Agriculture

A neighbor was late for his tour of the farm. And he seemed like such a responsible fellow! We had arranged the meeting a month earlier. Doodle’s formula was in bottles and all my various equipment for a demonstration of chores was prepared. Twenty minutes later, the phone rang and he apologetically explained. The reason? He had snagged a last-minute appointment in Brooklyn to get the monkeypox vaccine. He assumed I would be understanding, and I most certainly was. Most of the gay men I know are desperate for these shots. Friends are refreshing their phone screens dozens of times on end trying to score a scarce vaccination slot. People who wouldn't be caught dead in Staten Island consider crossing the Narrows for an appointment. One friend told me he had had just two sexual encounters in the entire past year — both with the same ex-boyfriend (“And he’s crazy safe!” he assured me). Yet this friend was still considering attesting to multiple or anonymous sexual partners in the past two weeks to get the jab

Eric visits his old (very old) high school Photo by Mark Scherzer A summer vacation right in the middle of growing season. The very thought seemed to me the height of irresponsibility, particularly when I have been running eternally behind on everything needing to get done on the farm. A weekend to weekend break, twice as long as I’ve taken in the last five years, seemed risky. The prospect made me anxious. The vacation was timed for now because I wanted to accompany Eric to his beloved native city of Quebec and be introduced as his boyfriend to family and friends about whom I’ve heard so much. But that too, was anxiety producing, leading to a cascade of concerns, both rational and irrational. Would my French be up to the task? (rational) Would the Canadians let me cross the border? (irrational) Would family and friends approve of me? (rational) Would the farm fall apart in my absence, even with trusty Steve farm-sitting? (The question may be whether it was together to begin with.) As it turns out, I

My contribution to world order Photo by Matt Best Last week I announced that the long overdue painting of the barn was about to take place. I am pleased to announce this week that it actually did take place, a group effort captained by "Macho Matt," who told the painting crew (me, Eric and Paul) when and what to paint. Eric and I finished the last of the unpainted surfaces at 7 p.m. Friday, stretching out the last ounces of paint, as Tom arrived for dinner. Et voila. The project took major parts of six days, as we all juggled painting with our office work responsibilities, painting largely before (at least in Matt's case) and after (for the rest of us) normal office hours. Thank God for the long daylight of early June and the moderate temperatures we enjoyed. Matt was a very particular taskmaster, wanting to make sure we were always painting on the shady side of the building and reserving to himself the high wire tasks requiring going to the top of the extended extension ladder. My younger compatriot

Last week I announced that the long overdue painting of the barn was about to take place. I am pleased to announce this week that it actually did take place, a group effort captained by "Macho Matt," who told the painting crew (me, Eric and Paul) when and what to paint. Eric and I finished the last of the unpainted surfaces at 7 p.m. Friday, stretching out the last ounces of paint, as Tom arrived for dinner. Et voila. The project took major parts of six days, as we all juggled painting with our office work responsibilities, painting largely before (at least in Matt's case) and after (for the rest of us) normal office hours. Thank God for the long daylight of early June and the moderate temperatures we enjoyed. Matt was a very particular taskmaster, wanting to make sure we were always painting on the shady side of the building and reserving to himself the high wire tasks requiring going to the top of the extended extension ladder. My younger compatriots have decided that at my age I should either be mo

As a cool, dampish week transitioned to a hotter, sunny weekend, we passed through what seemed to me on Friday evening a moment of perfect balance. Comfortable, perfect for a dinner on the screened porch. Looking out, as our little retreat became enveloped in velvety twilight highlighted by pinpoints of hundreds of firefly lights, evoked in my mind the words "luxe, calme et volupté." It's a phrase I first encountered over 50 years ago in a college course on Baudelaire and his fellow 19th century romantic poets. Perhaps the phrase (there are several viable translations, but for these purposes I would say "luxuriance, calm, and voluptuousness or desire") was so appealing to focus on because it so contrasted with how I felt. With a throat ravaged by a mild case of COVID, I could be more aptly described as "red, raspy and raw". There's nothing either luxuriant or calm about such a state; I was too listless to feel desire. Yes, after dodging the virus for over two years, Éric woke up with symptoms one

