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Eden And Cat Puke

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The Summer Wood


Sassy June pulls me from the heat of the July sun into the shade of the hardwood stands. The aged forest has grown tall, a great green canopy enshrining a clear understory that has lived wild for decades. Here the sorrels and trillium and wild gingers spread horizontally more than vertically in their efforts to gather the sparse light of that brief season of green.

Juney is mostly Husky, and it is in her nature to keep moving, keep trotting. All day if necessary. She’s given the broadest rein possible, and chooses our course, though it typically traces a sort of route that is comprised largely of our trail system. I follow along dutifully, at a quick, almost-husky pace, my eyes glued to the earth seeking my next footfall, or winding in zig-zags through saplings in pursuit of prey. Occasionally, my canine companion will hover and orbit around a rotten log or scat pile of particular interest, and I am granted the opportunity to raise my eyes.

Wild Lilies

On this occasion, on this perfect Pinnacle Day of July, Sasha and her nose have pulled me down from the crest of the hill at the trail’s entrance to the wood. Down through the little hollow that bends its way slowly to the banks of West Creek, an isolated stretch where it winds between the hardwoods and the swampy wastelands behind the hayfields. This place sees more raccoons and bears than humans or dogs, but we are equally welcome, the chortling water seems to say. As my furry friend excavated a dead beech stump, I was enraptured by the verdant glen in which we stood. The floor as far as one could see was covered with the low-growing emerald green of the forest. Above, the tops of gargantuan trees swayed and creaked in the wind, the blue sky and dappled sunlight trying to peek through the thick canopy.

Perpetual Motion

I gasped at the splendorous beauty and peacefulness of this place.
“Eden!” my voice broke the quiet of the wood, and I was nearly startled at the utterance. “Am I dead?” I asked myself (not for the first time). “This is Heaven, or we have found Eden.” Snazzly paused just a moment and looked at me, then returned to digging.
The grandeur of this simple glade was overwhelming and defies description, and I examined it closely, finding it to be the very picture of what we see when we think of that garden of perfection inhabited by Adam and Eve.

My spirits were buoyed by our walk in the Wonder Woods, which is so often the case, and upon our return to the homestead I couldn’t help but to continue thinking about how fortunate and grateful I am to live in such a place. We took to the south porch for sunset that day, and I gazed out on the lawns filled with trees and flowers and birds.
“Even an apple tree.” I observed. “This is perfect. This IS Eden.”

Evening In The Garden

I swung open the squeaky screen door and stepped into the living room.
“Well,” I continued, eyeing the white carpet, “except for the cat puke.”
Doone is an avid puker, usually after she overeats, so it’s not unusual to find these little gifts left for me.

When I returned to the porch, there sat the cat. Preening her fabulously-perfect coat and looking for affection.

“Well, Doone,” I postulated, “they didn’t write about it in their book, but if Eden was such a great place I’ll bet Adam and Eve had a cat.”

“Meow.” she replied.

Again I am at a loss when it comes to describing the beautiful sunset lawn that was my view. The long dancing shadows of trees waving in the wind, the passing flocks of cowbirds, the peach and pink and rose and salmon clouds.

Jeff’s Rest

“Yes, Doone,” I said as my feline friend ran off to kill one of my beloved hummingbirds, “I’ll bet there was cat puke in their Eden, too.”

Take care and keep in touch,

Paz

Reiteration

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Top of The Hill

Write something. You’re a writer- write. Writers write.
Even the word looks wrong, the pen feels foreign and slightly out of alignment.

There are several mistakes and cross-outs already by the fourth sentence.

This is stupid now. I’m just filling up space with ink. Exercise for my quill hand. Oh look, that familiar penmanship has returned. Good morning, Mr.Hyde.

Exercise not only for the muscle, but the brain.
Slow to the speed of the pen.
Watch the ball roll across the paper, magically depositing universally-recognizable symbols to communicate distinctly and eloquently the vaporous rambling in which I am now mired.

Okay. I haven’t “really” written for a year. More cross-outs.

I can’t tell you how many compositions I’ve begun. How I intended and wanted to write when I get to the right time and place. How good it felt to take some short laps, play nine writing song lyrics or a meaningful blog comment.

Well, whad’ya know. Turning a page in the journal. I’ve filled 29 college-ruled lines. (OK, 28 ’cause of the cross-outs) 70 square inches of dribble, writing about not knowing what to write about or doing any writing in a year.

Cross-outs again. That was a stupid line. Another 28-er.
I’m not sure- can’t quite see myself posting this particular piece to the blog. I’m in a Salinger-esque mood and slamming things together into enunciations as if I am speaking aloud and the pauses and inflection will carry me through. Ooh! I see a segue coming. Get ready.

I was walking through the pantry, my ever-whirring mind at mid-throttle.
“Tone it down a little.” I spoke aloud.
I almost startled myself with the noise. It was comical and amusing that one’s own utterance could be startling.
And but also it was like a rocket, sent from a million miles away from deep within the far reaches of my brain’s right hemisphere. It was telling me that I had overwhelmed myself with options. A have a few small responsibilities and a dozen compelling options for the application of my time otherwise. This amounts to a LOT of time, really.
Now I’m not saying “a lot of time” like “on my hands”, like implying boredom or anything. Just the opposite.

I have so many pursuits, hobbies, interests and passions that sometimes it’s difficult for me to choose one. Crazy, right? Some are easy, like stopping at the kitchen window to watch birds at the feeders and the other goings-on out there. Or a few minutes on the couch watching the woodpecker at the suet feeder on the south porch.

