Tag: curiosity

Humanity

Life on the farm

Lovelovemotherexpletive

This week at my farm, the farmers were on vacation.

So a few of us farmer-adjacent people were in cahoots with nature and the forces of water, and were responsible for the keeping of the land and fowl while they were away. Myself, a chicken wrangler, and a niece and sister to the farmer took over. Ten days they’ve been gone. Said niece went off to college. Three markets I’ve handled, the irrigation of the carrots, a few very long days, and this week? -the covering of the chicken wrangler’s days off. Chicken chores do knock a person off her pedestal, I tell you. A farmfriend (actually, really) named Honey did harvest over the weekend in the middle and I’ve been washing as I find the time. Her name makes me feel like I’ve got on a good robe and Everything is going to work out fine. Zucchini still being the god of all things farm, there have been tractor trips out to the birds to feed them the spoils.

They are lucky birds, except for whatever is getting them in the night. I have walked the fences, not knowing where or how the creature higher-on-the-ladder is getting in. Motherfucker. Did I mention it has been quite warm? I think my sweat levels have been flat-out atrocious. And, this was my celebratory week, now that my school job has come to an end. It’s all just been so much harder than I expected. I can do it all, I can, but hard. its been hard.

I come to realize that I like work for work’s sake, but while it is good to know I can handle big things, I do like to turn it off, walk out and be free of it. I’ve got life at home, and I like to be part of it. This week I’ve had worry of the sorts that have kept me from sleeping well.

What if someone steals the truck? I don’t even know what kind of truck it is. What am I going to tell the cop, its a black truck. black. ? its a chevy. I got at least that far when i got to work the next day. black chevy pickup. Probably from after 2010.

What if I forgot to turn the water off at the house? Will the fucking coop float? Will the whole town run out of water?

How do I stop coyotes and fishers? Literally thought about owning a pistol today. I would have definitely shot, if i had been so armed. But no worries, its not guns that kill animals. Right? (ugh. fuck the gun rights people. keep your damn guns, just get rid of the fucking assault rifles, you dicks.)

sorry. okay. back to farm worries.

Can plants be hurt by too much water in the summer heat? Can i drown a swiss chard plant? What about the tomatoes? Will I know if they start exploding? Should I go in early again? Should I go now?

Sigh. My friends. I just want to sleep when I lie down. Just sleep. That’s it. I have napped this week and raised my children from the sofa in a stupor. That’s all I got this week. Maybe if i just keep saying Honey, and feel the nod to real, hopeful hippies everywhere, everything will work out. Maybe.

O, let us keep the faith, chickens. Let us keep the faith. Everything will work out okay.

Honey Honey Honey.

Love,

me.

young white chick on grass
Photo by Achim Bongard on Pexels.com
Humanity

my coffee is better when it’s in a smaller cup…

Lovelovemotherexpletive

and other things i’ve noticed.

*it’s about the preciousness of it, the necessity of loving it while I have it, for it will soon be gone.

I’m going to stash a bunch of things I’ve written here, and see if the utterly disconnected can be connected, because webs webs webs you know.

  1. The golden woman child that I keep at my core, that dancing molten thing that runs my system, is she percolating, stretching out, trying to send gold out my fingertips, and I’m being sensible and wearing the correct waterproof gear?
  2. where is the wildness in me? Do I want to locate it, really? Will I go along for the ride in joy or will I hold on tight with my just-so gloves and complain about my lack of planning?
    A woman in her carriage, being bounced around, or the driver on top, recklessly bearing down the path… Please let me be the driver. I want to be the driver, gloves on, but driving wildly, on. On.
  3. Life is glorious. Maybe I should actually focus more on my distractions, that is where the joy lives.
  4. And there was so much hope, hope that we would sleep in, that things would be cancelled, although I knew it was not going to come to pass. I tried to let them down softly. At this point, there is only one who still wants to run outside in the dark, trampling snow and bringing in snowballs. I felt myself saying no to an invitation, knowing that next year she may not invite me out, might not even go out, and could feel the snow fall from the branches softly on this part of my life.
  5. I’m my own flit and scurry today, my brain and its wanderings having meshed. The definition of flighty, I suppose. Far from flaky, though, my layers are thick and spangled throughout with scarlet and deepest midnight blue, with the occasional birch bark interlude.
  6. Oh good lord. Don’t I hang on? Drag my dolls through the dirt like so much appalacian storytelling?  I can’t even say anything here. Pulling along behind me all my old stories, the exes now that I am a grown woman, the hurts and slings and arrows, all piled up on that dirty little rag doll.
    I wonder if she’s some inner landscape I have been avoiding? The ways in which she changes and ages, the things that finally fall off of her. If anything does. She appears more worn down than amputated.
    Frazzled, ragged, worn. The words I’m using for my oldest cares. The ones I don’t investigate because they might feel fresh if I should pick them up and dust them off. And I’m not of an age to play with dolls anymore.
    I wonder how she’s tied to me. If there’s a cord cutting that is possible for imaginary doll friends who carry all the old cares, the old hurts and sorrows. And if there is, would she become something I mourn, once I cut her loose?

