View of Hogback Mountain

Looking Towards Home

Orthodox Agrarian

I periodically get hits on the blog from Google searches that match the title. I am always a little embarrassed because I am not a stellar exemplar for either Orthodoxy or Agrarianism. So, I am always happy to find other Orthodox making the move to a rural lifestyle. It lets me say, see- don't look at me; go look at them. James, the longtime blogger at Paradosis has taken the plunge and now includes regular farm reports in his blog. His wife has gone further and has set up a St. Brigid Farm blog with great pictures of their little plot of ground in the Pacific Northwest. If you stop by before Friday night there is still time to get in on the "Name the Goats" contest.

The View From Home

Yes, we can get our geek on . . .

Authors On-line

An increasing number of authors not only have web sites but also write blogs, giving the devoted reader the ultimate fan experience. At some point I intend to add a few of my favorites to the list of links over on the right. As a start, here is a link to a writer John C. Wright's livejournal. Wright, besides being an alumnus of my law school, is a practitioner of space opera on the grandest scale as well as being a first rate writer of contemporary fantasy. A web page with links to his work is here. He is opinionated, articulate and willing to get into the trenches with fan and foe alike. While the livejournal writing is interesting, it doesn't begin to give an idea of what his fiction is like. For that, pick up one of the books.

Sunday afternoon at the movies

Sunday afternoon Susan, youngest son and I went to the movies. Our hometown theatre is Royal Cinemas, a vintage small town movie house. The balcony has been converted into a second screening room and there is a tiny third screen on the left side of the old building, but the main theatre is still large enough to capture a bit of the old movie palace magic. When I go to the movies I want a screen big enough to lose myself in. Royal Cinemas has still got it.

We saw the new Narnia film, Prince Caspian, which gets a thumbs up from all three of us. There are two interesting reviews on the National Review web site. The first, by Thomas Hibbs, is here. The second, by Frederica Mathewes-Green is here. The contrast between the two would make for some good discussion, particularly Frederica's assertion that "The movie is just plain better than the book."

Shearing

There was a break in the rain Friday night with early morning winds on Saturday to dry out a week's worth of wet wool. Taking advantage, we set up the shearing stand and got to work. The first few sheep went quickly. They were older ewes, used to being handled and gave us no trouble, seemingly relieved to be out from under all that wool. Later in the afternoon the luck of the draw brought us a group of yearlings, sheep born last season who had never been sheared before. Imagine a 150 pound toddler getting his first haircut. Imagine that toddler with muscles, hard hooves, horns in one case, and absolutely no sense of decorum. We finished the talley for the day a little tired but with less drama and bloodletting than I expected. I have to say though, the hair sheep idea is looking better and better.

The guys hanging out

Peacock Moving Quickly

 

Rain Gauge

 

You mean I actually won something?

I am never the guy holding the winning ticket. The lottery has ignored me. The peel-off games at fast food joints have never brought me anything more than a free bag of fries, and a small bag at that. I've come to view a raffle ticket as just a receipt for a charitable contribution. So you can imagine my surprise when Susan told me that we had won a sheep. I had kicked in a buck at the Sheep and Wool festival for a chance on a Katahdin ram and thought nothing more of it until Susan picked up the phone and was told I had the winning ticket. Katahdins sheep are a little different from anything we have on the farm. For one thing their coat is different from normal wool. They are considered "hair" sheep. They shed. No shearing involved, it just drops off in the spring. Our prize sheep is down in Waynesboro, Virginia due south of us on Triple L Farms. Check out their web page if you are interested. For some great pictures of hair sheep go here.

I am not sure when we will go and pick up our prize. We have been too busy shearing for a road trip, which, I suppose, makes the case for the Katahdin all by itself.

Kitchen Companions

Not being naturally gifted in the kitchen and having an inordinate trust in books, I naturally turned to cook books when I first started fending for myself. The first one I ever bought was From A Monastery Kitchen. I know, a copy of The Joy of Cooking would have been a lot more practical, but the simple recipes accompanied by prayers, apt quotations and drawings made preparing meals beyond scrambled eggs seem not only possible but actually enjoyable. The edition I linked to is now out of print, but a revised and expanded version is still available.