*************************************************************************

Several days later:

I’m writing constantly in my head. Everything I see and do on a daily basis I am describing in well-constructed sentences. I wish there was some magic machine that could record and transcribe all of these ethereal bits and pieces then print them out for my perusal at a later date. I write in my head all the time but find it difficult these days to commit to the assembly of a respectable composition. Do you want to hear the ten-thousand excuses or are you a writer (or other artist) that already knows them all? Somehow my brain tells me these hobbies and pursuits are frivolous wasting of time. There are responsibilities to be responsible for, work that needs to be worked on, chores that need to be chored. How can one stop and play when the work is not yet done?


When I was a kid, my mom would ask me to clean my room. She’d remind me several times and wait. Then one day she would sweep all of the toys and clothes and what-have-you into a pile in the middle, and upon my next arrival home would announce: “No going out to play until your room is clean.”
I suppose I’ve only compounded the problem with my hyperactive accumulation of “interests”, and my propensity to take up “pursuits” which are complicated and time-consuming like writing and painting and music. Why couldn’t I have stuck with some simpler things like tennis and crosswords? Sometimes I stand in place and turn circles like an excited three-year-old in a candy store. I’m torn in multiple directions, unable to choose because I want to do everything all the time. Then I hear mom.
“No play until your room is clean.”

I’m cyphering these things out now as I embark on “Year 2” as a man in later life, suddenly and unexpectedly single. Widowed well over a year now, the black crepes come down and it’s time to get on with the living of my life from here forward.
I’ve been running a lot in the past year from one thing to the next. Perhaps denying each the proper amount of attention. The blogs have fallen by the wayside a little, for no reason other than being overshadowed by other activities.

Writing, however, is not about making blog posts for me. It is an inexplicably enchanting siren that calls me to return to the craft of it.
Diction and grammar and dynamic components that compel the reader ever on, through the commas and the semi-colons; the dangling participles, to the very punctuation mark that signals its end, like singing along with a song until it is over. For the longest time (roughly before blogging existed) my writing consisted of journaling my own personal experiences. In a way something of a diary, yet the commitment to paper seemed to imbue relative value on the thoughts and recollections.

These journals are part of my journey, the entries within like the proceeds of the way I “spent” my time. For each day recorded we count the till and revel in our profits. Once catalogued, these pages remain as receipts, proofs-of-purchase, warranty registrations. Here are all those things we can take with us when we die, iterated in physical form.
Rewarding works, triumphs of the soul and spirit. Adventure, wonder, curiosity. Beauty, nature, the arts. Community, camaraderie, company and companionship.
Living, laughter, love.

In “Year 1” I thought I had recoiled a bit, an almost-over-corrected reaction and change in my attitude toward the World. I had for the longest time been developing an allergy to it, and my wife’s death provided a worthy excuse to extricate myself from it. It became something of an unintended sabbatical, and now I am woe to return to “civilization” from the perfect and beautiful sanctity of my mountaintop lair.

In fact, I am resistant to doing so. I’m cashing in my chips and retiring from the working world. Probably another two weeks and we’ll be ready. Now at this very cusp of my dream life, my mind and spirit are listening to those sirens, impatient for the days when I can give each of them their proper due.

It’s 17 degrees F today, March 28, ’22. With wind chill 8. Now it has risen as the wind gusts dropped to 12 miles per hour. I have decided to sit at the table- my favorite place in the world- and write. Even if I don’t come up with some Earth-shattering concept or Pulitzer-winning poem. Even if I just write words.

You’re a writer- so write.

Slainte,

Paz

Richest Man In Town

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Snowy Sunrise

A nod to Frank Capra and his Christmas masterpiece, It’s A Wonderful Life.
When a simple, joyful life becomes a yoke, then subsequently is befallen with disaster, George Bailey looks around the fixer-upper he, his wife and three children occupy, and can see only his disappointments and shortcomings and failures.
Restless and angry, he lashes out.
“Why do we live in this drafty old barn? Why do we have all these kids?”

This line became a running gag between my wife and I, surviving some impressive winters in our own “drafty old barn”, The Ark of Engleville. It’s as big and as old and indeed as drafty as that home in the movie. Each year I go about sealing cracks and stuffing holes and promising to do better next year. Still, when I lean into the kitchen window and a slight breeze arises from between the sashes, I am greeted with the wonderful aromas of the world outside this portal. The scent of the wind and snow, the smell of 115-year-old clapboard siding, hints of human inhabitance; smoke from a wood fire. It is invigorating and nostalgic and genuine all at once, and never does the thought enter in that this is not an economical window.

But this post is not about the Ark or windows. It’s not really about the movie, either. It’s about perspective. In the story of George Bailey, he feels all is lost from his perspective when things go wrong at his family business. He already lived with the sense that he had sacrificed his worldly hopes and dreams to care for the institution founded by his father and uncle. He is young in the grand scheme of things, with school-aged children at home, and many years to face of toiling away as an everyman at an everyday job.
He accuses a prominent businessman, Mr. Potter, of being “a warped, frustrated old man.”, and when things turn bad, his words are echoed back to him.
“And what are you now, but a warped, frustrated young man?”

I’ll not spoil the movie for you with too much detail, in the event you haven’t seen it. Suffice to say that after a long personal trial of himself, George realizes the greatest gifts in his life did not come from globetrotting escapades or success in business or social prominence and status symbols. He sees the true and real value in his life; having a father that took pride in his children, not his income; saving his brother from drowning when they were young boys; friends and a community that respected and revered him because of his character and kindness and generous nature; his wife, his children.

The contrast is Mr. Potter, an aging bachelor whose only “children” are the myriad business holdings he owns. He is painted as selfish and miserly, always looking to take advantage of others for his own monetary gain. Indeed, he is without a doubt the richest man in Bedford Falls, the fictional location of the tale.

