Our farm is a beautiful place, sometimes my photographs suggest – like this one – that it is remote and far from civilization.  It is a private place, in that we have no neighbors who are right on top of us. But it is only a few miles from town, and on a busy road.

The farm has the curious feeling of being isolated, yet very close to and connected to community. I love the empty loneliness of this photo, the sheep seem far away, Lulu is making what seems to be a lonely trek out to join them and graze.

Loneliness is one dimension of life on a farm. Perhaps because it is the eve of a holiday, the farm feels very quiet, and the Internet is still. I haven’t gotten an e-mail or  message since mid-afternoon, that is very unusual, the world feels very still.

I am loving the quiet and sense of solitude. We skipped calling Bingo tonight at the Mansion. We both need quiet. I’ve been listening to Lizzo the rapper and her new album “Cuz I Love You.” I’d not heard about this album, Maria heard it on the radio.

Lizzo has a ton of attitude.

I like it a lot, sitting in my chair with the earphones on is sweet.

I bought the new Jonathen Lethem mystery, The Feral Detective. I think it’s an amazing book, an old story in a way about heroes descending to the underworld set in the era of President Trump, in what Lethem calls the “post truth era.”

The book is narrated by Phoebe Siegler, a privileged, 30 something New Yorker who quits her job as a reporter for the New York Times in anger and despair over the 2016 election of the man she calls the “Orange Beast.”

I don’t generally go for novels with contemporary politic twists, but this one seems both timely and real.

She flies to LA to hire Charles Heist, the literally “feral Detective” to help find the missing daughter of a good friend in Brooklyn.

Heist is a creative of nature, his wildness collides head on  with Phoebe’s unapologetic urbanity and the two head off to the Mojave Desert on what seems likely to be a great and dangerous adventure.

I love the book so far, as I loved Motherless Brooklyn, an earlier entry into the crime genre by Lethem, who is one of the best writers I have read in a long while.

Lethem is one of the more literary of crime writers, he has a great feel for language, the plot moves rapidly, the novel is deeply compassionate so far and the story line is said to be unpredictable.

I’m only 70 pages in, it already is.

I am lucky to have a great new album and what seems to be a terrific new mystery/novel for the weekend, I am going to spend time with both of them. The password for the weekend is calm. And rest.

Maria and I will take a ride or two over the weekend, but I’m seeking solitude. So much going on in my head, I want to quiet it down. And take photos of course.