Listening to Verse

In our time we have forgotten by and large how poetry sounds. I don't mean that no one reads poetry out loud anymore, just that we have lost the knack of properly reading verse in rhyme and meter. Go to a contemporary poetry reading and you hear the poet take on a grave, nasal tone, ending each line with a little up or down inflection of the voice, trying to inject a little music into what is basically prose with interesting line breaks. Or as Robert Frost put it in his poem "How Hard It Is To Keep From Being King":

Free verse leaves out the metre and makes up
For the deficiency by church intoning.
Free verse so called is really cherished prose,
Prose made much of, given an air by church intoning.
It has its beauty, only I don't write it.


If you would like a daily dose of verse read well, you cannot do better than Classic Poetry Aloud.
The link takes you to a very long web page where you can both read and hear each poem. There is a searchable index here. The most recent 100 readings are available as a podcast from iTunes. I carry a dozen or so with me in the car as an alternative to the radio wasteland.

What is outside the window

Spring
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

More Food Blogging

In keeping with the recent food theme, here is a recommendation. If you are ever in Columbia South Carolina on a weekend, go to Little Pigs Barbecue for their buffet. No frills, just good cheap food and lots of it. It is also the perfect place if you have a dog in the mustard vs. tomato vs. vinegar base barbecue sauce fight. (I love them all, but I realize that mine might be a minority opinion.) They serve all three, plus whole slow cooked pork shoulders so you can pull and sauce the meat to suit yourself. The side dishes are all top notch and if you want to bypass the soft drinks there is all the sweet tea (house wine of the South) you can drink. You can find better barbecue if you look hard enough or travel far enough, but Little Pigs would still be worth a stop even if it weren't the best lunch or dinner deal around.

(This post is backdated: I'm catching up after some traveling last weekend.)

Getting Ready To Fly

Tomorrow morning I will be flying down to Columbia, South Carolina to meet with old friends and celebrate my goddaughter's confirmation in the Lutheran Church. I am looking forward to the trip, but not necessarily to the flying part. It is not because I am afraid of airplanes. It is just that air travel now combines the class and comfort of a long bus ride with the romance of a trip to the DMV. It didn't use to be this way. I've told myself it was a trade off I could and should live with in exchange for cheap fares. Now with fuel prices through the roof, it looks like we are in for the worst of both worlds, high prices and abysmal service. Don't get me started on security unless you are in the mood for a minimum twenty minute rant. I will spare you that and simply refer you to Peggy Noonan's column from a few weeks ago; The View From Gate 14.

(This post is backdated: I'm catching up after some traveling last weekend.)

Still in the Kitchen

While at the Sheep and Wool Festival I stopped by C.A.D. Cutlery's booth to replace a lost steak knife. They are a small family owned business in Maryland that carries a full line of Forschner kitchen knives. Forschner is a cutlery division of Victorinox, of Swiss Army Knife fame. The knives are great. Make no mistake, these are inexpensive no frills basic tools but they do the job better than anything else any where near their price range. The eight inch chef's knife with the fibrox handle has been my basic kitchen tool for almost a decade now. It's overdue for a professional sharpening, but is still getting the job done. If, however, you need to have your knives be works of art as well as tools, try browsing this site. I've never ordered anything and probably never will, but the knives are beautiful and the occasional drift into japanglish in the descriptions has its own charm.

(This post is backdated: I'm catching up after some traveling last weekend.)

Loafing at home

The bread in the previous posting's picture came out of our own home oven. Years back as a poor and hungry bachelor I learned to cook a little and branched out eventually into home bread making. These days it is hard to work the needed time for mixing, rising and kneading, to say nothing of baking into the office and farm schedule. No one wants to wait around until 11:00 pm to hear me say "Come on, the bread's ready!" So, when I ran across this book, I thought I would give it a try. Now, I knew going in that you really can't make "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" so I wasn't surprised to find that rising times still need accounting for, as well as a certain amount of time spent actually shaping loaves before baking. A book titled "You can make pretty decent bread at home without actually having to stick your hands in dough for more than five minutes at a time" probably would have been a harder sell, if a little more accurate. Nonetheless, following the instructions gives me better bread than I can buy at the grocery store and I am now in the habit of keeping a few pounds of pre-risen dough ready in the refrigerator. The authors have a useful web site, which includes a few important corrections to the book.

