Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Donkeys spot a deer (or bear) in the woods.

Welcome to 2019. I’m a Grandma Moses fan, she said when she started painting late in life that life is what you make of it. I believe that.

I intend to make good of 2019. to seek a meaningful life, a spiritual life, a life of love and connection. I mean to continue to do the hard work of telling the truth about myself and knowing that the truth is.

I have no use for anger or argument or cruelty, that has become boring. I value my identity and will work to protect and enhance it. I hope to do good, to commit a small act of great kindness every day, perhaps more.

Thanks for cleaning out the RISSE Amazon Wish List. It makes me proud to be an American, and to be connected with so many kind-hearted and decent patriots.

It was so long when it went up a couple of weeks ago, take a look at it now if you want to feel good.

I’m celebrating the New Year by taking Maria to see the new Spiderman movie “Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse,”  an animated film being hailed by critics as thrilling, groundbreaking visual  and emotional experience.

I think my artist partner, who is dubious, will love the visual element. I’m sure I’ll hear about it if she doesn’t, and I hope to review it when I get back.

First, I’m going to the Mansion to read some stories about birds, bears and Abominable Snowmen. Have the most wonderful New Year.

(Tomorrow, Wednesday, one to three, “Talking To Animals” WBTNAm1370, one to three p.m. Please call 866 406 9286) or e-mail me your comments or questions about pets and other animals:[email protected]. You can live stream the show here.

2018 was a discordant year in so many ways for me.

Beyond the farm, so much tension and anger.

Within the farm, and in my life, so much peace and love and contentment. I sometimes wonder why it is that we can do it here, but they can’t do it there.

But I remind myself that I am small, they are very big.

I don’t have the answer, it just clouds my head.

Here, there is love, friendship, meaning. Every day. Out there I look for practical good to do in the real world. That’s how I learn and grow.

I think Bud and Red are two great symbols of my year.  Two loving creatures, each rescued from trouble and sent to my farm. One at the beginning of life, one heading towards the end. Fate shares in the joy of life, my dogs lift me up and mark the passages of my life.

They love one another and stand by one another and are together whenever it is possible for them to be. Red helped show Bud how to live in his bewildering new world, Bud has stood by Red during his illness in every possible way, a soul nourishing thing to see.

They draw comfort from one another, just as I draw comfort from them.

I think of Maria and her Belly Dancing, 2018 was a year of growth and strength for her in almost every way. She is coming into herself, she has found her voice and stands firmly in her truth and her boundless creativity and energy. What a gift to be able to watch this miracle.

I accept, finally, her love for me, it will always be new to me and seem fragile. But I know it is very real and eternal.

I think of Joanie and the people I have come to know and love at the Mansion, a strange and diverse crew. They have become my family in many ways I am grateful to know them.

I think of Ali and the soccer team, the refugees and immigrants we met and helped in different ways. What a rich and uplifting experience for me.

I think of the generosity, trust and compassion of the many good people who call themselves the Army Of Good. They are good.

I think of my farm, my haven and home. It is a place of light. The Bible begins with the famous phrase “in the beginning…” And there was light. In the Kabbalah, light is a code word for an all-encompassing radiance, for divine love.

In my photographs and writing and life, I seek out the light all around me.

And beyond my narrow boundaries.

I think in particular of Hazel in West Virginia. Her husband worked for much of his life in the coal mines and died three years ago of lung cancer. She is still trying to pay his medical bills. She lost a son to the opioid epidemic. She lost a breast to cancer in January, and a beloved dog to a speeding truck in October.

She sends $5 – always a worn and crumpled single bill – to my post office box, (Me, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) every single month, she calls herself the Appalachian Social Security Agency.

I have a stack of her $5  bills right on my desk for inspiration.

Hazel is drowning in medical bills and may lost her home – her husband had no pension. I tried to send her a check for $300 but she tore it up and sent me a letter scolding me for sending her money.

“Give it to the people in the Mansion or those refugee children,” she wrote,”I can take care of myself, I’ve done it for nearly 70 years.”

Every week, for nearly two years, a $5 or five one dollar bills. I’m going to use the money to buy fresh socks and underwear for a woman in the Mansion who needs both.

I think Hazel would like that.

In my mind, Hazel is a true hero, others would be battered by so much hard life, Hazel shows us how we can rise above ourselves. She reminds me to be careful about what I complain or whine about.

My year was marked by getting to know people like this, and earning their trust and affection. I must be learning how to be a better person to win the trust of people like Hazel.

