? I have woken up in a bit of a sad mood. I visited some photos of my father on the blog (it’s served us personally as our only real photographic record of the past two years) and now I sit, vaguely depressed, putting off the starting of my day. I don’t want to go into the dark, cold kitchen and find it rank with the smell of a convalescing bird. I don’t want to make breakfast, lunches. I don’t want to get dressed, to drive into town again. I just want to sit here in my bad mood and work my way out of it on my own time. I do need to check on my son however; just minutes ago I was fully present in a dream in which I’d let him go flying in a small plane and they needed assistance coasting to the ground as they’d had a fuel line problem. The dream was as vivid as is my now-real bedroom, and I can’t help but want to see my young son for myself just to make sure that the other time line has come to a close.

Strange moments, those upon waking. Dreams – whether anxious or hopeful – disintegrate like steam in the sky and all of a sudden you’re here again, in the middle of a just-so sort of life with many just-so sorts of details before you. Ich. Fuck the daily crap. Just fuck it. I feel a little bipolar here; just yesterday I was in a pretty good mood I suppose. I’d even had a couple of really good moments. “Bubbles of happiness” my son and I call them. Every now and then, when a tiny bit of joy springs up – for no apparent reason other than it’s just a very delightful moment – he or I will announce to the other out loud “I’m having a bubble of happiness right now”. The other will acknowledge it and we’ll continue on our way. Think we each had several last night. It was a nice night – complete with a phone call from a ninety-four year German woman whom I’d known in Evanston years ago – through Alice Angermann, the Vienna-schooled piano teacher of my high school and college years. Our conversation was an unexpected treat and it added even more magic to our day.

But magic and bubbles of happiness don’t last – in fact they’re very short, which is why we take the care to announce them – they need all the witness and appreciation they can get! In my same-old, same-old chair, in the dark of morning with the day’s events all just around the corner, waiting for my attention, I am not feeling very close to the mood of last night. Yeah, somehow I’ll come around. Just being with my beloved son usually does that on its own. But still, I’m looking off more towards the horizon of my existence this morning, and I’m not sure what it is that I have to look forward to there. I need more for sure. A quest, a purpose. I try to bring joy to everyone I see during my day, I try to be kind, cheerful when I can. All that sort of stuff. And that helps the world, I’m sure. And it helps me too. But today I feel like I could use a little extra bit of something. Not sure what. Just something. It’s probably the time of year that’s making me feel like this. Smack in the middle of the calendar year, the relentless cold, and tired, matted-down snow don’t do much to enliven the spirit. But isolated as I might feel here in my tiny country house in the middle of a sky-wide winter, I’m pretty sure that I am by no means the only person feeling mid-winter doldrums. Certainly not. So… breath in, chest out, foot forward. Buck we up, and on we go…

Lest I forget, tonight is the Waldorf School’s open mic night (in support of the 11th grades’ upcoming annual trip to Ethiopia) and I’ll bet you can guess who’s playing piano for a bunch of folks. ! And it’ll be a hoot, I know. Right now it’s got me grousing about having to leave the house again and drive back into town – but I know once we get there it’ll be fun. Plus Elihu will play drums with me too. Not sure folks at school are aware of how good he is. They will be soon. So he’ll have a little moment to shine too. Guess I gotta just take these little moments and count em as precious. Cuz it’s those little gems that keep me coasting through life until the next big adventure comes along….

Post Script: My father died four weeks ago tonight. I recently added the story of his final moments as an addendum to the post entitled “Vigil” (12/27/13). It was written a few hours before he passed, and it seemed to me that the post was incomplete without the full story. Dad left us crying… and laughing too. If you’re gonna go, this is the best way I could ever imagine….

Bad Bird

January 22, 2014January 24, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Birding, Farm Life, Mommy Mind2 Comments

It has been a long day. Started early and cold. When I went to let the birds out I found Bald Mountain, our three year old resident rooster, upside down and wedged in between a milk crate and the wall, his back end almost bare of feathers and covered in blood. It took a good struggle to free him without hurting him further. Shit. The goose had done it again. Maximus had recently led the flock in pecking two hens – one to death, one to the point of a mercy killing – and this time he’d taken Baldy on all by himself. I’d seen him tugging at the remaining feathers when I arrived, and while I really yearned to give him a good scolding whack, I knew it wouldn’t fix anything. Remorse is not something a goose can feel, and lessons are short-lived. Besides, I was on chicken medic duty once again. My heart sank to see several frozen trickles of blood hanging from the crate. I wasn’t even sure the rooster’d make it to the house alive. But he did, so I began my now-familiar poultry-saving regimen.