Baking Bread

Autoharp Hero

The gentleman holding the autoharp in the last picture from the Sheep and Wool festival is Bryan Bowers. I was, as we used to say, "blown away" the first time I saw him play back in 1972. A friend and I had gone to a show at the Lisner Auditorium to catch The Seldom Scene, a bluegrass band we held in the same awe we would normally reserve for the Dead, Cream or Dylan. Bryan Bowers was also on the bill, following The Seldom Scene. Our guys put on a tremendous show, with their trademark mix of newgrass instrumental virtuosity, tight vocals and traditional stylings put into overdrive by the stage presence of the irrepressible John Duffy. Happy with what we had just heard, we were ready to leave but decided to see what one guy with an autoharp could do. We figured at least it would be good for a laugh. What followed was an hour of music still fresh in my mind over thirty-five years later. The energy pouring off that stage and the sounds he got from that string-covered board were nothing short of amazing. It was good to see him on Saturday. The energy level exhibited Saturday was more fitting for an elder statesman than a young turk, but he can still play. He doesn't look much like he used to:

But then, neither do I. It was good to hear him again.

Sheep and Wool Festival

On Saturday Susan and I drove up to Howard County Maryland to spend the afternoon at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Besides, being a nice day trip, we had the blades to our sheep shears sharpened, bought a second shearing machine to replace one that went dead last year, ate junk food, listened to music, daydreamed about expensive farm equipment and admired the prize winning sheep on display. Here are a few photos from the day:

Looking Towards Home

A Bumble Bee Came out of the Barn . . .

For the First of May

May Magnificat

MAY is Mary's month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why:

Her feasts follow reason,

Dated due to season-

Candlemas, Lady Day;

But the Lady Month, May,

Why fasten that upon her,

With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter

Than the most are must delight her?

Is it opportunest

And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:

Her reply puts this other

Question: What is Spring?-

Growth in every thing-

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,

Grass and greenworld all together;

Star-eyed strawberry-breasted

Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin

Forms and warms the life within;

And bird and blossom swell

In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing

Mary sees, sympathising

With that world of good,

Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind

With delight calls to mind

How she did in her stored

Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:

Spring's universal bliss

Much, had much to say

To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple

Bloom lights the orchard-apple

And thicket and thorp are merry

With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes

And magic cuckoocall

Caps, clears, and clinches all-

This ecstasy all through mothering earth

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth

To remember and exultation

In God who was her salvation.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Why this blog is mostly about books and farming

The Orthodox Blogosphere is always embroiled in some controversy or other. I am often tempted join in but usually manage to restrain myself. Lately, when the urge becomes compelling, I squash it by thinking of this cartoon from Randall Monroe at xkcd.com:

 

If you have a complaint . . .

It is the nature of my work that I meet people when they have problems.  I try and help with the ones that are potentially fixable in the legal system of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  As for the rest, well in spite of what we lawyers may say, the Courts don't have an answer for most of the difficulties that plague us in day to day life. To fix those you may try prayer, politics, or simply learn patience.  Or, you can join voices with like minded folks and try this.

Spring rains and an evening with a poet

Rain again today.  I would post a picture, but too much rushing around this morning and meetings until late tonight left no time.  It is finally quiet here at home, dogs snoozing on the carpet waiting for me to go to bed.  I am looking through volumes of Chinese and Japanese poetry, reading about Spring in an age past and half a world away.  This, by the Japanese poet Saigyo as translated by Burton Watson struck me tonight as I read in our mountain home:

Spring Showers in a Mountain Dwelling--written at Ohara

Curtained by spring showers

pouring down from the eves,

a place where someone lives,

idle, idle,

unknown to others

 

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Last night our little congregation stood outside in the mist and, raising our candles in the sign of the cross, proclaimed and celebrated the resurrection.  For the next forty days we greet each other with the best news a man or woman can hear; Christ is Risen!  Why is this so?  Here is the answer, taken from the Paschal Sermon of St John Chrysostom, read as part of the service:

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Savior's death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.