The story involves a tremendous financial disaster that occurs in the family business, one the family does not have the resources to solve. George is faced with bankruptcy, and possibly a jail sentence for embezzlement. When, after the trials of the story, he puts things into perspective, he sees that his life is filled with precious and beautiful things, and is worth the living even under dire circumstances. Friends and community rally to raise the funds needed, and in the final scene, George’s brother (the one whose life he saved as a child) raises a glass to toast him. While Harry may be referring to the money raised in support of the family business, we know George is thinking about more important things for which he is supremely grateful. His brother; his wife and children; his mother; his uncle Billy; this little town with a big heart, an endless stream of friends.

“To my big brother George,” Harry proclaims, “the richest man in town.”

Here in Engleville, the sun is just setting now. The beauty of December’s snow has been melted away by the day’s rain. The wind is up, and that means I need to run around now and pull closed the heavy drapes in the parlor and at the front “coffin” doors, stuff the draft stopper tightly against the south porch door, clean the pellet stove to fire it for the night. I’m glad it’s above freezing because I have neglected to plug in the heat tape in the cellar to keep the water pump switch from freezing. I left the storm windows out for the Thanksgiving company’s benefit, and the single pane view is nice, albeit chilly.

I’m closing curtains and turning up gas heaters and asking the dog and my wife’s spirit and this ancient Ark: “Why do we live in this drafty old barn?”

A smile stretches across my face as a tear wells in my eye.

I know damn well why I live in this giant old Victorian Ark with its giant old windows and its sagging floors and crumbling foundation.

It is my mansion.

And I am the richest man in Engleville.

Take care and keep in touch.

Paz

Summer Storms

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Curious Clouds

(I realize it’s not exactly summer anywhere on the globe right now, but I submit this slightly yellowed composition for your consideration nonetheless.- Paz)

“Water in the well.” is my response to any talk of rain, particularly if the conversation drifts toward the forbidden: complaints about it. Every drop of water is sacred in my book, even when it overwhelms the flat roof of The Ark and drips into the kitchen where the old part of the house meets the new.

I threw the extension ladder up, and stood on the second-story roof, re-examining, for the thirty-sixth year, the joint and flashing in question. Last year’s spray-on rubber sealer was no match for the century-old Goliath settling on the crumbling hand-laid stone foundation. And so my labors of love continue this year, and I’ll be up there with a bucket of roof tar and a trowel. What might seem like a maintenance nightmare to some is to me one of the surest continuities in my life. This year, these continuities hug me with a certain knowing.

I’m on the way back to life now, from the dark and lengthy hiatus to the Island of Grief after my wife’s death. I’m readying to write again, blog entries that don’t feel as though they require continual reference to that event. Regular readers are well aware of this, and it didn’t seem appropriate to simply begin writing posts without addressing the subject.

I began to think of the summer’s storms, like the threatening black thunderheads I am watching now from the porch. There is a metaphor in there somewhere for this time in my life. We never complain about the rain, but it can bring with it burdens, and damage, too. Too much water is defined as a flood, and I have been brought to tears bearing witness to that kind of devastation firsthand.

If there is one certainty, it is that the storm will pass. Sometimes we’ll need to pick up a few branches torn from my precious cottonwoods, or climb the ladder to unclog the roof drain, but these things are done at a most welcome time. It is not part of the storm, but the storm itself is essential, entwined, and intrinsically a part of that time: when the storms have passed.

The air is left fresh and cool, even after an oppressively humid and hot July day. Roads and driveways and sidewalks are cleaner, the grime of the grind of the everyday washed down storm drains and drainage ditches. Trees, flowers and grasses sparkle when the clouds move away, and if you put the sun at your back and look to the opposite horizon, you may be greeted with a rainbow.

That’s where I am now. Like the aftermath of the storm, I’ve had to pick up limbs, unclog drains, and mop up the leak in the kitchen of my heart and soul. It’s not quite as simple as everything going “back to normal”, as there is now a new normal. The limbs torn from the tree will never regrow, but the tree is still alive and well, and will continue its own life as a beautiful tree, minus a few branches.

Back to the Ark. Reality raises its head as I return from my altered state. A number of projects have been let to slide, and some of them significant. I was to make more concerted effort this year at jacking and leveling the sagging floors, as the 115-year-old locust trunks that support them begin to decay and compress. These are normal things for a house of this vintage, but if neglected can become bigger problems. Just the other day I looked up from the front porch and saw daylight through the roof. Another roof with a drain issue that’s needed attention for some time, and whose demise has been hastened by industrious nesting birds.

She is always a few steps ahead of me, this old Ark, as we age together. The ambitious twenty-six-year-old that was catching her up (even getting ahead in a few places), is now a tiring sixty-two-year-old widower. The ambitions remain, but the flesh is beginning to flag. Throwing the extension ladder is not as easy as in the days when I was a cable TV technician and threw it a dozen times a day. The wood pellets seem heavier than when I installed the stove a decade ago. And I have newfound respect and admiration for several homemakers that worked full time and took care of a house and family and made it look easy. I have only myself and the dog and cat and I’m still up ’til 10 o’clock sometimes doing chores.

Still, daily I give thanks for this life, The Ark included, and its leaks and the ladder and the dog and cat. I make these observations not by way of complaint, but simply to note them. I love the old Ark and everything that goes with it. It is my rock, and that of my children and grandchildren. It is our Tara, even if some days she looks a bit post-Sherman’s March.

The front porch

When I sit on this porch and look out upon the green field and wind-swayed maples, hear Bob’s grandkids squealing down at the farm or wave to Tom as he drives to Mike’s on his four-wheeler, I am immensely grateful for this little glen, and this little life I’ve built in it. And the summer storms, and the times after. Indeed, the thousand seasons of my Earthbound days.

And these continuities that will ebb and flow, and settle like a century-old Ark.

Take care, and keep in touch.

