December 9, 2008 – Warming, dry. Of all the messages I get, some of the most touching are from people who live on farms all over the world, and share this uncommon but very individualistic experience. I got a beautiful message yesterday from Brenda, who lives on a farm in Washington state, and wrote me that she is struck by how so often she feels the same way I do about the experience of being  on a farm. I am always trying to find a purpose for her farm, she writes. “I can only believe that having some land can only be a good thing” even in a troubled economy.
  She sensed fatigue in my writing. Winter is hard on a farm, she wrote, and she signed her note, “A Fellow Whistler In The Dark.”
  People who live on farms know the special feelings the evoke, the dramas of life with animals, the brutality of chores, the cost, the special challenges of winter. It is easier to get tired in the head than in the body. Like Brenda, I am always seeking a purpose for my farm, even as I know that I am always seeking a purpose for my life. The two are not really separable.

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 Rose is doing better, still not eating properly. Snow all melted tonight, as it warmed up. Going to the dentist in the morning.