Photographs
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May’s First Week
I took advantage of the mild, warm weather on Saturday and tackled a project I’ve long been delaying…cleaning out the small barn. I figured I’d get it done during the morning, and then use the afternoon to clean out and organize the old goat shed so I could use it as a firewood shed. Ah, the best-laid plans. The small barn took all day, and I have been paying for it ever since. While I slept the last two nights, some imp from below snuck into our home and poured ground glass into the base of my spine, along my shoulders, into the soles of my feet, and behind my…
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Aged Curl
When Jinx and I finally left the house this morning, the rain was draped across the mountains in an undulating line, gray and sweet, the droplets magnifying the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine and violet. I wore hat and boots and coat. Jinx wore his blue collar. We made it to the end of the driveway, and then Jinx saw him. Methuselah has roamed this farm since before we arrived. The first year we were here, I saw him hanging upside-down from one of the bird feeders, trying to gnaw his way through the metal into the sunflower seeds. I lifted my BB gun and popped off a shot in…
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Dogwood Winter
The sunny, balmy weather of the past week has yielded to a cold rain with the threat of some snow mixed in today, and freezing temperatures for the next two nights. This means I will be draping old bedsheets and towels across Mrs. Orr’s flowers in the front garden, and bringing in the basketed ones hanging on the front and back porches. Our dogwoods have finally come into their full strength, which makes this cold snap the Dogwood Winter. The blackberry canes surrounding our farm have started to bud a bit, and the next cold snap should be right about the time they bloom out. That will be Blackberry Winter,…
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Audience Participation
I discovered the wildflower pictured above in our woods near Bonnie’s grave. The leaves are purplish, which doesn’t really come through in the photo I took. The flowers are white and the stamen is very pale yellow, almost beige, five petals per flower. I’ve combed my wildflower books and scoured the internet and still haven’t been able to determine what this plant is. If anyone could help, I would be indebted. Many thanks in advance. ~ S.K. Orr
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Third Sunday in Easter
On certain days, when the sun lifts into the sky, the first rays travel across to the copse of trees across the road from our house, where they light on the center of the trees and ignite them in morning splendor. Yesterday, I happened to look outside just as this happened and was able to get a picture of it. The picture of course does not capture the deep beauty of the true moment, but it does communicate a certain surface element of the beauty. Sometimes when I scuff along the graveled lanes that twist around our farm, I feel blind to what is around me, so intent am I…
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You Cannot Be Sirius…
When I was a boy, the space program was in full vigor, and I was wild about NASA and the astronauts and the magnificent crafts in which they flew through the black heavens. I was particularly intrigued by how the astronauts were strapped into their capsules. For takeoff, they were on their backs, looking directly up to the sky above, so that after liftoff, they would be facing the mysterious and star-clogged skies into which they were rocketing. This morning it all came back to me. It’s not uncommon for Mrs. Orr and/or me to fall asleep in our recliners, and when this happens, we stay put until morning. Last…
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Farm Life
For the past week, we’ve enjoyed some of the most glorious weather I can recall. Crisp lows in the 40s at night, yielding to low 70s during the day, as dry as Peter O’Toole’s wit and as gorgeous as a granddaughter’s eyes. We made the most of the weekend. Jinx and I took several walks each day, and he roamed farther and freer that usual, stopping to look back at me just as he would disappear over a ridge or down into a hollow. He wore himself slap-dab out every day and slept like a pharaoh each night Mrs. Orr and I ventured down to a nearby city to visit…
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Easter Monday
Reading this morning in Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God, I felt as if the old monk were aiming some of his words directly at me across the centuries. In his eighth letter, he tells the person to whom he’s writing: I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer; many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wandering… And in his ninth letter, discussing a mutual acquaintance, he tells his correspondent: She seems to me full of good will, but she would go faster than grace. One does not become holy all at once. … These two subjects, verbosity in prayer…
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He Is Risen Indeed
I slipped into sleep last night watching the fire-patterns in the stove, methodically releasing my hold on old hurts and old grudges that had been bedeviling me all evening. Reading earlier in the afternoon in Holy Week: The Complete Offices in Latin and English, I had latched onto a section from the Second Nocturne in Holy Saturday, a selection from Psalm 26: I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord. How often are men exhorted in this day and age to “do manfully?” The rarity…
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Holy Saturday, Night
We walked together, Jinx and I. At dawn and in the warmth of the day and at its close. We marveled at the same colors and listened to the same songs. And now we are with Mrs. Orr and Dixee, all of us in the same room, a fire’s flames curling up behind the stove’s glass on the night of the day known as 4-3-21. A countdown day. The dogwoods will not blossom tomorrow after all. Perhaps later in the week. The buds are larger and fuller, but they are not ready for Easter. They have their own timetable, they listen to their own music, singing in the sap that…