Paz

Circles

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In some ways I’ve been directionless this year. Unmoored. I’ve carried on the day-to-day business of the Ark, and administered as Executor to my father’s estate. The dog is fed and walked and loved, the cat is fed and stroked and loved. The Ark herself has not done without special attentions in several areas. A few rearranged bits of furniture, a little more light and air in her rooms.
Increasingly, I find myself spending time with an old love. We met when I was about 13, and fell in love when I was about fifteen. We’ve had a long relationship, sometimes taking a back burner, and other times brazenly public.
Since the loss of my wife last December, I’ve spent a lot of time with an old, old friend. One who has shared many laughs and high times, and has always been there when things were down. This lifelong mistress is the magic of music. In some of my worst times, I would be known to “shut yourself up in your room all summer singing ‘boo-hoo’.”

It started, this time, with a little poem my dog Chuy had written over on his blog, chowdogzen.com. It was called Wish, and spoke of the most precious things in our lives, from a dog’s perspective. It’s no leap for a human to imagine oneself cleaving to these admonitions, as things like beauty and home and love are universal.

This song took a curious and circuitous path from concept to creation. At first it had a tempo and chorus that dragged a beautiful thing down nearly to a dirge. Then something happened, something from that magical ethereal realm of the musical mind, and an entirely different chorus composed itself. Phrases that were polar opposites of the sadness and indignant resignation of the prior iteration. It lifted me, this magical mistress of mine, and threw open the shutters, rang in the light. I have been locked in her embraces long and often, and this I offer as way of explanation for my absences.

Then Circles happened. There was a poem that, to me, was scraping the bock from the barrel of despair, so low was it. It was written in the summer of 2020, when the world had gone mad, and my wife and father were ailing. A long slow death in ordinary days. A reader interpreted it differently, and saw it as words of encouragement, to carry on, as Churchill would say.
Again, from the magic place our thoughts are forged, another chorus wrote itself. I suppose it’s no coincidence that these graces have been visited upon me at just the time I needed them. At just the time I had determined to seek them out.
Circles have been a part of my philosophy always. The cosmos itself is designed in physical circles, and life as we know it is described as a circle. I view my life as a series of concentric and overlapping rings, like raindrops falling on a pond. Each drop joins in concert with many and they sing their splashy song, and in a moment, the ring is gone.

And the Circle goes. The Circle goes.

And the circles grow, the circles grow.

And The Circle knows. The Circle knows.

A circle closes.

This is what we call a “scratchpad” version, not a polished and mastered recording. It’s a few ideas jotted down to conceptualize the song, so imagine it’s the quality of your cousin’s band playing in the garage. I’m on a manic productive binge for now, so the polish will have to wait. (This version even has the “tail” at the end where it should fade!)

Circles

I rise, unsure just why,
But here am I, awake and alive.
Breathe and step. Step again.
To where? Ahead. Beyond where I have been.

Look and see. What is there and what is not?
A past, the future. A time forgot.
Moving still. A back to break.
An iron will. Dreams to forsake.

And The Circle goes.

Sun and rain. Clouds to love.
Floods below, storms above.
Feed the machine, because we must.
Over and again until I am dust.

A sparrow lights to share my bread.
What’s mine is yours until I am dead.
A fleeting glimpse? A parting glance?
For who knows how long we shall dance?

And The circles grow.

Sun is setting. Darkness falls.
Yet light persists in hallowed halls.
Rest and sleep. To dreams awake.
A dream of dreaming for its own sake.

The new day dawns, wipe sleep from eyes.
Once again,
And who knows why,
I rise.

And The Circle knows.
A circle must close.

We’re gathering every Wednesday for Tuesday Night Music Club. (It’s a traditional name and day, but Carl plays billiards on Tuesdays). I leave you with a quote forged and written by another poet graced with the love of music, whose song Closing Time we are learning in the ensemble.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

Take care. And I mean that.

Paz

The Game Of Life

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Me and Life, we have this game we play. Timing and seasons are incorporated, but it’s not a race. There are no rules at all, really. It has goals, but no specific scores. Curiously, it is not considered a contest, and the winner enjoys winning throughout. I am the winner.

The game play takes place on a huge field. (Several fields, actually, as well as some trails and woods, a lake and a couple of ponds. And a swamp). There are few boundary markers. Mind you, the boundaries are there, and life will let you know if you cross them.

Misty Morning Walk
Ryan’s Hill
Avenue Of The Pines
Starling Sunset
Sledding Thursday Trail
Ice Off On West Creek
Doe and Fawn in the Glen
Beneath The Pines
Widowmaker Snow Devils
The Pine Stands

We have been at this a long time, so it’s impossible to describe how the game starts. No doubt it just seemed like life to me as a child and stupid young adult. In a way it’s a bit like chess, in that we each can have several campaigns unfolding simultaneously.

Some of my campaigns have been underway for a great deal of time. Some for years. Maybe some for decades. Something about this time of year that makes me pause ever-so-briefly to look at the tally. There is a sense of turning point in this season. A seventh inning stretch.

My plays involve my hearth and home, my beloved patch of green. Battling the sumacs. Cheering on the pollinator garden. Keeping open the trails, beating back the brush of summer. Basement windows are in frequent play, opening in the spring, closing before the pipes freeze. They are essential in my long-standing feud with the dampness in the hot and damp seasons, the drafty cold in the cold and drafty seasons.

The Coffin Doors
From My Window
Waiting to Walk
Off Season
It Begins
Signs Of The Season
Barn & Cottonwood At Sunrise
Kitchen Window Sunrise
To Let

I marshal a team for the season of light, rain and grass; lawn tractor, string trimmer, lopping shears and bow saw. A separate team, an offensive detail of sorts, tackles the bulkhead door, the screen door hinges, the crooked cupboard doors. The mice, the chipmunks, moles and voles that would delight in sharing our Victorian home crafted by masters. This team includes our tallest, the 28-foot ladder to reach the end zone of the roof to patch those cracks and realign the TV antenna. They fill lockers with hammers, drills, levels, screwdrivers, tin snips, glass cutters, putty knives and paint brushes, chisels and awls.

