Almost every day, someone e-mails me asking if I might consider publishing a Bedlam Farm  Calendar using my photos. I’ve learned that people are quick to suggest things like calendars and notecards, slower to buy them, so I’m wary.

I don’t want to be in the card or stationery  business, but lately, the idea has grown on me.

It hit me this morning – once I checked the online printing options for high-quality glossy calendars – that there is a way to do it that captures the spirit of our enterprise here and is of high quality.

It would be especially meaningful for me, for Maria too, I think, if we did it together, if  each of us contributed six or seven photos to the calendar and published it jointly.

It wouldn’t be my Bedlam Farm 2019 Calendar, it would be ours. The Bedlam Farm. Calendar. Each of us would choose our half of the photos, we both are drawn to colorful, affirmative and evocative pictures, as befitting a calendar up on a wall or sitting on a desk for a year.

I think to do it well, we would have to sell it for at least $15 but I’d leave that decision to Maria, she knows the online printing world better than I do.

In the years since we got married, Maria has steadily evolved from an artist to an artist, writer, photographer, videographer.

Between us, we capture different elements of the Bedlam Farm idea. It seems we are both visual artists as well as writers. I am proud of my photos and am happy people want them, or at least think they want them.

Maria and I both feel strongly that the calendar should be published on high-quality paper that captures the feeling and detail of our photographs. I choose one photo already, the above photo of Gus. I’d also include one of my best selling photographs, the limited edition Blue Heron.

I think the farm landscapes, animal portraits and  pasture scenes would be the ones I would look for, I can’t speak for Maria.

So that’s the idea. We’re going to finally decide tomorrow if we wish to do this and if it’s practical to do this. If so, we’ll put it together in time for 2019.

If we did this, some portion of the proceeds would go to the Mansion/Refugee Fund, to help the Mansion residents and the refugee students I am working to try to get full scholarships for in the best schools in the area.