And there you have it. Some of it. Bits and bites and I’m just curating at this point, making my little cups of strong coffee, cherished.

-kate

Humanity

Farm

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I don’t think it’s just me, but I’ve hit the wall (and climbed it) of apocalyptic thoughts, feelings and mind lapses. I’m mostly happy about it, the theatrical world knows my connection to the fears we all have right now. Which, in itself, is a whole post.

I’m thrilled by all the movies/series which suit me right now. Last of Us. Any Walking Dead. A million more i can’t think of right now.

But man, one of the weirdest things I keep thinking about is farming.

I’m aging out of the work a little bit; the heat is too hot, the baskets too heavy, the monetary payment is too light. (It’s time to get into serious retirement discussions, selling the house cannot be my entire plan. It cannot.)

But I’ve been wafting back and forth in my apocalysm daydreams, while seeding hundreds of baby things, wondering how future generations will know how to get broccoli. I mean, food is the most important thing, right? Food and water. And, will the home gardeners save us all? Really? Better get out those zucchini recipes.

When we finally decide to stop flying produce from country to country, or spraying it with shit to slow down the ripening, or to speed it up, as the case warrants, what then?

Will ‘we’ tolerate not having bananas? Will i be able to grow bananas in New England?

I know, i know, focus on the here and now. Be mindful, be present. And all that is true, and yes, my small world is all that i can control.

When my sons want to eat meat at every meal and I feel such exhaustion that i throw frozen meat patties on a grill again and again, its that whole butterfly wing again, and I’m upset also that its such a recurring thing in my brain and yet millions of millionaires exist and I don’t think they are wrapped up in tinfoil about this.

I suppose they’ll get the last bananas.

Sigh.

Tell me I’m wrong. About the bananas, I mean.

-love love.

Humanity

summer lists and tips

Lovelovemotherexpletive

like the boat my father-in-law lost in the harbor, she tips, and leans, and slowly sinks. the heat, my friends, the heat, and she’s only half way done.

In my fiftieth year, I set myself some goals, which is a thing I am wishy washy about, being as they are, something of a new year’s resolution, bound for sinking.

but with the joy of a number like fifty, there is something so satisfying in the attempt. I would like to have fifty beach visits this year, and fifty books. I am small-wishing, a possibly achievable goal, and one which I will really enjoy attempting.

books, as you know, are harder to read when your mind has shifted to the quick and tempestuous nature of the phone. the ability to pay attention has weakened, and i want it back. At work at the farm, I have to listen while I seed, or drive, so there is that change to my life of reading.

I am currently listening to Jane Eyre. and c’mon. there is so much that I have forgotten and my relationship with Mr. Rochester is so deeply changed. What a goddamned scoundrel. I want to rush to grab Jane and take her away from the living RedFlag.

And I listened to the Grass Harp last month, and man, I was surprised by moments of deep love for some of those characters. And the treehouse and the desire to escape to one. and love, what does it mean to love, and to love hard, the tiniest of things. Oh my laws.

I’ve been to the beach seven times this month, and that is seven times more than I went last summer, which is part of my deeply needed change taking place. There is, there, a way to grab back your own soul from what buildings your body builds around it. I’ve lost track of how many staircases there are in my way these days, and I need to get back to the simple shoreline of my self.

Town beach, Westport,MA.

I’m here. There are a few things I am failing at, and I’ve got no choice but to look at them. And that is tough and very unliked. But there are so many more things that I am swinging right through. And today I will cut some flowers from my garden. I’m taking my dirty feet out there as soon as I’m done here, and I will be astonished, and so will my kitchen table.

i love you guys out there in the world, because you read my words, and i feel in company, and thats pretty damn valuable to me.

and while the boat may drift, she is not counted out just yet.

  • me.
Humanity

My youngest is 11.

Lovelovemotherexpletive

I’m tired of writing facts. This is going on. That is going on. I want to write dapple and splinters of silverfish at my feet when the waters come in.

bubbles of joy and overwhelm that fizzle and steam and lift, depending on the day.

the rush of the heart against the ribcage when the tears rise, a wild irrational thrust towards escape

cold fingers typing, calloused hands barely registering on touch screens these days. i may as well have lifeless clay in digit form. but then again, i do not. there is life in this clay, and i’m in reformation mode again.

(at times anyways, because sometimes i am also too much with my couch)

the heartbreak of november is heavy with me. the light itself brings me to tears. the cry of the newly red leaf, the flutter of the gold, as they fall, food for my next year’s garden.

i feel that veil is thin, yes, and it is the grey boundaries between past and future in which i feel myself becoming a flock of birds. the neither here nor there, an inability to be present for it.

clay, sodden ground, mud and how much value do i put on a clean shoe anyhow?

there is so much going on, and nothing. and i love you, and i’ll see you soon.

-kate