I have been reading the essays of Wendell Berry the last few weeks, something I do from time to time. I like the way he writes and I like what he says when he writes. He writes about things like farming, family, culture, education, religion – all the things I feel very passionate about. He writes about people belonging to a place, a community, a home, a piece of land. He says that when you really belong to a place, you cherish it and take care of it. He writes about stewardship, caring for the place you live in all its aspects – the soil, the animal and vegetable life, and the people. I resonate to his ideas. After many years of living in places where I did not feel I fully belonged, I was blessed to come and live in the place where I always knew I belonged. We’ve lived here for more than seventeen years now and my love of this place continues to grow. I have a few acres and a house that have been entrusted to me. If you’ve never read Wendell Berry, I recommend him. One of my favorite of his many books is The Gift of Good Land. You should read it.
We had some great weather last week. It was warm most of the time. We even had a good thunderstorm on Thursday night. Everything is greening up. There are violets blooming in the lawn and the daffodils are at their best. Most of the trees in my orchard have broken bud now. The lilacs have budded out. The maples are in bloom and have their first tiny leaves. I’ve planted parts of the vegetable garden. Lettuce, chard, carrots, beets, onions, and fava beans are all in the ground now. We’re waiting in high anticipation for the asparagus to appear.
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| Violets. |
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| Daffodils. |
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| Hyacinths and daffodils. |
Ten years ago I planted some thornless blackberries. Because they bear fruit on year old canes, and because their canes never make it through the winters here, we’ve never had any fruit from them. New canes, huge, healthy canes, grow from the ground every year, and they freeze hard in the winter and die. But not this year. My blackberry canes survived the winter for the first time! I’m hoping that means some wonderful fruit this summer.
This is the time of the singing of birds. And the nesting. A pair of robins has built a nest under the eaves at the front of the house on top of a bend in a rain gutter. We’ve had robins nest there before and it seems like a good spot to raise a family, though it is a bit messy for the house. I don’t mind. Every morning for the last four days when I go out early, I hear a brown thrasher singing from the thicket along the creek on the other side of the road. I always stand and listen for a while. The thrasher’s song is a long rambling mix of various notes, squeaks, and warbles – kind of like a mockingbird that’s just learning to sing. We don’t have mockingbirds here. The thrasher is the next best thing and I love it.
Friday was a momentous day. My chicks arrived that day. No one was home when the mailman delivered them. I was in school and Stacey was at work. I left a note on the front door telling him to put the box inside the door in the livingroom. I rushed home from school to welcome them. There are 16 of them – 5 Light Brahmas, 5 Red Rockets, 5 Americaunas, and one free chick that looks like it might be a Polish Crested. I took them to the barn and put them in the heated box I’d prepared for them. They made a lot of fuss, as incubator chicks always do. When Lola, our hen who has a chick of her own right now, heard these chicks fussing, she went crazy trying to get to them. I wondered if I could give them to her to raise. It’s a lot easier when a hen raises chicks than when a human has to do it. I called the hatchery to see if they thought it would work. The lady there said it might, but 17 chicks might be too many for one hen. Lola is a small hen and there is no way 17 chicks would fit under her wings. So these chicks will be raised by me. They are beautiful little things, all fluff at this point, but that won’t last long, They grow quickly. For now, I go down every morning early, and in the afternoon at chore time, and last thing before I go to bed to check on them and make sure they are okay.
This is the time of the singing of birds. And the nesting. A pair of robins has built a nest under the eaves at the front of the house on top of a bend in a rain gutter. We’ve had robins nest there before and it seems like a good spot to raise a family, though it is a bit messy for the house. I don’t mind. Every morning for the last four days when I go out early, I hear a brown thrasher singing from the thicket along the creek on the other side of the road. I always stand and listen for a while. The thrasher’s song is a long rambling mix of various notes, squeaks, and warbles – kind of like a mockingbird that’s just learning to sing. We don’t have mockingbirds here. The thrasher is the next best thing and I love it.