In my own rich life, there is much to celebrate. Troubled times have been clarifying for me, I commit small acts of great kindness every day and am better and wiser and happier for it. I feel  a lot of guilt about feeling good while so many people are feeling frightened and angry.

Do I deserve happiness?

I vowed several years ago that I will not spend the rest of my life in anger and argument,  have kept my promise.

I have learned a lot in 2018 and I will share some of that with all of you in the next few days, if you can stand it. I think of Paul Tillich’s profound reminder that it is our destiny and the destiny of everything in our world that we must come to an end. Every end that I experience in nature and in my life and therapy work and  mankind speaks to me with a loud voice: I will also come to an end.

In the meantime, every day is precious, I live in the eternal now.

I practice forgiveness for what has passed. I hope for courage for what is to come. My faith is acceptance and empathy. And love where I can find it.

I look for acceptance, even when I am unacceptable. I look for the light.

(Friends, this Wish List Is Sold Out On New Year’s Eve. The barres are on the way. Thank you!)

They call it a Ballet Barre, it is one of three Barre’s requested by the RISSE Amazon Wish List.

The list began with 36 items, many of them for multiple requests of one item – thermal shirts for the soccer team, games and learning toys for the young refugee children, computer and dictionaries that translate English into various other languages.

All last year, we helped the refugee soccer team get the equipment and practice time they needed.

This time, the young woman at RISSE need our help. They need three Ballet Barre’s (bars) so they can feel like dancers and practice like dancers.

The Army Of Good plowed its way through this long and diverse list in a couple of weeks, full of the Christmas spirit and the larger call to keep our  American tradition of generosity and empathy alive.

You have all made so many lives in the refugee and immigrant community so much better. As my grandmother used to say, may a million angels shower you with rose petals.

I’m sitting here today pondering the last item, I think it is, in some ways the toughest. It’s stuck in my head. I’ve met some of the dancers at RISSE, they are an extraordinary group of young women, full of energy and hope.

Like Ali’s soccer team, they and their program are much more than what they seem, they are a path forward for children with few resources and beleaguered and often overwhelmed parents.

Families come here to give their children better lives, but are often so busy working several jobs and trying to acclimate to our complex culture, they have no resources to help their kids.

I wasn’t sure about the three Ballet Barre’s when I first saw them, but then I did my homework. If you’ve seen any of those classy dance movies, you  see a Ballet Barre (bar) in front of those big glass mirrors, this is where the dancers warm up and practice.

Each one of the three requested barre’s cost $76.99.

They are essential for learning and self-awareness for the dancers, they see themselves in the mirror and learn and practice.

At RISSE, the young dancers (this is an afterschool program) have no mirror and no bars, they practice with chairs in a crowded  and noisy cafeteria.

These barre’s will help them feel like dancers and learn like dancers. Like good soccer uniforms for the boys, they are important.

I was not able to work directly with RISSE, but the Amazon RISSE Wish List (which we suggested and have supported)  has given me – and you – a way to help these children directly, and that is perhaps the best way to help them at all, as I look back.

We don’t need any bureaucrats or officials, we just need ourselves and one another.

I’m buying one barre this afternoon, I hope we can buy the other two and finish off this important list as we begin the New Year. I like to think of these talented young women getting a fair boost for their creativity.

I like to think of them learning what our country is really about.

For me, I can’t think of a much better way to kick off New Year’s Eve.

You can check out the last item on this edition of the RISSE Amazon Wish List here. And I wish you a meaningful and peaceful New Year.

(Friends, on New Year’s Even, this Wish List is now sold out. Thank you!)

Thanks to Kaaren Andrews, Joan Gibson and Nancy Forsythe for suggesting the name “Lash LaRue” in honor of the real Lash LaRue, who made over seventy-five Western movies and starred in  his own television series.

We are scraping wall paper off of the bedroom wall in preparation for a new painted color and we found this cowboy behind the outer wallpaper layers. I asked for help in naming him.

I promised  a signed book to anyone with the best name for us, and I’ll send one to teach of you if you’ll send me your s-mail address: [email protected].

And thanks to the couple of hundred people who sent me suggested names through e-mail, texts and  on social media. This time, I asked for the advice and was delighted to get it. There were some great names offered.

And people love to join in stuff like this.

I was drawn to the name Lash La Rue right away – it had style and when I started looking online, I really got hooked.