On defense, we train against the elements. Cold and snow and wind. Our captain is a four-wheel-drive plow truck, our co-captain the pellet stove. Plays include the sealing of 114-year-old windows and a foundation sill that has drifted in the five generations since those Scotsman cut and laid the toppling limestone. A squad of draftstopper chearleaders greets us at the door to the parlor, the coffin doors out front, the side door to the porch which will see the return of the bird feeders, and welcome the juncos, and say goodbye to the porch swing for a little while.

And herein lies our game. I make plans. Paint the house. Dismantle the toppled barn. Reclaim the back part of the property from the brush and weeds. On the playlist are many intentions. Replace the cracked glass in the round-top window out front. Paint the walls of the spare room. Get a load of gravel to fill and level the driveway, last treated twenty years ago. A fence to guard the corner garden, where the concrete Virgin keeps watch and welcomes visitors, to keep the dog from uprooting the hydrangeas.

In the meantime, I must keep the plates spinning on the stage as I try to dash off to these accomplishments between mowing the constantly-growing grass and feeding the dog and taking the trash and cooking on the barbecue. Somehow there is always a way to squeeze in a few days in a tent at a lake, quiet sunrises in the cabana, pulling sweet bass from the pond, hiking through the Wonder Woods with Sassy June.

Occasionally, someone will call a time out. A day spent with the boys in pursuit of white-tailed deer or turkeys. A day at daughter’s farm to help host Family Farm Day. A birthday party for dear friends. Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Max and Kacey
Merry Christmas!
Festive Table
Farmer Girl
Rabbit Hunt
So Many smells
Festive Table
Lizzy, Maddie, Max & Chuy

Then, back to the game. What wins do I count for this season? What plays remain on the board? Where did I lose a pawn or perhaps a knight? Where have I broken the lines of my opponent?

Like fencers, we pause for a moment in September, and face one another honorably and cordially. We bow to one another.

An autumn leaf falls. Frost on the window.

En garde!

Take care and keep in touch.

Paz

Oh, Deere

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Deere Girls

I love to mow, and mow a lot. This could be a conflict with my alter-ego, Pazlo the Philosopher, who would think that cutting the grass is egregious to the Earth. That may be true, but the lawn was there before I came along, and there’s a certain social pressure to keep your dwelling space from looking abandoned or condemned. So, I cave to fashion, and slash away at the defenseless grass, often with zeal. I must admit I apologize to the grass sometimes, and when Pazlo sneaks into my brain I still consider the grass’s point of view, though I don’t take my foot off the Go pedal while doing so. Technically, I guess I could quit the world and go live under a bridge, which is where my wife would send me if I didn’t mow the lawn. So mow I must.

As a new homeowner, in 1986, my first summer at the Ark, I had the vigor of a 26-year-old, and thought I could mow three acres with a push mower. I quickly came to the conclusion that my sons would need to learn to push the mower. They were home all day anyway in the summer, right? Okay, so that didn’t go so well either, maybe because the oldest was 10. I began a search for a riding mower.

By search, I mean I had to first start saving some money. (Only rich people had credit cards back then. Diner’s Club mostly. You had to put the card on a thingy that would scrape over the top and grab the card numbers on carbon paper ((google it if you need to)). That’s why some credit cards still have embossed numbers, although I bet there isn’t a cashier alive that knows where the machine is or how to use it if the internet card reader goes down. But I digress.)

After pooling some dough over the course of half a dozen paychecks, I was on a keen lookout for a used riding mower that could be had for $280. I’d go $300, but didn’t have it yet. I was lucky at the time to be a cable television technician, and therefore drove around the service area for installations and trouble calls and outages. One fine June day, I saw it. Parked on the lawn of a farm on Barnerville Road down in Howe’s Cave. A very used Cub Cadet 105.

I stopped right away, fisted the $280 dollars at the guy before asking if it ran or listening to him introduce himself. He said I didn’t need to come back next week with the $20, he’d accept $280 (which was close to two weeks’ pay at the time). We (the sons and I) ran the daylights out of that thing. It couldn’t be stopped, even when the grass was a foot tall. It was big for a riding mower. Tall, big tires, a wide mowing deck. Ah, but good things never last.

Finally, after a few years of growing up and earning money, I appropriated a tax return to go buy our first brand new riding mower. It came from the Farm And Family store, which is now a Tractor Supply Company store. If I recall, it took a whopping $599 plus tax to procure the shiny, single-cylinder, 32″- decked machine of our dreams. Life was good for a while with the little green tractor. It wasn’t the most ergonomic I’ve driven, and was an entry level mower with a manual transmission. Still it cut right along for a few years until the shifter started acting funny and sticky. One good yank and it broke right off.

By now, I’d had enough years to come to know something about such machinery. Tractors, mowers. The real difference between an entry-level Monkey Wards kinda riding mower and a mid-sized, two-cylinder garden tractor like the old 105. So this time I set out to look for a good tractor with a big deck and a hydrostatic transmission, enabling one to simply press the pedal, forward or reverse, no clutches or breaking shift levers required.

I went right to the dealer. No retail store mower for me. A place that could service and repair my machine. And deliver it, since it wouldn’t fit in the cable van. Being from farm country, there are a few names that mean real. Allis-Chalmers, Deutz-Allis, International Harvester, Case, Ford, White, McCormick, Massey-Harris and Massey-Ferguson. And between the reds, whites and blues of the competition, populating nearly every farm one passed, was the singularly green of the green John Deere. That’s what I would have. A real John Deere.

I selected the LA120. A 22 horsepower twin-cylinder engine, a 42″ wide mowing deck, a hydrostatic transmission, a manual PTO, and available attachments. I would save a little and buy the snowblower attachment, and ditch the walk-behind snowthrower.  This green and yellow beauty was delivered to my driveway, dealer-prepped, and we were off on a ten year love affair. We mowed more lawn than the Ark had known previously. Stretched the south lawn another 50 yards to the east. We made and maintained a trail system that encompassed a mile of pathways, a rifle range, and two R/C Airplane runways.