The first order of business was to get the poor fellow in the kitchen by the radiator. Next, I provided him with some water and a bowl of my custom mash of high protein feed, nutritional supplements and crushed baby aspirin. Then I waited, hoping he had enough steam left to eat and drink. It took him a while to adjust – he even had a hard time standing at first. All I could think of was my son and how much he loved this stupid bird – we’d done in dozens of gals we’d named, we’d eaten em too, but above all, Baldy meant the most to him. He’d fathered the whole flock, he himself was born of two of our very first chickens. I myself don’t hold a lot of sentiment for boy birds on the whole; they are so fundamentally motivated by the need to procreate that they become a nasty pain in the ass at some point in their lives. That goes for geese too. That damned gander leaves me alone cuz he thinks I’m his gal. (Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. He has tried to ‘get busy’ with me many times, but I won’t put up with that sort of behavior. I just swat him away and tell him ‘no’. I feel bad for the guy; he’s just frustrated and lonely, but I do have my limits!) I’m spared his wrath, but no one else is. The poor UPS guy always honks his arrival before daring to exit his truck. Piano students run from the goose, and the rooster too… Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the boys. But we need Baldy around if we’re to keep the flock going in the spring, and he means a lot to Elihu. So I wait around for the injured bird to make a move. Thankfully, within a few minutes he’s going at the bowl of mash and shortly after he’s drinking. Hope that helps. He sure looks bad. But he’s a fighter. I think he’ll make it. But the question then becomes, what do we do with him after he’s better?

Yeah, this throws a monkey wrench into things. Can’t return him to the coop cuz Max will lay into him again. So we need to quarantine him until the warm months return. Crap. That means one more chore on mama’s list. Gotta put the rooster in the brooding pen in the garage. Get him good and strong. Then, when spring comes, we can try him in the flock again. Either Max will have forgotten, or his cabin fever will have abated (I strongly believe that his behavior is a result of close quarters and cold weather). I consider the additional work load. I’m not thrilled with it, but I see no options. I make a note to discuss this with the kid later on.

Meanwhile, I have an appointment with the family attorney to go over mom and dad’s affairs, I have recess to monitor, an annual physical appointment with my doc, a chorus to accompany and a string bass to pick up. All these things go relatively smoothly but for the fact that I left something behind at the doctor’s office and had to return the twenty-some miles round trip to pick it up, plus Elihu admitted rather apologetically to me (as we were leaving school) that he had ‘a project on Egypt due tomorrow’. Really? I’d seen the email at the beginning of the month telling us of the project but had myself forgotten the due date. Half my bad too I guess. So then were were off to Walmart to buy some clay and paint. Also stopped in at mom’s to rehearse a couple of tunes for Friday’s open mic night at school (he has a set of congas there that grandma got him for Christmas). Still had to make dinner, clean up and begin the sculpture of Horus, which yet needed to be baked, cooled and painted. Time was escaping us, and it wasn’t until nine that Elihu was finally in bed. Not bad, really, when you consider all that we got done. I’d pushed the cooking temp up a bit, and then super-cooled the bust in the freezer. The whole thing was a bit on the sketchy side – Elihu’s own words – but hell, at least it was done.

As we lay in bed recapping our day, we came to the dilemma of the birds. I pitched the idea of butchering Max. While Elihu was an enthusiastic consumer of all the hens we’d done in, he told me that he would never consider eating Max. Ok, fair enough. A new home? Only if it was a good one – a humane one. No bird auctions, no unknown destinations. Ok. Then what? Elihu agreed that keeping the rooster apart til the weather warmed was about our only option. He agreed to share the duties, and we left it at that. I’m not looking forward to keeping up two bird camps, and I must admit that while I’ve shared some very special moments with Maximus, I’m quite a bit less thrilled with our goose at the moment. I’ve had enough bad birds in my life and I’m not keen on keeping company with yet another. But for the time being, Max is lucky. Our goose isn’t cooked quite yet.

