Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I love our bedroom Night Light, Maria spotted it an an antique restoration store on Main Street called Shiny Sisters, it is a soft light, perhaps from the 1930’s or 40’s. I love the orb it casts on the bedroom ceiling.

It also lights up some of the jewelry Maria lines up alongside of it. Maria does not ever buy herself anything but thrift shop clothing, so some of the jewelry are gifts from me, which makes the light all the more meaningful to me.

The light has a lot of emotion, it is peaceful light to me,  it knows what to do. II often just stare at it when I wake up, and it is comforting, as night lights are supposed to me. I have been eyeing it as a still life for some time.

Barn cats are tough and hardy and know how to keep themselves warm in the winter. Flo lived in the rafters above our woodshed for a couple of years, she made a next out of kindling and old rags. Minnie used to sleep with the chickens at night, we left blankets and towels for her.

Both cats are getting older, and Minnie had a leg amputated a few years ago. On bitter cold nights and after snowstorms, we bring them into our basement, which is kind of natural cat heaven, replete with cat beds, a medium temperate of over 55 degrees, plenty of mice to chase and tunnels and crevices to explore.

Our cats are happy to go into the basement where it is dry and warm, and I am happy not to have five animals vying for space and attention in our small living room and farmhouse.

The Spring sun has appeared in the sky, and it is very different from the winter sun, it gives off a lot of warmth and the sheep have already started grazing, even though there is no green grass. Maria is like a strict Mother Superior when it comes to the barn cats, she lavishes attention on them when they are in the basement, but insists they spend some time outside unless the temperature is well below zero.

“Come on cats,” she announces sternly on cold mornings, “you need to spend time outside, otherwise you will be vampire cats.” She lures them out with food, and if they balk she storms down into the basement and carries them out. Minnie tries to sneak back in, but that is not permitted until late afternoon, if at all.

In a few weeks, the barn cats will simply stay outside day and night, until late October. They love their inside life, and they love their outside life. They loved sitting in the sun today, Flo took one bench, Minnie found a cushion to lie on.

This is sign of Spring. Like me, the cats don’t live by the temperature. Spring is spring, and it is here, even thought there is snow everywhere and another polite storm is coming Sunday. One to four inches they say, but even the Weather Channel isn’t give it a name.

Winters are hard here, but they just make Spring and Summer all the more magical. I forget about the humidity and ticks and bugs and flies, I just revel in being warm, and staying in bed rather than run outside to give out the hay.

It’s a polite storm, there will be no trace of it by Tuesday, when the temperatures will be brushing against 50. The murderous barn cats are my faithful barometer, Flo was out hunting in the North pasture this morning. Mice and moles beware. We haven’t seen a rat around here in years.

Photo by Maria Wulf.

The Bedlam Farm posse went to the dump in force, as we do every Saturday. The dump is a popular destination for Fate and Bud, they get to see their pal Bob who feeds them biscuits and donuts.

We take navigation seriously, everyone keeps their eyes on the road and drives carefully. Bud is very serious about his car trips, Fate more prone to distraction, but both of them love going to the dump, they are highly regarded there.

In my morning meditation, the teacher asked this question about friends:

“As we spend time with another person, are we seeing them as they are? Or are we judging them against what we would like them to be?”

What a good and timely question for me, it came right out of my life and my spinning head.

This has been a life-long issue, and I am eager to tackle it, understand it and get to a good place with it. In my morning meditation, I thought about it as carefully and honestly as I could.

This is something I am guilty of, this is something I have trouble with, this is something I very much want to change and learn from.

I have had so much trouble with friendship in my life, and I believe this is a part of it. This is where I got with this this morning, and that is just a start. I have much more thinking to do.

I believe in being honest with my friends, and this has cost me many friends. I think some of my honesty is rooted in judgment, as the meditation suggests, and that is where the trouble is, for them and for me.

I very much like this idea of bringing this question down into two choices.

Either accept my friends as they are, or move away from them and wait for new friends, or embrace the solitude and contemplation I love. I have never needed a lot of friends, have never had a lot of friends, that is a comfortable place for me.

Either is, to me, a valid and moral choice. Trying to change people or judge them is not an acceptable choice for me, not any longer. It is wrong, it is hurtful, it accomplishes nothing. I am learning to let go.

I have learned that I can change at any point, at any phase of life. People who tell me it is too late for them to change are broken in my mind, too fearful and timid to undertake this painstaking but necessary work.

When I stop changing or being willing to change, I will be ready to die.

I have a friend I was hurt by recently, a friend who angered me, who doesn’t always tell me the truth, who is so eager to please that the truth about her/him is often left behind, because it is unknowable in all the fear and confusion.

I am not going to talk about this with my friend, I am not going try to change my friend, I am not going to judge my friend. I will either accept the friendship as it is, and if I can’t do that, I will walk away.

I believe in being honest, but not in being judgmental.

They are two very different things, the one noble, the other a poison. Honesty is about my identity, about speaking my truth. I have to make the decision about whether I can accept this person, that is my part.

But I don’t have the right to try to change or judge other people, I have to decide how and whether to be friends with this person. I’m just beginning to understand the difference, there is a big difference between being authentic and being judgmental.

This is a very important lesson for me, and I wish to take it seriously and confront it directly, and shed myself of even more of the heavy and burdensome weight I have carried around all my life.

It is not too late, it is never too late to change and grow.

Red had a good week. He was alert, he ran a little bit, he jumped into the car more easily. I see his eyesight is getting worse, he is almost completely blind in one eye now, and there is also a cataract in his other eye.

His work with the sheep is low-key and businesslike, but I’m not letting him run or chase after them, and that is okay with him, a sign of his growing frailty. At the Mansion, all of these issues melt away, he seems so confident and alive there, he rushes in with his tail wagging, he runs into the office to greet his girlfriends and admirers, the Mansion aides, he tears down the hallway to the Activity Room, where there are more friends.

We stop to visit the residents sitting on sofas quietly or in chairs in the hallway, sometimes we knock on doors to see if anyone wants to see Red – everyone does. Lots of beautiful moments with Red, I hate to even think of going in there without him, that is worrying about the future, which I’m learning not to do.

In the moment, Red is good, better than good.

I’m glad he has this other work, he loves it, is wonderfully good at it, and it keeps him active and engaged, and feeling as if he has good work to do. That matters to a border collie.

A good week for Red, and I know better than to reach any grand conclusions, his paralysis can return at any time, the wrong twist, the wrong turn, nature’s own path. I want him to live as normal a life as possible, taking as much care as I can.

We must all come to an end, me, you and Red. He will leave when he is ready.