Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I overdid it today; I was outside in the cold and snow, taking pictures and scraping off the cars for too long.

I’m signing off and getting to bed early tonight. We have a lovely, sweet day at home, just as we have been trying to do for a couple of weeks now. Thanks to the storm for that. Maria overdid it also. We’ll skip chess, read, and go to the beach. See you on Monday, which is tomorrow.

Color and light just below. Thanks for all of your kind (mostly) messages. They are appreciated.

The animals get anxious in snowstorms like this; they can’t graze, and the snow is cold and wet. They are eager for their hay and grumpy with one another. We are grateful Biddy didn’t die today; getting her out of the pole barn would have been difficult.

(Dusk was challenging, losing light, and wet snow fell. My fingers and toes were icy. I eased up on the exposure (below) to brighten the pictures.)

I’m experimenting with exposure; monochrome in snow and darkness is challenging. I like this compromise.

The bucket is the oldest thing on the first Bedlam Farm and on this one. We hang it in a place of honor. Shooting into the light is different, even at dusk. It brings a bright blue into the photograph.

We decided to defy the near hysteria of the Weather Channel (we got four or five inches, not 10 or 15, we went out for breakfast at the Cambridge Diner on Main Street.

The diner was only half full; many hardy farm families had their vast trucks parked outside. It was fun to drive through the storm; the roads were plowed, and the car had no trouble.

Main Street is essentially unchanged from two hundred years ago. It is one beautiful block containing the dinner, the Hubbard Hall Arts Center, and the Battenkill Bookshop – and is much as it looked during the Civil War.

It’s a great place to photograph. We came home (I had an omelet with broccoli and tomato and saw the snow on our two pine trees, which I always wanted to cut down.

Cooler heads prevailed. I’m going out to help Mara feed the animals shortly and hope there might be another good Winter Pasture somewhere.

Maria and I are into playing chess once again, and we like it so much we are painting a chessboard on the dining room table where we like to play. Chess is much more fun than streaming on a cold and stormy winter night.

You have to think. We both concentrate, take our time, and mutter a lot.

We often stay home at night in the dark and snow and ice days.

One reason is that we are tired; we usually work until seven or p.m.,  and the other is that driving at night this time of year can be challenging.

Except for weekends, when we head out for movies, we stay home most weekday evenings.

We read, work, or stream a bit. And we play chess, as we did for years.

A few days ago, we remembered how much fun we had playing chess when we first met in Hebron at the first Bedlam Farm.

We love the game; it is good brain food for both of us, two workaholics who love brain exercise and the thinking that goes into this game.

We are both competitive and hate to lose, but we never go too far with that. There will always be another game. This afternoon, I’m reviewing the chess rules to ensure we are up to date, especially Castling and En Passant.

We love playing it again, and this time, Maria, ever the artist, proposed painting a chessboard on the dining room table.

Sure, I said, it’s a great idea. She’s an artist and a good one. Maria always thinks like an artist and looks around for reasons to make art. This is a nice one.

Maria did a lot of measuring and experimenting. We’re ready to go. We had to go to the hardware store for some black paint. We have the orange in the basement.

Today, I sanded the spot on the table, and Maria painted it orange. Our board will be orange and black. The second coat is drying, and she’ll paint the chessboard tonight and tomorrow.

Sanding is my only part; she knows how to do the rest. I’ll keep up with it, of course, and I hope we can play our first game on the new and permanent board tonight.

We put two coats of orange paint over the board site; Maria will start sketching the squares tonight. This is an excellent addition to our winter evenings. We both love to play the game.

We both get along so well because we have the same interests, and life is never dull around here, from the animals to our love of change. We are evenly matched in chess; it distracts us and gets our brain cells jumping.

If the game drags on and we are stuck, we quit and start again. We both have large egos but leave them behind for the chess games.