Post Script: You can see Baldy in one of the three photos on the lower right of our home page here. This pic was taken almost two years ago. Elihu’s affection for his roo is easy to see. I can report that three days later Baldy is doing quite well – crowing loudly in our tiny kitchen, strutting and scratching in the manner of a chicken on the mend. His back end is mostly bare, and in near-zero temps we just can’t put him outside quite yet. As he is a fouler smelling fowl than any others I’ve ever had inside my house before, we’re going to move his digs to the basement this weekend. Out of sight, out of smell, but definitely not out of earshot. ! No alarm clocks needed here!

Surprise

January 3, 2014January 3, 2014 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Growing Older, Mommy Mind

This week has felt surreal, and on top of the sorrow my family’s currently working through, other little mishaps have been taking place. My toilet has broken (plastic parts and hard water do not mix), my drains have plugged up, my windows have been stuck, the doors to the coop must be coaxed to close and lastly, we had to kill Lefty Lucy after the flock tore into her mercilessly one night and left her near dead. The poor hen had recovered fairly well in the kitchen over the past week. so I returned her to her roost one night to find her covered in blood and far worse only the next morning. When I realized how the flock had treated her as a compromised bird (she retained a limp after an injury last week) I knew what had to be done. She did not face a life of any quality, so it was time to put her down. When I told my mom that I was simply keeping her comfortable until she was able to die, she remarked ‘kinda like your dad’. Yeah, I guess. So our friend neighbor Zac came over with his axe, and obliged us by chopping off her head on a nearby stump. Elihu tossed her out to the edge of the woods, and by the next morning she was gone.

Plus there’s this strange new twitch in the middle finger of my right hand. I’ve been feeling some tension – for no reason I can even figure – in my right shoulder lately, and I surmise that it’s related. Some nerve thing. Just a few months ago I’d experienced some ongoing and very annoying electrical tingling feelings in my left hand, and also a few in my left foot – but that was an easy self-diagnosis. Years ago I broke my neck – C6 and C7 (which later fused, giving me a C13!) as well as my left shoulder. I just figured time and gravity had come to roost and were now compressing on my nerves. I’d figured that being structural, the only fix would be yoga and a general improvement of my overall fitness. I went to an acupuncturist with few hopes, but after four visits the annoying electrical feeling was completely gone. Completely. And so, while it’s yet another unforeseen expense of life, I must find a way to carve something out of my budget to have a few more sessions. I have never in my life had any bad experience – or major injury – to my right side, so I can’t imagine what in hell is ultimately responsible for it. But a moment’s reflection and I needn’t look much further for reasons, because I realize that it is true: I am getting old. Well, at least older. And now a physical body of evidence is beginning to show itself. Crap. I still can’t believe I’m here. That I now know what it is to have a parent die. That I now know what it is to have aches and pains for no good reason. Crap.

Santa was good to Elihu this year, bringing him an Ergo electric bass and amp (hours logged on it already) and a couple of battling robotic spiders, but more surprisingly, Santa was good to me too, and brought me a Wii fit board (love the used game place – next-to-nothing prices for year-old products) and a Wii fit game. He musta known my health needed a little rescuing. Hopefully, in spite of a heavier work load and mom duties ongoing, I’ll be able to spend a little time with my cyber coach. I have plans to join Weight Watchers with mom, too. While it might be frustrating that I’m here again, this year I mean to do more than the Band-Aid approach to weight loss (and fitness). I’ve done the Atkins thing a few times now, and while it always works, it never feels right. I can’t help but feel it’s counter-intuitive to see an apple as an enemy. I will, however, take with me the conservative approach to eating carbohydrates. That is the beneficial ‘take-away’ from those experiences. I’m not a carb craver, so that’s not so hard for me. What I do find exceptionally challenging is simply eating less. Ich. More honestly speaking, what I find challenging is the challenge.

