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| Hannah made me a mask. |
Thursday, the 23rd, was the traditional birthday of William Shakespeare, born (they think) in 1564. I fell in love with him in high school when we watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliette in 10th grade English Class. It was my first exposure to the bard and I came away from it enchanted. It was the source of some trouble for me too. When the lights came up in the room, I was the only boy in the room weeping. I was mocked by some of the male troglodyte cretins in that class after that. Two to be exact. I still remember their names. I drew an X across their faces in my yearbook. But their persecution did nothing to diminish my new-found fascination for Shakespeare. By the time I’d graduated from high school, I’d read Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear – on my own, not by assignment (being a teenager, I was naturally attracted to violence and tragedy). And I’d watched a few other film adaptations that I happened to see on TV from time to time (back then there were no VCR’s and no other way for me to watch movies), most memorably Zefferelli’s The Taming of the Shrew (1967) starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Othello (1951) starring Orson Welles, Hamlet (1948) starring Sir Laurence Olivier, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). That last one was a strange version with a lot of big stars from that time: Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, James Cagney, and Mickey Rooney who was 15 years old and played Puck.
My love of Shakespeare has continued unabated. There are some great film versions of his plays and I have my favorites that I watch at least once a year: Hamlet both the 1990 version with Mel Gibson and the 1996 version with Kenneth Branagh, Much Ado About Nothing (1993) with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, Love’s Labors Lost (2000) with Kenneth Branagh, and Henry V (1989) with Kenneth Branagh (do you see a pattern here? Kenneth Branagh and Shakespeare are a good match). There are so many other great ones too.
My love of Shakespeare has continued unabated. There are some great film versions of his plays and I have my favorites that I watch at least once a year: Hamlet both the 1990 version with Mel Gibson and the 1996 version with Kenneth Branagh, Much Ado About Nothing (1993) with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, Love’s Labors Lost (2000) with Kenneth Branagh, and Henry V (1989) with Kenneth Branagh (do you see a pattern here? Kenneth Branagh and Shakespeare are a good match). There are so many other great ones too.
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| Some of the great Shakespeare films. |
Despite my love for Shakespeare’s plays, I came to his poetry late. I didn’t discover the Sonnets until I was in my early 20's. I have a long-standing love of poetry nurtured in my early years by my grandmother, who was a poet, and my 4th grade teacher, Miss Conley, who read poetry to us and had us memorize poems. (I can still recite many of them including part of The Song of Hiawatha – “By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. . .”) Back then I read poetry all the time (I still do), so I don’t know how I missed the Sonnets. As soon as I found them, they became and continue to be, my favorite poems. There are 154 of them and to me they are the greatest set of poems in the English language. I spent part of the day on Thursday reading through all of them. Among the 154, I have my favorites – #18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" #19 "Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws"; #116 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"; #73 "That time of year thou mayest in me behold"; and #29 –
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
After 456 years, no one has surpassed Shakespeare. I’m going to elevate the level of my entertainment during the remainder of this time of house arrest by watching more Shakespeare.
Last week we picked up the chicks that our friend Bob Jones hatched for us. We gave him 30 eggs and somehow came home with 36 chicks. I put them in their pen down in the barn and they are doing great. With this addition, my flock is now double what it was. I’ll be interested to see how many of them turn out to be cockerels. We might have to do some chicken butchering later this summer.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
After 456 years, no one has surpassed Shakespeare. I’m going to elevate the level of my entertainment during the remainder of this time of house arrest by watching more Shakespeare.
Last week we picked up the chicks that our friend Bob Jones hatched for us. We gave him 30 eggs and somehow came home with 36 chicks. I put them in their pen down in the barn and they are doing great. With this addition, my flock is now double what it was. I’ll be interested to see how many of them turn out to be cockerels. We might have to do some chicken butchering later this summer.
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| Bringing new chicks home. |
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| Under the heat lamp. |
We bought two piglets yesterday. Way back in February, I felt prompted that we should raise pigs this year. We’ve raised pigs twice before, but it’s been years. The times we did it before, we kept them in the barn and it was not a good arrangement. The pigs were bored and cramped and to occupy their time, they excavated the dirt floor of their pen. When heavy rains came, the pit they’d dug filled with water and we had a pond inside the barn for a while. Now the barn is completely given over to chickens, so I knew when I decided to get piglets this year that I would have to do something different. I talked to some people to get ideas on how to house them and decided to fence off a part of the yard that used to be a vegetable garden that I’ve allowed to go fallow. It is overrun with weeds and is a jungle of sunchokes.