One of the joys of being a master procrastinator is that it provides so many occasions to rejoice when you finally do something that's been put off for too long. This weekend, when perfect late spring weather is forecast, I hope to rejoice in finally tackling, nearly three years after it should have been done, the painting of the barn. I cannot really take credit for finally moving on the project. It is a return visit from my friend Matt, and his decision that the time has come to finally get the painting done, which is the impetus. Not for nothing has he earned the moniker Macho Matt, for seeking out projects that take major effort and give maximal effect. Matt is not alone in this regard. I relied on my friend Paul (who I've decided is the maven of all things electrical and mechanical) to help dig the trench that brought electricity to the barn. I've repeatedly schlepped Steve up from the City to care for the animals when I must depart the farm, because I know I can trust his caring intuition to spo

Having gotten inquiring messages from my cousin Albie and my friend Steve, I think I need to report that if I skip writing the weekly bulletin, as I did last week, it does not mean I am hospitalized with COVID. I am simply overwhelmed with other tasks. As I explained to Steve, "I have to finish 24 hours of continuing legal education by May 24 in order to renew my law license, of which I've done 3.5 hours. Of the 140 boxes of stuff I moved into the house, I've unpacked only about 25. I have planting and weeding and sowing and mowing (it's spring!), sheep hooves to clip, storm windows to take down and screens to put up, and tons of office work I'm catching up on. To top it all off, I have a garage full of office related furnishings and equipment (from chairs to bookshelves, desks to printers/scanners and monitors) I must prepare for sale at next Saturday's (May 21) town wide Germantown yard sale." While I realize that our major western religions all have decreed days of rest to allow for contemplation and

I like to think of myself as an individual, but then I must acknowledge that like all individuals I am a product of a particular culture, place and time. The life choices I make now would, I suspect, seem inconceivable to someone of a different time and place, yet would be seen as entirely predictable by an astute sociologist familiar with the circumstances I confront. Seen from that perspective, the new business soon starting at the farm would surprise nobody. I understand some of you, long-term readers or listeners, upon hearing about a new venture being undertaken here, already have little cogwheels of suspicion spinning doubts in your mind. In past years, we’ve announced such ventures as experimental pineapple cultivation supervised by a Bard student from Hawaii, a new line of chocolate flavored eggs achieved by feeding the chickens waste almond dust from the Hershey Bar factory, and the transformation of the farm into a foundation to improve animal etiquette (in order to achieve a total tax exemption)

As I listened to Weekend Edition this Saturday, there seemed nothing on offer but bad, sad news. Most of it was fully anticipated: the war in Ukraine, the latest COVID surge, and the sorry state of American politics. But even the news of agriculture, which is the source of our sustenance and should be uplifting, was a downer: reports of an avian flu affecting domestic poultry, and an interview with Andrea Arnold, the director of a recently released documentary, Cow. The film, which chronicles the life of a cow in a commercial dairy farm over a four year period, has been described, in the New York Times review, as a "feel bad movie." The focus of the interview about Cow, however, was less on the dismal circumstances of the dairy cow's life, and more about our reaction to it.  Are we over-anthropomorphizing animals, the interviewer asked, when we assume their emotions are similar to our own? Exhibit A in this discussion was the moment when a calf is removed from its mother, in order to transition t

If I tell you you're going to hear the real dirt on me, you may expect something salacious. Sorry to disappoint. The real dirt on me is really just dirt. I've been somewhat fixated on this topic since the day last week when spring seemed to hit the farm in a torrent of simultaneous events, as if mandated by the calendar. It may have been the day of the equinox or the day before, I don't fully remember, but I emerged in the morning to such a balmy moistness in the air that I left hat and gloves behind when I did chores, for the first time in months. Rounding the corner heading toward Possum's pen, I was honked at by a pair of Canada geese, my annual guests, freshly arrived that morning to set up their nest on the island in the middle of the pond. They will stay only until their goslings are hatched and fledged, about ten weeks from now. Coming back from the barn, I checked the progress of my garlic in the vegetable garden, and found sorrel leaves peaking up above the ground. By then, I was for the first t