Now yet another challenge… I just received an email that had my body flushed with cold. I thought that I’d just been through all the extremes I could handle in losing my father this past week, but this was horrible in a new way. I hated this feeling, and what’s more, I hated that there was no good outcome from it that I could see. No relief, no ultimate fix, no happy ending. Elihu’s beloved teacher at the Waldorf School was leaving after the end of fifth grade. How many times had we thanked God to have found her? How many times had we exclaimed that she was the best thing ever to have happened to Elihu? How many times had Elihu himself told us how much he loved her, how he loved her way of teaching, of being? So many times we’ve thought how lucky we were, how amazingly lucky… This news has me wanting to cry, but I feel cried out. I feel the dull throbbing in my right shoulder and begin to feel like things are all pressing in on me. I’m almost scared, but more than that, I feel defeated. My son has been a joyful child due much in part to his teacher. How will my son remain joyful now? I know that whomever replaces her will be a gift too, I know that. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a Waldorf teacher that’s not pretty spectacular. But still. I sit with this new information for a bit. How will I tell my son? I know he’ll cry. His heart will break at this news, I just know it. I look outside at the mounds of new, white snow. It’s a gray, snow-covered morning. Beautiful, serene, unaware that all this human drama continues on…

Yesterday we removed the ornaments from the tree. It had begun to dry so terribly that many were now falling off. One ornament, the one that we’d gotten just after I learned I was pregnant (the ornament was made in Italy, and so was Elihu) had fallen to the floor, but interestingly had not broken. I heard it fall, and was rather amazed to see the delicate glass globe in the middle of the floor, intact. I had been given a second chance, now it was time to remove them before they all fell and broke. Good thing I had no time to anticipate the taking down of the tree, what with all this nostalgia and sentiment flying around these days it woulda been hard on my heart. Even so, it was a poignant afternoon yesterday as ancient and sad Christmas music played and years of memories, in the form of ornaments, were each recounted and packed away. I kept torturing myself by thinking that I’d put the tree up while dad was here, and now I was taking it down after he had died. He was here, now he’s not. This gorgeous tree was here and beautiful one day, simply gone the next. After about an hour of recorders, lutes and lots of D minor Elihu called from his room and asked if we couldn’t have something ‘less sad’. That kid always keeps me level, I swear. Time and place for everything. Yeah, I suppose you’re right kid, enough of the sad.

But now this. I was ready for the empty living room, I knew dad was going. And even the bird, I knew we’d have to do her in. But Elihu’s teacher? I had no preparation for this. I gotta keep it together, I’ve got to expect that surprise, wonderful, yet-unseen outcome. Life is full of surprises for which we can never fully prepare. I hear that Elihu’s up now. When to tell him? Fist we’ll have breakfast, tend to the chickens and fill the table feeder outside our window. Even there we have our little surprises – just a few days ago we were visited by a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker for the very first time in our five years here. So there are some good surprises to be had too. I know that. I’m ready for just about anything to happen next, I guess.

So go ahead, life, bring it on. Surprise me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Post Script: Careful what you ask for… Moments after I wrote this post, when I went out to the coop I found Lefty’s ‘twin’ sister, Righty, lying dead (identical and petite white leghorns, each had a comb that hung over on a different side, hcnce the names Righty Tighty and Lefty Loosey). Looked like she’d died recently. A victim, like her sister, of hen-pecking. She was featherless on one wing and covered in blood. When I picked her up by her legs and turned to check the boxes for eggs, goose Max started violently pecking at her. Many times I’d seen him take a bite at a bird’s back end, but it was never more than a territorial nip. This was strange and different behavior. I scolded him soundly then walked out with the dead hen. I walked her out to the edge of the woods where we’d left her sister. I kissed her cheek and told her how sorry I was. Then I left her. What a nice surprise that’ll be for a hungry fox.

When I got inside I found Elihu talking on his new IPad (left by Santa in Illinois) to his father and sister in England. Soon after he was playing his bass for her. And just now when I peeked in again, I saw Elihu explaining to her how he wove his silly bands into jewelry. Wow. Here in our little country home was an open window into another home halfway across the globe – and in real time, too. Call me old-fashioned, buy I still marvel at technology. My mind is still blown to think that my first cell phone was the size of a brick and got too hot to touch within minutes, and here my kid is chatting away without a second thought to the visual image of his dad and sister, thousands of miles away. (A bit mind-blowing too is the fact that my son has a sister his own age. Even though I’m at peace with it, and understand she’s an important part of Elihu’s family, I still can’t quite integrate that into my thinking.) Yup, surprises are everywhere.

