A few years ago, I would never have considered opening up my farm to visitors, to strangers as well as friends. I hid my address, my location when I good and jumped in the river of mistrust that has replaced the American sense of openness and community. I am different now, I feel differently. I have great bounty here. People often tell me they are sad that I left the first Bedlam Farm, but I am not sad, I love our new life here, I love the new farm.

We have great bounty here, sweet donkeys, wonderful dogs, an Irish border collie who puts on quite a show, there is Maria and her art, even our erupting Dahlia garden. Great bounty should be shared, not hoarded or guarded, so Maria and I held two open houses at Bedlam Farm – we drew up to 2,000 people here – and we want to do it again here, this Sunday (and September 1) from noon to four p.m.

I will be honest, being a public person, a celebrity if you will, is complex. Being a public person online is especially complex, social media promotes the idea that we can all be friends, but you can’t be friends with 20,000 people, the vast majority of whom you do not know and can never meet. Holding an Open House is way to meet some, look them in the eye, share the experience that is primarily communicated in screens. I love introducing people to donkeys, I love showing Red off, people should see what dogs like this can do, I love seeing how much Maria loves sharing her art with the people who buy it and wear it and have it in their homes and in their kitchens and on their pillows and walls.

I am opening the farm up to them, but I am also opening up myself, that is, perhaps, the real point of an open house. We have been preparing in earnest, Maria cranking out scarves and potholders to sell, me mowing, the two of us passing posters around. I’m going out to shoot a video of Red herding for those who can’t make it. In the digital age, open houses can take different forms.