It toted around, in its little garden wagon, my own kinder garten consisting of all six grandchildren born during its tenure. It was driven (and perhaps borrowed) by one of the sons originally slated to grow into a pushmower job, as he toted his own children around the heaping pile at our annual Leaf Pile Party. It was a go cart for tween girls and teen boys, and raced about at top speed, even in the snow.

Chuy & I at the leaf pile
Have you ever seen…
Snow Machine
Go-kart
Grandchild #6
Sledding Mower
John Deere green
Lawn Taxi
Wagon Ride?
Dog and Deere on the job

Tires were flattened frequently, cavorting over old farmland, trails to the woods, fields previously tilled for corn, and places where there once stood chicken coops and sheds. I bought “Slime” inner tubes for her. These are tubes filled with a self-sealing gunk (or Slime, if you prefer). Never had a flat after that. After six or seven years of hard service, the anchor points for the spindles began to rust through on the deck. I bought a new replacement deck (something you won’t find for your Farm & Family mower). Ran that for a couple years. This machine is serviceable. Picked up blades right in the Home Depot. Deck belts, too. Ordered a replacement steering gear from GreenPartsDirect online. (Yes, we drove it so much we wore the teeth off the steering gear) One day, I went to start it and heard a snap, a decidedly metallic one, and the engine wouldn’t run. Luckily, I have my own certified small engine mechanic in son-in-law Matt. I bought two new heads and some pushrods, and Matt brought my Deere back to life!

There gets to be a tipping point between a man and his machine. Like a cowboy and his faithful steed, knowing the day will come when we can no longer gallop and rope and ride, and we each of us must go out to pasture. On a fine June Saturday, no doubt a day not dissimilar to when I first laid eyes on the old 105, I pressed the Reverse Implement Operation button to back up, and when I stepped on the Go pedal, she shut right down. I surmised it was a safety switch somewhere in the wiring harness. Maybe the one related to the RIO button, designed to help prevent you from backing over rocks and dogs and children and the like. Well, after a good cry, I realized Old Green had reached the end of her trail. She’d worked tirelessly, long and hard hours, for about every member of our family. I think her clock was approaching 800 hours.

I purchased a new lawn tractor the next week. I called Mr. Jackson, the Mower Man, who also drove the school bus for my children, and subsequently grandchildren that would board the bus at Mam & Pop’s house. I had, “on the lawn”, also Ryan’s old White rider whose wiring was fried, and a little red Craftsman riding mower I had purchased used to cover for the Deere while Matt rebuilt the engine. Would Mr. Jackson be interested in my mower collection, Ryan asked him a few weeks ago. Why yes, of course, he said, and made his way to the ranch with his own son to load up. I wasn’t there when he did so, and when next I arrived home I saw the White and Craftsman gone, but Old Green still sat, looking forlornly toward her former home, the cabana, and wondering about the shiny new machine under the cover.

The next Saturday, Mr. Jackson pulled into the driveway. He had to come back and ask. Ryan had said “Dad wants all those old mowers gone.”, but Mr. Jackson needed to hear it from me for himself; did I really mean the John Deere, too? Yes, I replied, wiping a tear on my sleeve, pretending a gnat had flown into my eye. He insisted on giving me something for it. No, no, I declined, I appreciate your clearing them away for me. Well, I like to feel I gave something, he repeated, looking at Old Green, and I could hear the undertone, “for Heaven’s sake man, are you in your right mind? It’s a John Deere!” Okay, I said, for his peace of mind, and grudgingly pocketed what strangely felt like thirty pieces of silver. I watched as they loaded her on the truck. I watched from the seat of my new mower as I returned to my lawn work, I watched long and fixedly, and spoke to her under my breath, a bon voyage.

In a couple of days, as I drove down Chestnut street, a familiar bright green machine called out to me from Mr. Jackson’s lawn. Probably an easy fix, I thought, just a switch. For a moment I was tempted, now that she was up and running again, to stop in and buy her back. I resisted the temptation, repeating my mantra about getting older and not leaving a whole pile of junk for your children to clean up when you die. I would not be tormented long. As you might guess, that green machine was gone in two days. I can feel good about part of the saga. I can hope some poor young guy who took on too much lawn but didn’t have too much money went driving down the road one fine June day, and saw her. A real John Deere. And I can hope, and will choose to believe, that Mr. Jackson put a price on it of $280.

Into The Sunset

 

Take care and keep in touch,

Paz

Earth Life

3 Replies

I’m talking to YOU!

“Rome was not built in a day.” they say.

“All in a day’s work.”

“An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

We’re talking to you, too.

“Tomorrow is another day.”

“Let’s call it a day.”

Enter Scarlett O’Hara, Margaret Mitchell’s beautiful, selfish, mesmerizing heroine of Gone With The Wind.
“Fiddle dee dee.” Scarlett says, “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

Hello?

“The Day The Earth Stood Still”

“Day Of The Jackal”

“Dog Day Afternoon”

What does a day mean to you?

I’m talking to you, as well.

Do you wait for one day each year to eat?

We’re asking YOU.

Do you take only one day each year to sleep?

I’m just listening.

Do you take care of your home just once each year? Make the beds, clean the windows, rake the lawn and then what? You’re done for another year?

Every day is critical to me.

Every day counts for us.

We embrace the Earth every day.

We’re talking to you, too.

It’s our Earth, too.

I’m trying hard to think of something special, something extra to do for Earth Day.
It seems everything I think of are the things I do every day.
For water, for air, for birds, for animals, for terra firma.
She is my mother, and I love her every day.
Not more on better days and less on lesser days.
I don’t live Earth Day or even Earth Year.