A final Post Script: Surprise! My comments feature on this particular post has become disabled somehow, and in spite of my best efforts to reverse this, I cannot figure it out. Never happened before…

Christmas Last

December 25, 2013December 26, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Growing Older, Mommy MindLeave a comment

On a bright and sunny Christmas morning, peaceful and still in my little house, it’s difficult to imagine all that’s going on across the land at the very same moment. Living rooms are ankle-deep in wrapping paper, parents are sitting nearby, watching the chaos, relieved they pulled it off and children are awash in new toys and chocolate. Yet at the very same time hospital beds are occupied by people for whom this day is much like any other, some are just waiting, some are in pain, some are not even aware of being there. Some young women are realizing that their new baby’s birthday will be today, and some people are getting ready to watch a loved one breathe for the very last time. Yes, it’s a holiday, but everyday life does not take day off.

When I went out to tend the chickens, I discovered a hen taking cover underneath the water trough. When she tried to move, she faltered and fell. I’d seen her only just last night, on her roost and doing as fine as always. How did this happen? And what, pray tell, took place? It seemed her leg was broken, yet I couldn’t imagine how. Her back showed signs of pecking, a bare spot and a fresh scab told me that she’d somehow sunk down the pecking order and had begun to show evidence of it. Unpleasant as that was, it did not explain a broken leg. Immediately I picked her up and brought her in to the house. Likely she’d be housebound and in my care for the next week. I thought of all the folks, animal and human, whose needs continue, acute and mundane, regardless of the celebrations. My father, awaiting his death, still needed to be changed and moved in his bed, and this hen still had an injury that needed attention. I kept thinking to myself that this was a good year for Elihu to be away. Not sure how I could possibly have been present for these situations otherwise.

As I think about my son on this morning, far away and in the midst of his own magical Christmas morning, I do realize that it’s the last such Christmas that he’ll believe in Santa – already the signs have been showing over the past week – and I’m a bit sad that I’m not there for it. Yet in the end, it doesn’t really matter. While we have distinct, clearly defined holidays on our calendars, time itself is a bit fuzzy. Events stretch out over time… not believing in Santa doesn’t happen in a second, instead it’s a process. A slow calculation built upon a growing body of evidence. Likewise, a natural death does not happen all at once. It too is a process, a gradual slowing down. And while there may truly be one final breath, it in of itself is not the dying. And so I realize that I can have no regrets on this, the final Christmas that Elihu believes, and that my father lives.

All I can do is be fully present in the moments I’m given. I can take some peace in knowing that I will carry the memory of this day with me until the end of my own, and it’s in this way that I’ll make this final Christmas day last.

Party Time

December 14, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life5 Comments

Those who knew me personally ‘back in the day’ will remember The Party my ex and I held each year before Christmas. While still living at home, in my college years, I had begun to host a party each year, and so continued the tradition after I moved out and into my small apartment on the shores of Lake Michigan, in Chicago. My boyfriend moved in shortly after I did (I’d never truly lived alone until this divorce and cross-country move) and so the two of us began to host these annual parties together. By the time we closed our doors for the last time, we’d thrown twenty-one such parties. I’m slightly ashamed to admit, but I was disappointed that the dissolution of our marriage also meant that The Party would come to an end. Personally, I’d fancied very much seeing “Elizabeth and Fareed invite you to their fiftieth annual Holiday Party’ on an invitation one day, but clearly, with the time I have left here, and what with the ‘clock’ starting all over again, I will not make that milestone. I suppose I should feel lucky enough to simply have gotten back on the horse again after a six year hiatus.

It’s hard to begin a social life anew while in one’s middle forties, parenting a young child and navigating the cost of living as a newly single person. A few years down the line, it’s better, but my life in general certainly doesn’t have that cozy, familiar sense of place and of belonging than it did in the city where I lived my professional years. So to compare my situation as it is today to the one in which I lived fifteen years ago is ridiculous, I know. And yet I can’t help it… Those parties, in their heyday, were just magic. And to be frank, they were probably the most magical of all when the world was new… When we were, all one hundred or so of us, crammed into that tiny two bedroom coop in Rogers Park, crowding around the piano, singing, smokers elbowing for a spot on the balcony, me, shushing through the crowd in a killer dress, arm above my head supporting a platter of meticulously-crafted hors d’oeuvres…. The parties got larger over the years – our home got larger too – and the nights grew longer. One year the thing went for twelve hours non-stop. No kidding. Looking back, if I were to choose the years that stood out, it would be one of the first years in the apartment. Cozy, alive. And then there would be that first year in the mid-century behemoth. I have a shapshot memory from behind the piano of all my beloved friends, carol books before them – many even lining the balcony above our heads – all singing, beaming and just radiating love and happiness, the gorgeous, twenty-foot tree behind them, a crackling fire warming the room.