The critics say the era of the Western movie was over by the 5o’s,  LaRue was the last of the series Western stars.

I was up until 3 a.m. watching some old La Rue westerns. His main weapon wasn’t a gun but an 18-inch bullwhip he kept coiled in his holster and drew like a gun.

LaRue trained Harrison Ford to use a bullwhip for his role in Indiana Jones. he died in 1996 at the age of 78. People thought he looked so much like Humphrey Bogart that movie fans often came up to him asking for Bogart’s autograph.

I watched his breakthrough movie – he was the Cheyenne Kid in “Song Of Old Wyoming” in 1945. I couldn’t stop watching, those movies were fun and easy to take. I can’t say he was a great actor, but he made for a good Jimmy Stewart kind of hero – few words, all business, and always victorious. There is no tension about who’s going to win in those movies.

There are no fuzzy boundaries between the good guy sand the bad guys.

LaRue tried to look more like a bad guy than a hero by wearing an all black outfit and showing his bullwhip when necessary. But he was always on the side of justice and law and order.

Fawcett comics published a series of La Rue comic books but the western movie fad crashed quickly by 1960.  LaRue made a living doing appearances at western film buff conventions, he put on a show with his bullwhip while running a souvenir sales booth.

Like many actors of that era, LaRue lost his savings as the result of alcoholism, several divorces and drug abuse. A preacher named Bob Woodward converted him to Born Again Christianity and he became an evangelist on the rodeo and country music circuit.

LaRue died of emphysema and was cremated in the Calverton National Cemetery in Suffolk County, New York. His real name was Alfred LaRue.

I think that’s a perfect name for our cowboy, who will remain in his place on our bedroom wall. This restoration begins in earnest tonight, on New Year’s Eve. I’ll be scraping alongside my wife.

It is not uncommon for dogs to eat their own feces. It is a natural behavior for many dogs, and while there is some danger from parasites, it is not especially dangerous or harmful. Human beings (like me) react sharply and impatiently to this habit, we have a hard time stomaching the idea, especially from beloved companions who like to lick us and cuddle with us.

We love the idea of Bud as farm dog, we don’t love the idea of Bud wolfing down enough poop to fill the belly of horse. What goes in, comes out.

I’m doing well with Bed’s recall and basic obedience – come, sit and stay – but Bud was scarfing up so much poop on our farm (donkeys, sheep, chicks, dogs) we were wary of bringing him out into the pasture.

So I put my training cap on and went to work. I got out my can of Pet Corrector, an aerosol air spray that makes a hissing sound dogs hate (you can be 15 feet away) and brought it outside.

This was one of the toughest training issues for Bud, because his poop-scarfing was obsessive and continuous, it wasn’t about him being hungry. Carol Johnson, Bud’s rescuer, said when Bud was abandoned outside in a metal pen for more than a year, he survived in part (his pen mates died of heat stroke) because he ate feces. So it’s an instinctive and deep-seated behavior, those are the toughest to work through.

Poop eating wasn’t just an occasional habit, it was the difference between life and death, that make sit a hard habit to break.

The spray helps, don’t react sharply to it but it doesn’t harm them in any way. I also came up with an alternative behavior. Instead of eating poop, I walked closely alongside Bud and led him out towards the back pasture. I know he loves to explore the pond and marsh back there.

When we came into the pasture and he lowered his head around the donkey manure, I hit the spray and he backed off, then I held out some treats and led him out beyond the sheep feeder (see the video).

Bud loves to go back there and I used it almost as a reward for not eating the donkey or sheep droppings.  After the third day  – and only three hisses from the Pet Collector, Bud began running straight out towards the back of the pasture and out to the pond, his favorite exploring site.

Yesterday, he had a confrontation with two ducks sitting in the pond, he circled and barked until they took off, disgusted. But he loves to look for them there.

In any case, the spray can and the alternative behavior theory seems to be taking hold with Gus, he came out of the pasture and walked past a lot of poop and headed straight out of the gate. As he turned toward some sheep droppings, I used the can once, and he went right of the gate and towards the house.

This, judging from my e-mail is a very common problem. I’m going to talk about it on my radio show Wednesday, WBTNAm1370, Wednesday from one to three p.m. Please call: 855 406-9286, or e-mail me a question, Wednesday the 2nd of January, one to three p.m. You can live stream the show here, or download a free Simple Radio App. You can hear it anywhere in the country and much of the world.

I’m excited about Bud’s training. One by one, we are picking off his biggest problems.