Friday was a momentous day. My chicks arrived that day. No one was home when the mailman delivered them. I was in school and Stacey was at work. I left a note on the front door telling him to put the box inside the door in the livingroom. I rushed home from school to welcome them. There are 16 of them – 5 Light Brahmas, 5 Red Rockets, 5 Americaunas, and one free chick that looks like it might be a Polish Crested. I took them to the barn and put them in the heated box I’d prepared for them. They made a lot of fuss, as incubator chicks always do. When Lola, our hen who has a chick of her own right now, heard these chicks fussing, she went crazy trying to get to them. I wondered if I could give them to her to raise. It’s a lot easier when a hen raises chicks than when a human has to do it. I called the hatchery to see if they thought it would work. The lady there said it might, but 17 chicks might be too many for one hen. Lola is a small hen and there is no way 17 chicks would fit under her wings. So these chicks will be raised by me. They are beautiful little things, all fluff at this point, but that won’t last long, They grow quickly. For now, I go down every morning early, and in the afternoon at chore time, and last thing before I go to bed to check on them and make sure they are okay.
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| Chicks in their shipping box. |
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| Chicks in their box in the barn. |
Friday was even more momentous than New Chick Day. It was also New Granddaughter Day. Rachel gave birth to a little girl – I say little, but at 9 pounds 6 ounces and 22 inches long, she is the largest baby to be born in our family yet. All went well and mother and child are doing great. They have decided (finally) to name her Magnolia Fern. She is beautiful, of course. That’s six grandchildren for us now and we are thrilled.
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| Magnolia Fern Thayn |
Saturday was Earth Day, a day that in the wider world is a bit too political for me, but around here it means nothing more than doing a roadside cleanup. Back when Stacey was involved in Cub Scouts and we had sons in Boy Scouts, we used to participate in the cleanup of the section of road assigned to those organizations over in Ulysses. This year Stacey decided we would undertake our own cleanup here in our little village of Gold. She talked to some neighbors and they decided who would take which roads. Stacey and I took Highway 49 from our house going west for a mile to Jeannette Buck’s house. We started at 10:00 A.M. and slowly walked the mile there and back. We finished at 1:30 P.M. We filled seventeen 30 gallon trash bags. It was hard, back-breaking work. Having done that, I’ve come to some conclusions. First – there are a lot of thoughtless people who throw a lot of trash from their vehicles. Second – the biggest litterbugs are people who drink Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and light beer, dip Skoal and Copenhagen, and eat at McDonalds. Third – most smokers toss their cigarette butts out their car windows and someone who drives that stretch of road frequently smokes a lot of Marlborough Blacks (I’m not sure what the“black” in Marlborough Blacks refers to except maybe the color of the lungs of those who use the product). After we’d finished, I felt disgusted by all that litter and the people who toss it, and I felt a tired sense of satisfaction for having made a small part of the world a little nicer.
This morning it was cold. After such a nice spell of warmer weather, it was disheartening to awake to 23° and frost. I don’t think the frost hurt anything. The day warmed quickly and it looks like the week ahead will be warm again. As we drove to and from church we delighted in the thousand colors of the budding forests, the white blossoms of the juneberry trees, the flowers in yards and gardens everywhere, and the emerald green grass of spring. I love this season when this place I love shines with beauty. I feel blessed to belong here.
This morning it was cold. After such a nice spell of warmer weather, it was disheartening to awake to 23° and frost. I don’t think the frost hurt anything. The day warmed quickly and it looks like the week ahead will be warm again. As we drove to and from church we delighted in the thousand colors of the budding forests, the white blossoms of the juneberry trees, the flowers in yards and gardens everywhere, and the emerald green grass of spring. I love this season when this place I love shines with beauty. I feel blessed to belong here.
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| Juneberry trees on the edge of the forest. |