We were young, all at the doorsteps to creative, inspired careers. Some of us were already full-swing, many have since gone on to wonderful places. And many have, like me, settled into the next phase of their lives. The lives of parents, the lives of those with just a little bit less energy (less motivation to drive around looking for a parking space!). Lives that don’t include parties with tuxes and gowns. (I must add that the tuxedoes worn to our gathering had nothing to do with choice and everything to do with the fact that the wearers of them had just concluded a jobbing date and were on their way home from ‘work’.) These were electric gatherings, and we were young, merry and good-looking. I can’t help but feel a little pang of nostalgia in remembering. Perhaps if I’d known the end was coming it might have given me a sense of closure about the whole thing. But in that the divorce itself was a surprise, the end of The Party was also unexpected. There was no way to know that a tradition would be coming to a close. We did make it to twenty-one though, kinda like the party ‘came of age’, in a way. Anyway, that’s how I like to think of it. Helps me to close out that era in my mind.

So here I stand at the start of a new chapter. Tonite will be our second party. I still don’t dare use the word ‘annual’ on the invites, as I’m just not ready to commit yet. But if I make it to a fifth year, I just might. I still want an out if I need one. Still not even sure who it is I might expect to see – I’ve never cared for RSVPs. In my ideal world, a party should have a life of its own. I provide the opportunity, serendipity creates the magic. Or not. It looks as if we’ll have a snowstorm tonite; such a forecast can change everything. And I’d rather have people stay away than get stuck in my driveway. So we’ll see. Much up in the air. I’m also not very good at actually inviting people either, I make a quick ‘handout’, send out emails and almost always forget half the folks I’d wanted to include – suffice to say, if you live here, we’re friends and yet you haven’t received a proper invite from me – paper, email or otherwise – please don’t take it personally. I can assure you, you’re invited. My form leaves a bit to be desired these days. Ich. I’m gonna blame it on the chickens. !

Elihu is still sleeping, and I wonder if I too shouldn’t sneak back into the warmth of bed. It’s going to be a long day. Many farm chores await, as well as a last-minute cleaning of the house and general tidying. Yeah, think I will climb back in for a bit. I’m ok for now, and as ready as I’ll ever be. A moment’s more rest, a chore or two and then it’s time to get this party started…

Pianist Laurence Hobgood’s performance of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ in all twelve keys was always a highlight of our parties… here’s the link to his new CD which I highly recommend. Highly. You can still get one in time for a Christmas gift. And yes, it includes the aforementioned ‘twelve in twelve’.

Done

November 20, 2013November 20, 2013 Posted in An Ongoing Journal..., Farm Life, Mommy Mind2 Comments

Yesterday was one long day. When I awoke early, it was pitch black outside with a full moon in the western sky. The winds were so strong – and loud – that I opened the door to see if was just the wind and not a truck mistakenly roaring down my driveway. The dark, combined with the roaring winds, made me feel just a bit uneasy. A quick peek out the window showed the coop dark for the first time since the warmer months. Whether the heat bulb had burned out or the wind had somehow had a hand in it, it didn’t matter – the scene was eery. The timing, ironic. Not much freaks me out in my life these days, and I don’t fear for much, even if we do live a bit off the road. But for some reason, with the combination of darkness, violent weather, the full moon and the task at hand, I was not feeling my full confidence. But we had a date at 7:30 with the Amish farmer. On we went…

To make things even a bit more harsh, when I opened the door I noticed we’d had our first snow. Not much, but enough to cast a slight white over the frosty leaves. It was so cold, and I just wasn’t ready for it. We had work to do, and this would make it less pleasant still. I handled the boxes in thick gloves, but Elihu’s job required bare hands. His job was to vent the hens to find the non-layers. It was easy pickins; they were still on the roosting bars tucked up into fluffy breasts and resting when we entered. A couple of the new roosters insisted on crowing (very loud in such a small space) and it helped further my resolve in getting them gone. But getting Shirley Nelson? And Judson? He was named after my beloved home in Evanston. One of our first guys. And all the rest, too. Each had some story. Jessie was our very first-ever hatched chicken. Man, for me this was hard stuff. But Elihu honestly didn’t seem to feel the same. In fact, he was light hearted as he plucked the hens from the bars and checked their vents. “Nope” he said, brightly, “She’s a non-layer. Goodbye, Gabriella. Goodbye, Inca. Sorry girls. But thanks.” he handed them down to me, and I proceeded to shove them, protesting and squawking, into a box.

