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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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Inarcurlated Outlaw
I suppose it was bound to happen. Though I have held out hope, a superstitious confidence written on slips of tissue paper and tucked into the fissures in my heart. Now it’s caught up with me, and I see how futile my hope was. Middle of the afternoon, and my phone buzzes. Unfamiliar number, so I silenced it and went on about my business. A few minutes later I glanced at the screen. Voicemail waiting. Found a private room and listened. “This is Lacy? And um? Your dog is here at our house? Can you call me back?” So I called her back, and I got the story. Jinx had…
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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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That’s The Deal
When I arrived home this evening, something was different. Jinx wasn’t there to greet me. He is always either lying in front of the door, or sprawled in the grass, or he comes running from the back porch, and he greets me with all the I’m-so-glad-to-see-you-again joy that characterizes our daily reunions. But this evening, he was absent. He’s a rake and a rambler, and I know he sometimes strikes out for the Territories, or at least for the Baskervilles up behind the house, but by the time I had changed clothes, fed Dixee, and prepared his supper, Jinx still hadn’t appeared. And I began to be uneasy. I walked…
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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…
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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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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…