For me, for mother, I live an Earth Life.

Down here. We’re talking to you, too.

We’re in this together.

Trees and water calling, too.

We all share the same planet.

Don’t forget us.

A big thanks from me!

 

Love always,

Paz, Sasha, and Mother Earth

Built To Last

2 Replies

South Lawn And Barn

March and April are the best time to shop for a home. You really get to see it at it’s worst. By summer all the winter’s mess has been raked, flowers are growing, Hostas skirt foundations. The mud room is swept, the gentle breeze wafts through window screens, and the paint on the porches may have seen a touch-up. September is the worst time to shop for a house, because you’re already inebriated with fall and everything looks prettier. Not to mention the present owners have had all season to spit-shine the place. By October, trees are starting to get bare and you remember to think about things like heat and drafts, and sellers may be anxious to escape before the onset of winter.

I first saw The Ark in July or August. We closed on September 11th, before it meant anything else, in 1985. Jake was a farmer. His wife Joanna had passed and it was down to him and the turkeys. It was a big house, and an old one. I was twenty-six, and optimistic as well as capable and ambitious. It was a tough winter, and we lived paycheck-to-paycheck, sometimes buying five gallon cans of kerosene to keep the furnace on ’til payday. Between seasons, heating with those catalytic kerosene heaters that were really popular then.

So, the first spring in The Ark was as welcome as the surprise daffodils on the south side. Who knew they were there? Shortly after, the lilacs bloomed. When I say the lilacs bloomed, you must imagine hundred-year-old lilacs, lining the road frontage and growing in great hedges around the shed. Fifteen feet tall, full and lush with flowers that perfumed the whole yard. Only the peonies of June would out-smell them.

I didn’t know the water table was about a foot higher than the cellar floor. I didn’t know much about wet cellars, as my parents’ house was dry as a bone. What a shock to discover the water so deep it flooded the burner for the boiler and the water heater was submerged by a foot. I was broke, and still weaning from my folks, so I drove up to their house and grabbed the sump pump my dad had in the basement. Not entirely sure why, as there was never as much as a drop of water in the basement of that house. I grabbed the pump and flew home, stuck a pool hose out through the basement window, and began the 34-year battle with the water.

I’ll tell you a story about how things were made in the old days. I may sound like an old man talking about bygone times, but then I’m an old man talking about bygone times. I ran my dad’s pump for a couple of years until one spring when I spent some of the tax return money and bought my first, very own, brand new sump pump. It even had a float so we didn’t have to flip the cellar light switch to turn it on and off, as was the case hitherto. I chucked dad’s pump on the cellar shelf.

Within two years, the pump made some funny noises but wouldn’t move any water. I pulled it up out of the cellar and dismantled the bottom part and found where it was plugged up and jammed with sediment. Cleaned that out and put it back to work for another year. One day, I opened the cellar door to check, and there was a foot of water down there, flooding over the bottom step of the wooden stairs that led from the pantry. The pump had failed. All the tinkering could not make it come back to life, and so I threw my dad’s pump into the sump, crossed my fingers, and plugged it in.

Vzzzzzz- Whoosh! That pump came on sounding like it was brand new, and it cleared hundreds of gallons out of the cellar in a matter of hours. I cobbled together a float switch and ran the pump’s power through it so we didn’t need to control the pump with the light switch. I suppose I should try again for a modern update before this ancient pump fails. Let’s see, my dad already had the pump, and had lived in Broadalbin for twenty years or so. Let’s guess it was ten years old when I “borrowed” it. Now add the 34 years I’ve been at the Ark, and we can guess this pump must be 45 years old or more. Maybe I should wait ’til it dies, if ever.

I ran the pellet stove for about eight years, during which I replaced a couple of components. Routine failures one might expect. An igniter (or two), the room blower fan, which failed around the five-year mark. Inside a pellet stove is a nasty environment for electronics and motors. High temperatures and a lot of dust. Clingy acidic dust. So at the beginning of year eight I did one of those decidedly-unlike-me things, and I replaced the working convection blower with a new one as a form of anticipatory maintenance. Year nine I fired it up, and within a few weeks, the one-year-old combustion blower failed. It would not surprise you, I’m sure, to hear I cleaned up and stowed the “old” working combustion blower as a backup. It’s still running.

There was a time when people wanted to build things that last. Like L.L.Bean and his original guaranteed-for-life policy. Even that has changed. Like Craftsman tools which were guaranteed for life. I had a Craftsman router fail (a long, long time ago), and when presented at the store it was summarily replaced with a brand new one. Now Craftsman is just another brand, sold at Home Depot.

The Town Of Sharon has a few snowplows. We still have the big Oshgosh plows. I don’t think Oshgosh is in business any more. But their trucks are still going. Still plowing Engleville Road each winter. Some things were built to last.

Oshgosh B’gosh

The Oshgosh #13V is from 1959. So am I.
I guess I was built to last, too.

 

Take care and keep in touch,

Paz

Fire On The Mountain

2 Replies

Fire Ring

In his song “The Devil went down to Georgia”, Charlie Daniels’ hero Johnny plays the fiddle on a wager, his soul for gold. He plays a medley of folk songs, and begins thusly:

“Fire on the mountain!
Run boys! Run!”

The folk song referenced is nested in bygone days, a different time. It doesn’t sing “Call the fire department!”, nor “Dial 911!”. It comes from a time when there was no 911. Here on this mountain, there was no fire department. If there were, telephones do not yet exist, or perhaps have not reached the hills and hollows of sparsely populated rural areas.

It evokes a vision of mother or grandfather, one hand on a porch post, looking across the valley. Smoke is rising, not from a forest or a glen, but from John and Mary’s, or perhaps the Widow Bouck’s. The conflagration is not anonymous. We can imagine Mary’s face buried in her hands, or thankful that the winds are not blowing toward their home. We can see John, the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, face and hands blackened with soot as he beats back the burning bushes to protect his family, his farm, and every irreplaceable thing he has, no one to turn to or call on for help.