When we proclaim that Christ is risen, we share the news that all the fears and frustrations of daily life, that the crisis of nations and the plots and plans of politicians are all the last gasps of a dying order.  This truth supercedes what we read in the papers.  This is the news that there is hope and more than hope; that we can live now in the first-fruits of the new world.  Christ is Risen!

To read and hear the Paschal Greeting in 250 different languages, go here.

Saturday Shearing in the Barn

 

  

Good Friday

In Orthodox liturgics a new day begins at Sundown and so it is natural that services for the following day are often held by way of anticipation on the evening before.  Last night was the first of the Good Friday services, a reading of twelve selections from the Gospels recounting the Passion, that is the arrest, trial and crucifixion of the Lord.  In between the Gospel readings we sang hymns and verses meditating on the wonder and paradoxes of what is taking place in that liturgical time of the service which places us simultaneously in Palestine and the present.  Here is an Antiphon we sang which seem to follow with the theme of water that has been cropping up in my posts this week:

Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon a Tree, (x3)

He who is King of the Angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns.

He who wraps the heaven in clouds is wrapped in mocking purple.

He who freed Adam in the Jordan receives a blow on the face.

The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails.

The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a lance,.

We worship your Sufferings, O Christ (x3)

Show us also your glorious Resurrection.

The full service as translated by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash can be found here.

Holy Thursday

The One who made lakes and springs and seas, instructing us in surpassing humility, girding himself with a towel, washed his disciples’ feet, humbling himself in the abundance of his compassion and exalting us from the depths of wickedness, he who alone loves humankind.

From the service for Matins (Morning Prayer) on Holy Thursday

The Morning Fog Lifts

The Promise of Spring

Steve Hayes commented on yesterday's post from his Southern hemisphere home in South Africa: 

 And I heard noises outside my window this morning and looked out and the wind was swirling the dead leaves. I turned the heater on for the first time this year, and somewhere reported the first snow of the season.

This reminder of the reversal of seasons that comes from living on different halves of a big round ball mixed with the last few days of rain and brought to mind one of my favorite songs; The Waters of March/Águas de Março, by Antonio Carlos Jobim.  Jobim wrote two versions of the song.  The Portuguese original is a stream of consciousness meditation inspired by the rains of March, which in Brazil signal the end of summer.  The second, English, version is not so much a translation as a Northern hemisphere adaptation.  Here is a bit from the lyrics:

The plan of the house, the body in bed
And the car that got stuck, it's the mud, it's the mud
A float, a drift, a flight, a wing
A hawk, a quail, the promise of spring
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart
A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road
It's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone
A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe
It's a thorn in your hand and a cut in your toe
A point, a grain, a bee, a bite
A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night
A pin, a needle, a sting a pain
A snail, a riddle, a wasp, a stain
A pass in the mountains, a horse and a mule
In the distance the shelves rode three shadows of blue
And the river talks of the waters of March
It's the promise of life in your heart
A stick, a stone, the end of the road
The rest of a stump, a lonesome road
A sliver of glass, a life, the sun
A knife, a death, the end of the run
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the end of all strain, it's the joy in your heart

Reading the lyrics does not do justice to the song, with its deceptively simple syncopation and sweet but melancholy melody.  I counted yesterday and discovered that I own five versions of the song by different artists.  I did not plan this, it is just that I find myself listening to a lot of bossa nova lately.  Perhaps it is the combination of beauty and sadness in the best of it.  Perhaps it is just an urge to listen to music made by grown ups for a change.  The Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart maintains in his The Beauty of the Infinite that "Bach's is the ultimate Christian music; it reflects as no other human artifact ever has or could the Christian vision of creation."  This is no doubt true for the big picture.  I see Bach as like the physics and higher math of cosmology and quantum mechanics.  It is true and it is beautiful but it describes a world both bigger and smaller than the one we humans live in.  Here on the human scale the math gets messy.  Coastlines are fractals.  Swirling waters and weather patterns are non-linear, defying easy prediction.  Even the human heart beats chaotically and a "perfectly regular heartbeat is more likely to presage sudden death than good health."  Jobim's little bossa nova about the change of seasons, be it North or South is not Bach, but, for me at least, it speaks of the underlying beauty amidst the ten thousand seemingly unconnected details found in any day in any life if you stop and look around.  Not a meaningless chaos then, but something more:

A float, a drift, a flight, a wing
A hawk, a quail, the promise of spring
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart

The View From Home April 21 2008

In the Orthodox Church Calendar yesterday was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.  Pascha, as we call Easter, is much later this year than the Western celebration, late enough in the season so the redbud is in bloom and the grass in our fields has turned from winter brown to green.  Here is the view from home this Monday morning in Holy Week.

The National Weather Service has placed us under a winter storm watch for Thursday night. Ice, sleet and freezing rain expected. From the photo archives, here is another picture of the aftermath of a mid-December ice storm.

Our flock has done some strange things, but I've never seen this before.

Light, Shadow, Classics and Packing Tape?

Mark Khaisman is an artist living and working in Philadelphia.  Born in Ukraine and educated in Moscow, Mark has worked as an architect, animator, iconographer, and stained glass designer.  In the last few years he has pulled together the skills from all his previous artistic incarnations and has applied them to creating art that at the same time combines the disciplines of classical drawing with the use of light from glass work to create something wonderful by layering common brown packing tape over Plexiglas.  This is what I mean:

The subject matter is a suit of ceremonial armor, perfect for a classic figure study, accenting detail and exercising the artist's ability to sketch in light and shadow.  Mark suggests it all simply by layering tape over a backlit panel.  Without the light, the figure would be a barely differentiated mass of muddy brown.  With the light shining through it becomes detailed, elegant, even radiant.  (to be continued . . .)

Susan I took a road trip this weekend; no kids, no computer, no sheep except the ones out the car window. We left Friday afternoon for Lancaster County PA and spent the night at a Bed and Breakfast in Bird in Hand. Saturday was farmer's markets, furniture stands, Amish food and a quick trip to Philadelphia, a new hotel and a reception for the opening of an exhibit of work by Mark Khaisman. More about that tomorrow. Tonight it's time for bed.

This is Amy Sue. She was purchased at a livestock sale by a friend who went there to look at horses and felt so sorry for the single bedraggled sheep in the sale that she put in her bid and became a sheep owner. Amy Sue came over to live with us a few years back to take advantage of our larger summer pastures and stayed when she decided she would rather hang with the flock than be a pet. That doesn't mean that she still doesn't want a little more individual attention than the rest of the flock.

From the photo archives, looking out towards the mountain after a mid-December ice storm.

One of the online journals I read regularly is Bishop Seraphim's livejournal. Bishop Seraphim seems to have an inexhaustible interest in almost anything and everyone. Today's entry (posted from Moscow) takes us back to New York to an exhibit honoring Jack Kerouac. At this point in my 50's I should have outgrown Kerouac, but I still find myself rereading On The Road and Dharma Bums every few years. There is a music there you either hear or you don't. As Richard Thompson put it in one of his songs:

Like a myth you rode in from the west
From the go you had my button pressed
Did the tea-time of your soul
Make you long for wilder days?
Did you never let Jack Kerouac
Wash over you in waves?

Here is a picture from back in December of the first lamb of the season.

Among my other Christmas presents was gift card for Borders. I used most of it on a CD sale at the local branch and picked up the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina). The first I was familiar with, the second I picked up after reading reviews. Both are great listening. I will not attempt to review Blanchard's work until I have spent more time with it. As for Pet Sounds, this is music I have heard for over 40 years, and still listen to. A few days ago, after my umpteenth listening to "God Only Knows" on the car stereo on the way home, I did a little web surfing before dinner and went to Maclin Horton's Light on Dark Water to catch up on a few weeks of his Sunday Night Journal entries and found this appreciation of what us old-timers still refer to as an "album."

