Month: August 2015

The big old pine tree feel right on top of the private and quiet corner Maria and I built between the garden and the pasture. We planted a garden and shrubs so that our corner could be private, the tree gave us shade and blocked the view from the road. It was quite and beautiful back there, we could look out over the pasture and watch the sunlight come and go. Usually, there was a donkey or a sheep or pony grazing right nearby, the trees blocked out the noise from the road.

I loved to sit in that chair in the evening, put headphones into my I phone and listen to music. I bought the chair nine years ago in Hebron, just down the road from the first Bedlam Farm, a retired marine sergeant named Don Coldwell makes wonderful Adirondack chairs, he befriended me when I moved into my farm there, but we lost touch and I had not really seen him since then.

Maria and I often sat together out in that quiet corner, Flo usually climbs into my lap, Red lies down behind me, the donkeys and Chloe come sniffing around by the fence,  hoping for treats or attention.  I meditated there, and sat out in that chair when I was anxious or sad. I brooded a bit in that chair, looking back on the mistakes and wrong turns in my life, and I felt good there, I felt close to nature. The meaning of life, I often thought there, is whatever it is you wish it to be.

And in that corner is where I did some of my best reflecting on the meaning of life.

Being alive is the point, it is the meaning of life.

I’m not sure how it works, but it seems ironic to be that our quiet little meditation corner was destroyed by a big old pine tree, the tree was probably planted before the civil war. It’s time had come, and it was discreet. It wrecked our chairs and our private space but it spared everything else. I feel things happen for a reason, generally, but I’m not sure what the message is. It’s something I would have considered sitting out in the meditation chair.

The chair looks to be a wreck, and I’m  not sure we will use that corner again as a quiet and reflective space. There is no shade there now, and little privacy. It’s a small thing in the scheme of bigger things, but I’m not sure I will be able to see it as quiet place again.

We have come to love the barn swallows, they live in the barn rafters, make nests and give birth there. When there are babies in the nest, the mothers dive at us, and swoop down close to our eyes, they are trying to distract us and lure us away from their babies. We have five babies in a next in the barn, and they have taken over this wooden perch in the wall, it was probably put there for them.

The baby swallows appeared up there a couple of days ago, and they are beginning to fly in and around the barn. In a couple of days,they will be gone. They are welcome guests, mother had a fit when I approached with the camera, I thought she was going to fly into the lens.

Today is the pub date of the paperback version of “Saving Simon: How A Rescue Donkey Taught Me The Meaning Of Compassion,” it is available everywhere books are sold. There is a special way to get this  (very inexpensive) story if you’d like. I will sign and personalize any copy of the book purchased through Battenkill Books, my local bookstore and a wonderful bookstore. They sold more than 1,000 copies of the Simon hardcover.

You can read Simon’s story, have the book personalized. Battenkill will ship it anywhere in the country. They take Paypal and major credit cards. You can call the store at 518 677-2515 or visit their website. Battenkill Books is an independent bookstore owned and operated by my friend Connie Brooks.

She has several cartons of “Saving Simon,” and anyone who orders the book from her will get a signed (by me) postcard of Simon. You can get the books quickly.

Connie has weathered the last few years of publishing upheaval, she is much loved and doing well. You can support my work and the idea of the independent bookstore, they must not all disappear under the corporate onslaught, bookstores are precious, our communities would be barren without them. If you are considering buying the paperback version of Simon, please consider getting it from Battenkill. Red and I have our own signing pens there.

“Saving Simon” is the story of our beloved  donkey Simon, taken off an upstate New York farm by the police. He was found nearly dead and almost starved. He recovered from his many ailments, came to live with Maria and I and taught me much about the nature of compassion. (I will be talking about this book also on Thursday, when I speak at the Dessert Social Night to benefit the Dover, Vt., Public Library, at the Dover Town Hall, 7-9 p.m.)

The book was essentially abandoned by my publisher after I switched to a different publisher, but in Simon’s honor, we organized our own book tour all around the country and it was a wonderful experience for me and Maria. Simon had a great will to live, his story is very special to me. He died last October, shortly after the book came out, he is buried on the farm.

If you are considering buying the paperback, think about getting it from Battenkill, might make an early Christmas gift to store away, that happens in other years. You will get a signed book and a neat postcard. i will be happy to sign and personalize it for you. And you can help support a wonderful independent bookstore, and the future of individuality in America. Sometimes I think we will end up with one single giant corporation that will control everything. Don’t let it happen. And many thanks.

You can also e-mail the store: [email protected]

A landmark for Fate, she brought the sheep out to the rear pasture all by herself – Red sat back in the outer pasture watching,  she stayed with them and also with Maria and Chloe, who joined the parade. The sheep are getting easier with Fate, respecting her more, she is not timid around them, but not as assertive as she needs to be to get them moving when she wants them to.

Today, for the first time, she moved them a good distance, kept them together, kept an eye on them. Her instincts are really showing, really maturing.

Life happens to everyone, a bit happened to us yesterday. The thing that worried me the most was the pasture  fence, I assumed when the tree fell, the fence would have been destroyed. The animals would be in jeopardy of getting out and running into the road, the fence might have to be repaired, and that could be expensive. I was surprised when I got closer to see that the large pine tree, many years old, had fallen squarely on the top of a fence post, the post is holding it up, it seems to have saved the fence. It is hard for me to figure the odds of the tree falling so evenly on the post.