Photographs
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Wondertimes
I wish I knew what was going on. We maintain several bird feeders on the farm, stocked with black oil sunflower seed. In the past week, I’ve noticed that the bird activity has dropped almost to zero. The hummingbirds are busier than ever, draining their feeders at a faster rate than usual. But the regular bird feeders have been deserted. One almost expects to see a swinging saloon door creaking in the wind while tumbleweeds bounce down the road in front of them. This is very unusual, as I can hear the cardinals and wrens and titmice and all the other songbirds calling from the trees ringing our farm. But…
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I, Too
I didn’t intend on staying away from this blog for so long. And I can’t really give words to why I have been silent. Oh, there are things I could say, reasons I could offer. But even while turning these things over in my hands, letting the honest sun glance across them, I see that they are inadequate. Deeply personal things are never expressed adequately, not ever, not to anyone. Laura Wood is a powerful, perceptive writer. I read her blog because she writes of beauty, of sanctity, of things lost, of hearts betrayed. I read her most of all because she understands suffering. Laura Wood carries suffering with her…
- Books, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
Days and Days
The year has rolled back to the time when spider webs are more prominent in the mornings, especially with the dew hanging on the sturdy strands. This morning I saw one suspended beneath the maple in the back yard, the sun just starting to glance off the night’s architectural marvel. So much work. To be undone in so short a time. Such is the way of this world full of beautiful tragedy and melancholy art and small, fragile creatures with their arduous work and deceptive power. Speaking of the small creatures of the earth, Mrs. Orr told me something delightful last night. “Do you know what a group of ladybugs…
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Fright And Grief
When I arrived home tonight, Mrs. Orr was cooking up a feast of salmon patties, new potatoes, green beans and a cucumber & tomato salad. We ate, and then Jinx and I went out for our evening stroll. A couple of years ago, one of my readers helped me identify a type of milkweed I’d never seen before. That same strain of milkweed is everywhere this year. As Jinx and I walked, I counted more than eighty of the plants along a twenty yard stretch of our road. The butterflies will be well pleased. Back at the house, I decided to set all of my wife’s pot flowers (as in…
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Enmity Between
The first day of summer yesterday, and it felt like it. A heavy miasma of humidity hung over these mountains for the past four days, perhaps to be broken up tonight by the rain falling just now. The temperatures are supposed to be milder today, and perhaps the creatures of the land will calm down and be less restive. I celebrated Father’s Day by being snakebit. The dogs were at the side of the house, barking at something and giving it Hail Columbia when my wife went to investigate. She returned with the news that a snake was under one of the blueberry bushes. When I reached the scene, I…
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For A Taste
Jinx and I were on the road this morning as the world came alive to the day. I awoke with a gimpy knee for some unknown reason, so I walked slowly behind the dog as he scoured the fields for his meat & drink: delight in all things. I prayed a bit while scanning the horizon. Do you hear me, Sky-decker? Bird-painter? Are you aware of my thoughts, of my misgivings? And I watched Jinx as he loped down the hill and crossed the road in front of me, tail hooked over his back, grinning like a car salesman. He was not fretting about some slight he’d suffered at the…
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A World Diminished
It sits just off the highway a few miles from the turnoff to our farm, a squat, unremarkable building in the middle of a blacktopped lot, two gas pumps out front. Two donkeys live in a corral adjacent to the building, and customers sometimes saunter over and offer treats to the pair. It’s the Market, and for almost four decades, Danny owned and ran the place. Danny’s market was one of the first places we patronized when we bought our place years ago. From the get-go, he was a genial shopkeeper, helpful and gregarious. In addition to groceries, cigarettes, beer and whatnot, the market stocks a large variety of useful…
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Down In The Dirt
Saturday was supposed to be a home day, a day of chores and catching up on rest and spending time with Mrs. Orr and sporting with Jinx. But a small possum made shreds of my plans and I had to spend much of the day undoing his damage, along with trips to town to obtain the needed materials for the repair job. So the hours unspooled and we found ourselves in stores and we found ourselves in a restaurant, and we found ourselves watching people and wincing at what they wore, how they spoke, how they acted. We were relieved when we found ourselves back on our road, greeted at…
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Home Again, Home Again
It’s difficult to believe that just a day ago, we were in Texas. We arose very early in the hot darkness and pointed ourselves northeast. I started to say that we arose at zero-dark-thirty, but Hollywood has ruined yet another Marine Corps/military/masculine phrase by poaching it and using it as the title of one of its predictable, degenerate flicks some years ago. They did the same with neat phrases like “Whisky Tango Foxtrot” and will likely continue doing this until the men who once used such phrases as a brotherly jargon will never again speak them aloud. But I am writing of Texas, not Hollywood. By the time we reached…
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Mothers Day
The rhythms of our life together are easy and harmonious. For more than a week, my wife and I have moved in a steady cadence of digging, planting, sowing, watering, trimming, taming. We are tired but pleased with the overall effect. This year, being outside together has become a series of luminous hours, hours in which we are as rooted to our little soil & rock tasks as surely as if we were branched and barked and leafed ourselves. Over the weekend, what time we didn’t spend gardening was spent on the back porch, where we took our meals, rested, and watched the cascade of different varieties of birds as…