There's something comforting about howling winds and driven snow, if you're inside a cozy warm house looking out at the weather. There's something pleasing about the abrupt suspension of normal activity by forces beyond your control, if you know it's just a punctuation mark in a life that will resume its flow. If I had any doubt that I should simply savor this slightly inconvenient March snowstorm, I have the example of the people of Mariupol and other besieged Ukrainian cities to dispel that doubt. They cannot revel in the last of winter's cold, if they have no heat in which to take refuge from it. They cannot relax into the sudden and unanticipated break from their normal life, if they have no assurance of ever returning to it. I know, in a matter of days and with certainty, that spring will resume its inexorable march forward on the farm. They, in contrast, can rely on no certain delivery from the dangers and discomforts besetting them. By preventing me from carrying out the tree trimming and blackbe

If you’re like me, you’ve been glued to the news of Ukraine for the last 10 days. We all know wars are great for news station ratings. And undoubtedly each of us reads or listens to that news through the prism of our own fixed ideas of how the world is ordered. Of course I’m inspired by stories of valiant resistance by the Ukrainians, horrified by the disingenuous and reckless cruelty of Vladimir Putin, and betting on the results -- that yet another dictator with too much power and insulated from perspective has set into motion his own destruction. These are tried and true themes when we tell the story of our society. But the stories I give priority to, the ones I find most intensely engaging, are the ones that recount the beginnings of yet another saga of human migration, of refugees seeking refuge. The idea that it’s intrinsic to the human condition to have one’s life upended, and to have to seek safe places to go in an intrinsically unstable and unsafe world, is a bedrock theme in my life. That I’d

The farm feels like the world in microcosm. The world has Vladimir Putin. The barn has a half-castrated ram (the result of poor testicle-banding on my part) who I've now named Vlad. In general it is inadvisable to name animals you're going to have slaughtered, lest you develop affection for them, but in this case I don't think I'll have any qualms when he goes to market. Vladimir and Vlad share several characteristics. Both are instinctively aggressive. Both look for their chances and seize their opportunities. Both of these namesakes also hog resources. For Vladimir, it's the commodity wealth produced by the Russian nation. He is thought to have amassed personal holdings, held through surrogates, in excess of $200 billion, while much of Russia's middle and lower classes struggle. For Vlad the ram, it's hay. Always first at the manger, and brooking no competition for it. And like Vladimir, Vlad preens. He knows in his heart that he's beautiful. The only difference here is, in the ram's case it's no

I hear the sound: Puh-puh-puh-BAM! Then, silence. Still, like a child that’s been caught in the act, before it starts again. Puh-puh-puh-rustle-rustle. “Helllloooo,” I yell down to the kitchen from my upstairs office, secretly hoping someone is just visiting. Bringing me a little surprise perhaps? Delivering a gift? Receiving no response, I go downstairs to investigate. Nothing. Puh-puh-puh! Rustle, rustle, CLANK! I race down again. Still nothing! A ghost? (At this point, I know I’m caught up in wishful thinking, but I’m holding out for alternatives to the plain reality.) In the shower, I pray nothing attacks while I’m naked and defenseless. And there it is, again, right outside the bathroom door! PUH-Puh-puh! It’s venturing up the stairs, outside the bathroom door, stops, and doubles back: puh-Puh-PUH! It’s heading into the kitchen! The footfalls are far too loud for a rat. I’m concerned it could be something considerably larger, even a raccoon–and they bite! I cautiously step into the l

If you live near here, you’ve been encased in ice for the last day or so. A quarter inch of it wrapped around every surface, everything glimmering. There is a brittle beauty to the ice-encrusted landscape. The pasture is paved with Baccarat. The blackberry patch lit with neon as the sun glints off the glassed-in canes. The branches of the wild plum trees are transformed into crackling wind chimes that break off if you brush too close beneath them. It will remain this way until the thermometer rises above freezing early next week. Enchanting? Sure, but also a royal pain in the ass. The ice is even more paralyzing than a deep winter snow. I generally start clearing driveways and walkways with my trusty snow shovel as soon as the storm stops. But this arctic crust that formed is impervious! My shovel just glides along the top, ineffectually, as do I. Luckily, my friend Steve is here for a refresher course in farming before he takes charge and I decamp for a ski trip. “And don’t tell them I farm ‘like

