If I see a photograph, usually on a calendar of a pastoral farm, freshly-painted farmhouse, gleaming and red new barns, manicured lawns and bushes, I know it is not a real farm, it is either a second home or a Vermont farm owned by a New Yorker. Real farms are beautiful to me,  but they are not pretty or pastoral. They are filled with mud, manure, pipes, old tractors and parts, barns stuffed with nails and spare parts, and more mud, manure, junk. Farmers never throw anything away, and if you are Ed Gulley, you collect many tons of old farm scraps, tools, engine parts and washers.

Yesterday, we were visiting Bejosh Farm and I was struck again by the true beauty of the real farm, a feast of industrial debris, puddles, rusting metal and curious animals.