Several times a market day I'm asked, "are you organic?" No, thinking of the two eggs and bacon on a hard roll (all of an unknown provenance, but not local,...
I'm not sure which I dislike less, opening the mail or answering the phone; I like to write letters and chat on my cell, but always prefer to initiate contact....
Something was wrong. She had broken water, but instead of laying down to lamb, she followed the flock as they moved away from me. If we were in the barn I...
Mornings and evenings now I drive the truck through a quarter mile of eye-high uncut hay; a low rider, I've come to visit the sheep. My face feels chalky from...
The sun was setting as I was about to leave the farm but I noticed a ewe in the yard, by herself, away from the others who were grazing on the grassy slope...
Looking at sheep keeps them healthy. I walk into the flock, morning and evening, talking softly and listening to them. They seem to like these fields of...
Living in Paris in the late 70's, I read 'A Movable Feast' in which Hemingway describes living in Paris in the early 20's. On Sundays, he and Hadley would...
Field work goes on and on like a barking dog. The days spent under the beating sun in the heat and humidity are oppressive and longer than a sleepless night....
Volume 3 Number 4 October, 2006 "THE VEGETABLE-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX" (an excerpt) By MICHAEL POLLAN. Reprinted without permission from the October 15, 2006 New...
The interior of my house is white: white ceilings, white walls and white carpet, upstairs and down. With white sheepskins, I draped the loveseat, three wicker...
I'm chicken. When it comes to commitment, I'm not that daring. I always want to know what the future will be before I leap into it. I'm not the person you...
With a roar the metal door on the United Cargo loading dock rolled up; out came a whirring, yellow forklift with a small wooden crate on it. The operator set...
Avenpart Xendaa, Part 3 The first night with the pup, the house felt empty, like guests had left, yet no one had been over. Mostly, I enjoy being alone; I...
Avenpart Xendaa, Part 4 While I'm honking my own horn here, let me tell you about a good sentence I wrote. In Australia all breeders, be they breeders of...
"Dear Mary.your eyes will have to be my eyes. I'm assured by your experience and reputation that you know what you're looking at in your pups; and I'm...
Juliet's reason sedates Romeo, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Over Romeo's slumbering body I called...
Poem and I are more free verse than sonnet, but we're learning to rhyme. Our work is rhythmic, day in day out, by trial and error. I teach her to come and to...
The play of light was dramatic. The warm, late afternoon sun slanted through the trees as I steered around the potholes on the dirt road leading to the farm....
I accept responsibility. It was I who left an untutored dog near sheep. It was I who left the truck window down from which she leapt. I was at fault, not...
The Search for Loomi Now that I'm designing lamb sausages, please don't assume that little Poem has ended up as hot dogs. I'm not that Brooklyn; besides I...
The commonplace can be adventurous. My trip to Brooklyn for loomi, the Middle Eastern spice of salted and sun blackened limes from which I want to make a lamb...
HOT LAMB SAUSAGES MERGUEZ is a spicy lamb sausage from Morocco with crushed red pepper, cayenne, black pepper, minced garlic and cinnamon. Good with...
The day opened slowly like a sleepy eye. In the dim green dawn nothing distinct was visible in the field before the doorway of the weathered red shed where I...
LOOSE CANONS Poem has Paris Hilton eyes. Poor Poem, I love her anyway. I suspect that Paris Hilton is George Bush in drag-they have the same eyes-for the...
Thursday morning Poem was tied to a fence post--she broke free and ran away. My fault--I tied her there and I should have tied her better. Dogs never let you...
Poem is home. I found her where I lost her. She didn't run off, I did. The Thursday morning of her 'disappearance', I was moving the ram flock to a new...
I walked the quarter mile back to Poem's kennel and unplugged the fence charger on the way. I leashed her and we went back to where the rams and cows were...
Friday, thirty-one hours after Poem was lost she was found, alive and well, where she was lost. Unknowingly I fenced her in with the rams; the orchard grass...
Saturday at market was warm with a high of 43, good weather for selling wool. My cell phone rang about 1 PM; it was Clara back at the farm telling me that...