All this week I’ve been appreciating my farm chores as welcome breaks from the stresses of my day job. As a lawyer, I often represent people with serious illness whose insurers are denying them access to treatments. This week I was juggling three cases (an older woman with breast cancer, a young woman with an immune deficiency, and a middle-aged man for whom standard hormone replacement medications would not work) in which delays in getting the treatments prescribed by their doctors would mean prolonged symptoms, risk of disability or death, or all of the above. Such clients quite naturally react to their predicaments with emotions that range from anxiety to desperation to rage. When things don’t appear to be moving fast enough or in their favor, some react by doubting my competence or lashing out at me. After forty plus years of such work, you’d think I would have developed coping mechanisms to both manage their expectations and prevent their anxieties from becoming mine. Those mechanisms don’t always suc

Do you “spoon” when you sleep with a spouse or bed partner? Outside, the shutters may be banging against the house in the stiff western wind; the windows encased in white frost; the wind chill at minus 20. But inside, with another body close against yours under the covers, a warmth builds quickly. It’s as if the heat of the body is amplified by being bounced back and forth, the way mirrors can refract light and back and forth to intensify heat and light fires. And the benefits of spooning go beyond heat, to feelings of intimacy and protection. You might even feel secure enough to surrender that axe you keep next to your bed to dispatch intruders. Spooning involves adjustments and compromises. If you’re the big spoon, does your bottom arm comfortably fit under your partner’s head or torso? If you’re the little spoon, is the hand of the top arm resting where you like having it? If one of you tosses, does the other turn, and how do you negotiate the frequency? You are surrendering considerable individual a

There is nothing linear about life, history or society. Nope, it’s all push and pull, fits and starts, up and down, step forward and step back. Former President Obama used to quote Martin Luther King Jr. to the effect that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But to me, there’s less of an arc to life than a series of very wavy lines, and those lines are likely to be trending, if they have any discernible trend, in different directions. Nowhere is this reality more apparent than on the farm. It was refreshing this week to finally arrive at true meteorological winter. A few inches of light fluffy snow ended Friday morning, easily shoveled off the driveway, followed Saturday by bright blue sunshine and a zero wind chill this morning. It seemed like this kind of crisp, unmistakable winter would never get here. That it was so pretty and was so easy to manage made it delightful, after what seemed like weeks of warmish gray days punctuated by dismal drizzle. But it always str

On the rare occasion that I ever leave the farm for more than a day, my recurring fear is that something will happen that can’t be handled by whomever I’ve entrusted with its care, requiring me to abort my trip and rush back. Rarely have such events happened. But last week, when I went to the City for four days, I had a momentary scare. The purpose of my trip was to retrieve some essentials from my office (I’ve been reunited with my notary stamp); to catch up on some deferred medical checkups (I’ll live); and to incidentally socialize and grab some culture (If Omicron doesn’t close down the theaters, do see Caroline, or Change at the Roundabout; it’s terrific). But I must admit that even such a short and mundane visit can seem like a vacation. I was still abed on my first morning in the City when I got a panicked message from Steve. You know Steve, the friend who thought I should figure how to manage my sheep herd through “trolley problem” analysis. Steve had kindly volunteered to come up and mind the f

Last week after I pondered culling my two oldest ewes for the benefit of the rest of the flock, my friend Steve excitedly texted: “I love the sheep trolley problem…. But it doesn’t mean as much if you don’t really pull in each character. Really calculate the consequences. .. Describe the young healthy sheep. What do you owe them? Describe the older sheep. How much do you love them? Weigh their lives in front of us. Let us see it… I say trolley problem the shit out of it all next week.” Steve is passionate about the written word, and has spent most of his working life writing and editing. But he dictates, rather than types, his texts, which sometimes mangles words. The first time I read the term “sheep trolley problem” I figured the software had transformed some complicated word into a nonsensical expression, and that the meaning would eventually become clear. The second time, several texts later, I was still mystified, so I asked “what is being transcribed as trolley problem?” Steve became equally mys