The Thayns are helping us with the cost of the pig project in exchange for part of the meat in the fall. Tabor gave us lumber for the fence. But we still had to find piglets. We asked around and found that due to the uneasiness of the times, piglets, like chicks and vegetable seeds, are in high demand and scarce. I asked around and looked on the internet and finally found someone over in Tioga County who had two Hereford/Duroc piglets for sale. I thought their price was a little steep, but when I double checked other sources, I found it was the going price around here – if you could even find anyone still selling. We called and made arrangements to pick them up.
Tabor had intended to come up and build the pigpen for us, but because of the stay-at-home order, he wasn’t able to do that. So on Thursday, out of necessity, Miriam and I put together a temporary pen. The Thayns are probably coming up some time this week (at last!) and we’ll build a better pen then. On Saturday morning Stacey and I drove over to Little Marsh and picked up the piglets. It turns out they are show pigs (hence the high price), barrows, each about 40 to 50 pounds. They are pretty cute. They are a bit skittish, but I think they’re settling into their new home. They started rooting in the dirt right away and seemed pretty happy about it. They have a shelter with some deep straw to snuggle down in and a heat lamp to keep them warm at night. On our way home, we stopped and got collars and leashes for them. We want to tame them a bit, not to make them pets – we don’t eat pets – but to calm them down and make it easier to take care of them.
The Thayns are helping us with the cost of the pig project in exchange for part of the meat in the fall. Tabor gave us lumber for the fence. But we still had to find piglets. We asked around and found that due to the uneasiness of the times, piglets, like chicks and vegetable seeds, are in high demand and scarce. I asked around and looked on the internet and finally found someone over in Tioga County who had two Hereford/Duroc piglets for sale. I thought their price was a little steep, but when I double checked other sources, I found it was the going price around here – if you could even find anyone still selling. We called and made arrangements to pick them up.
Tabor had intended to come up and build the pigpen for us, but because of the stay-at-home order, he wasn’t able to do that. So on Thursday, out of necessity, Miriam and I put together a temporary pen. The Thayns are probably coming up some time this week (at last!) and we’ll build a better pen then. On Saturday morning Stacey and I drove over to Little Marsh and picked up the piglets. It turns out they are show pigs (hence the high price), barrows, each about 40 to 50 pounds. They are pretty cute. They are a bit skittish, but I think they’re settling into their new home. They started rooting in the dirt right away and seemed pretty happy about it. They have a shelter with some deep straw to snuggle down in and a heat lamp to keep them warm at night. On our way home, we stopped and got collars and leashes for them. We want to tame them a bit, not to make them pets – we don’t eat pets – but to calm them down and make it easier to take care of them.
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| The temporary pig pen. |
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| Miriam with one of the piglets. |
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| The piglets. |
The weather last week was erratic. We had some snow, but it didn’t stay long. We had some sunshine, which also didn’t stay long. It was warm enough to get out and do some work in the garden. Before the last snow, I went out and cut all my daffodils and brought them into the house. They’d suffered through several snowfalls and wouldn’t have lasted through another. They made a pretty bouquet.
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| Snow lingering where there is still shade. |
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| Daffodils. |
The vegetable garden seems especially slow in starting. I planted out pea, carrot, and lettuce seeds weeks ago and they are only now sprouting. Other seeds I’ve planted – beets, chard, and spinach – have not sprouted yet. I get nervous when things don’t sprout as quickly as I expect. Sometimes I go ahead and plant more, thinking the first try wasn’t any good. Then they usually all sprout and I have too many and have to do some severe thinning. Out in the orchard there are hopeful signs. The buds on the apple trees are swelling. It will soon be time for the first spraying. Then comes apple blossom time, perhaps my favorite time of the year.
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| Apple buds. |
I just looked at the weather forecast for the coming week. I know I check it too often (five or six times a day). It usually depresses me, but I check it anyway hoping that somehow it has changed favorably since the last time I looked. NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) says the cold rain we’ve had all day today will turn to snow tonight. As much as an inch will accumulate. I know it will be warm enough to melt it all right away, but the thought of waking to see everything covered in snow yet again makes me sad. Maybe I’ll just stay in bed tomorrow morning until it melts. Or maybe I’ll go hide upstairs and watch some Shakespeare. That will lift my spirits.