We took the longer but less winding road. We wanted to give them as stress-free a ride as possible. I got into the groove, and began to get myself mentally ready. About halfway through the thirty mile drive the car began to smell of fresh chicken poop, and it helped motivate me to stay the course. When we arrived at the farm, Ben was just starting up. He was in a good mood and amenable to my chat. I always had questions, and thankfully, he was happy to answer them. A lot had changed since my first visit to his place almost five years ago. I remembered the adrenaline that pumped through my system the first time. It was still a sad place, it still had me a bit on edge as I listened to the mad flapping of the protesting birds, the clack-clack-clack of their legs kicking against the metal cones as they bled out. Ich. I tried to be a professional farmer this time, I tried to keep my focus on our end goal here. I distracted myself by sharing some of our experiences with him. I laughed casually at the two of us from a few years back. I tried to act like this was nothing at all to me now. Like this stuff was natural to us, like we were now somehow peers of this man. As if. He commended us on how far we’d come, how much we’d learned. “Some folks come in here and kiss the birds one last time”, he laughed to me. “And some of em even cry.” I just shook my head with him in shared amazement. Some people…

The birds came back home in the same boxes they left in. Only this time they were in plastic bags and covered in ice. As I hauled the boxes off to the car, I was impressed with how much heavier they seemed now. Of course they were almost all in one box, and there was the ice, but nonetheless they felt different. We all know the phenomenon of living weight being easier to lift, the animal in question – whether human or not – always helps out a bit. Whether it’s in the form of a struggle or a simple willingness to be lifted, the animation of life just seems to lessen the weight. Wow. It was a lot of bird. Let’s see, if we were walking away with over fifty pounds of chicken, we should be eating for quite a few months. If I could actually eat these guys. I wasn’t still convinced. Even after all this. Yeah, I was still a little sad, and this was harder than I’d thought it would be.

Just an hour ago I made peace with cutting up and roasting our first bird. I inspected the legs and saw the few feathers that were left were dark. Cora? Choco? Missy? Forget it. Just forget it, I told myself again and again. Keep going… Although these were all old birds, and they’d probably be better made into soup, I still wanted to try and see just how tender or tough these old birds were. I went online and watched a quick tutorial on cutting up a whole chicken. I sharpened my knife. And I began. Oh boy. Some of the goop inside was still there. And so too was a tract full of tiny, undeveloped eggs. Oh dear. What to do? I googled for answers but none came. Anyway, what exactly does one google for in this case? “Lungs and bits of intestine left inside chicken, ok to bake as is?” Yeeps. Ok, keep going. I fairly mangled this poor dear. All this progress, and now it comes to a clunky halt at the hands of the chef? Julia Child would freak out if she saw what I was doing to this poor bird! I did my best, however, and decided to make up for the lack of butchering skill with a tasty rub. I created an impromptu, Pakistani-inspired mix of spices, mixed it with butter (fat always improves things, doesn’t it?) and I spread the pieces in a pan. Rubbed and smothered them as best I could, put them in the oven and hoped for the best.

To be honest, I don’t know why it should freak me out that the tiny eggs were still there. Nor that some of the intestine was still there either. Really, I love chicken liver. And I eat their eggs. And the meat, of course. It’s all the same stuff really. Most important, there’s no poop here. That’s the only real potential problem I guess. My hope is that the smell of the roasting bird will help me overcome my ambivalence about dinner. And as I sit here now and write, that scent is now filling the house. While most often it’s a welcome thing, I cannot say that I’m feeling the same tonight. If only we hadn’t named them. If only the cavity had been entirely clean. If only. But what on earth am I whining about? Half of the world eats birds like this. I’m gonna guess not every cook in every corner of the world cleans the bird as perfectly as possible. And many a grandmother has wrung the neck of her own dinner.

I’m clearly still a beginner at all of this, and I have a long way to go til this feels completely right. I know unquestionably that this is the way to go, but there’s a lot of cultural stuff to overcome. My bird might be done soon, but it’ll take me just a little bit longer.

The Hillhouse

The Journey of a Mother and Son

Category: Farm Life