The boys arrive, perhaps on foot, perhaps on horseback, perhaps brimming from the bed of a truck we know from episodes of The Waltons, from The Grapes of Wrath.  They are farmers and millhands and pastors and barbers. By twos and threes they race without orders into the fray, disregarding their own safety. With shovels and picks, axes and hoes, these ordinary men confront the beast, shoulder to shoulder. Through the night the battle rages, and at dawn they will kneel together. They will give thanks for all that was saved, or will share tears for their losses.

In the world of 2020, the majority of people live in densely populated communities. Cities and sprawling suburbs and housing developments. Most benefit from full-time, fully-equipped, fully-trained fire departments, whose heroes are no less brave or appreciated than Johnny and his neighbor boys.

According to the 2000 Census, and I doubt it has changed much, the population of the Village of Sharon Springs stood at 547 persons. I live about three miles from the village line, in the larger tract called the Town of Sharon. It is comprised of about 1,900 people, which includes the village populace. When I moved here in 1985, we had a constable. He drove around in an older Plymouth with a big, round gumball machine-looking light on the roof. Once Phil reached retirement age, the position of the constable was dispensed with. The well-equipped county Sheriff’s department would cover the village in his stead.

Our fire department and ambulance squad are all volunteers. So it is for all of our surrounding communities. One would need to drive about fifty miles before reaching a community with paid firefighters and EMT’s. In this past year, my grandson Max began his training to join the Canajoharie Volunteer Fire Department. My sister’s parents-in-law were both on the Greater Amsterdam Volunteer Ambulance Corps. My dear late friend Jim Bixby was a Lieutenant in the Middelburgh Volunteer Fire Department. He was honored, as was my daughter’s father-in-law, with a “Final Call” via radio dispatcher, at their funerals.

We had a blow-down last week at the ranch. A twenty-foot, twelve hundred pound chunk of Sugar Maple #1 along the road frontage fell across the end of our driveway. Already a miracle, it didn’t fall six feet to the west and end up blocking the road, nor did it blow over due east, the predominant wind, which would have placed its top somewhere around the second shelf of my grandmother’s curved-glass china closet in the parlor. As luck would have it, I was only three miles away, just over the village line, when my wife called me home. Unable to use my own driveway, I parked across the road at Tom & Lynn’s. Before I got across the road, Lynn was out the door calling to me.

“Tom and Matt will be here in a few minutes. They’re setting up for Paul’s funeral.”

“That’s okay,” I replied, “I’ll just hook onto it with the truck and drag it out of the way.”

I didn’t need to inconvenience Tom or their son Matt, who were doing some of the behind-the-scenes things done for funeral services. They had just enough time to come home and change in order to attend the services for the friend and neighbor.

I went into the house to don coveralls, and before I made it back to the end of the driveway, I heard Matt firing up the chainsaw, his father advising him as to the best approach for cutting the huge obstacle. We worked together, and in less than ten minutes had chunked up and removed the fallen trunk, and cleared the driveway. Handshakes and thank-yous, and they were off to get dressed. Neighbors are such a blessing.

Lester plowed my driveway until one year, at the worst of times, his plow truck broke down, and he found himself in no position to repair or replace it. Without inquiry, another neighbor, Mike, began to plow my driveway for me, refusing all offers of compensation. This year I have my own plow truck, and have had occasion in the last two storms to cross the road and plow yet another neighbor’s driveway. Betsy lives alone and is no shrinking violet. If necessary, she would clear her driveway with a shovel. It will not be necessary as long as I am “Lester of the watch”.

It must be nigh on twenty years now since we had the chimney fire. I have no head for time and find memorization of dates and years tedious. But I remember that like yesterday. Weren’t we lucky to be standing in the kitchen when we heard the rush of the draft turn to a grumbling roar, a gut wrenching and unmistakable sound. Barking orders I commanded my wife to grab the two girls, go get in the van and drive it across the road to Tom & Lynn’s. Here they would be safe. Now I called the Schoharie Fire line, there was no 911 yet.

“O’Connor’s, Box 66A, Engleville Road,” I related the data, followed by the reassurance “They all know where I live.” It seemed I had just hung up the phone and grabbed the fire extinguisher, mere seconds later, Tony (the Sheriff) pulled into my driveway, followed closely by Lester (yes, the same Lester). Then Ray, who delivered our heating oil when we had a furnace. Then Scott, the plumber son of plumber Ruben, whose family built their modest fortune maintaining the famous bath houses of the village. One after another familiar faces arrived, threw a ladder, advised one another on the safest approach, tossed a chain down into a chimney inferno from which flames were shooting fifteen feet into the air. They knocked down the creosote, eliminating the fuel, it’s flakes ironically smothering the fires at the base of the chimney liner.

They laughed with one another as they stowed their gear, called me by name as they bade good night, drove home as if it were just another day. An hour ago I was facing the utter destruction of my home, and in minutes these ordinary heroes saved it all without a drop of water.

 

Blue Light Flashing

The rising wail of the whistle is heard three miles hence,

It quickens one’s pulse,

fills the hills and valleys, an echoing plea,

“Help!” it’s crescendo cries “Help!”.

 

Leaving us to wonder and worry for whom the alarm is raised. 

 

In an instant we see them.

Family sedans, compact cars, and pickup trucks from the farm hasten past,

Blue Light Flashing.

 

We see neighbors racing headlong into danger without thought

Of reward or return, offering up their own safety,

To help neighbors in the grip of calamity.

 

With great gratitude for one and solemn sympathy for the other,

We pray for both.

 

 

Bless you, all you boys (and now girls, too!) who respond to the call: “Fire on the mountain!”

Take care and keep in touch,

 

Paz