If you read here for any time you know that I live outside a small town in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. We have not heretofore been much affected by multiculturalism. Our idea of exotic cuisine is the local Mexican restaurant or carryout Chinese. Because of this I was surprised when the Royal Dairy, an old style diner attached to what was formerly an actual dairy, was sold and reincarnated as a Korean barbecue, Japanese steakhouse and Sushi restaurant called the Royal Garden. Susan and I stopped in tonight and much to my surprise, it was now under new management as the "Samurai Steakhouse;" being in this latest incarnation a Mexican (yes, Mexican) restaurant with a sideline as a Japanese Steakhouse and sushi bar. Being on a post-Christmas diet, we opted for the Japanese grill experience, which was ably executed by the cheery Hispanic chef. It was actually pretty good, and when I have shed a few pounds I might try the Mexican part of the menu.

From Alan Jacob's online commonplace book, comes a link to this story about an unusual link between Indian writer and poet Vikram Seth and the great English poet George Herbert.

I discovered Herbert in high school and re-read him regularly. Here is one of my favorites:

Prayer (I)

Prayer the Church's banquet, angels' age,
God's breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;

Engine against th'Almighty, sinner's tower,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days' world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The Milky Way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

George Herbert

We did not get the predicted four to eight inches of snow today. Enough came down to give everything a good coating, but most of what fell came as sleet and freezing rain. I have to say I would have preferred the snow. The sheep are fine. No new lambs today, which was a surprise. Perhaps because we had everybody in a paddock close to the barn and they did not have the opportunity to drop a lamb out on the ice it took the fun out of it. If the sun makes an appearance I will try for some pictures tomorrow.

What's on the ipod: Richard Thompson. For proof that a great musician can elevate anything, go to this page and play the interview. It is all good, but what you want is eight minutes and fifty-five seconds in.

Hot Library Smut

Hot Library Smut No, this has nothing to do with lady librarians taking off their glasses and shaking their hair out. If you click the link, you will find photographs of the most beautiful spaces for the display, reading and storage of books one can imagine. I have worked in a few libraries over the years, but these are libraries apotheosized.

Our latest addition to the flock.

 

My law office is in Front Royal Virginia, but our farm is several miles south of town near the village of Browntown. Browntown has a general store, a couple churches, a few houses and an old country school which is now a Community Center. The January issue of Shenandoah Valley Monthly Magazine has an article about our community which is available on-line this month here. The cover shows a picture of our home town after a snowfall.

 

 

Lambs everywhere this weekend. I don't think we've ever had so many born in so short a period of time. The lamb count jumped from nine to twenty between Friday morning and this afternoon, even after losing a few in difficult births. We are expecting at least a few more in the next day. We spent the day at the barn, checking ewes, looking in on the new lambs and getting the barn ready for the new influx. Oldest son and I picked up two truckloads of hay bought from some neighbors and stacked it in the barn for feeding to the new mothers. There are so many new lambs that every time a group of ewes move, there is a kind of chinese fire drill where the lambs run around and sort out who belongs to who. One lamb misplaced its mother for most of the morning, going from sheep to sheep looking for someone who would let him nurse. I was beginning to think that he had been abandoned when he caught up with his mother and his twin. The ewe took him back happily, but did not seem to realize he was missing. Sheep are not known for being smart, but most mothers of twins can usually count to two.

We have one sheep that has mastered the intricacies of the cattle guard. Instead of being intimidated by the concrete grid, she dances across like Baryshnikov and heads out to Browntown Road where, she believes, the grass is greener. Inevitably we get a call from a neighbor or the local sheriff's department that a sheep is distracting traffic and we send one of the boys down to get her back in. Now, we live in the country so the occasional cow or sheep in the road is to be expected. I won't even begin to speculate how this sheep made its way to the Bronx. I ran across the story while searching for poetry on sheep. I must admit, it has a more surreal quality than most police (or livestock) reports that I've read.

After only thirty-five posts last year (and none from September to January) the readership here has naturally enough dropped off dramatically. Perhaps it's time to order one of these.

Here is something I have been meaning to link to for a while. I am not sure whether it is simply another ill-advised arts grant gone wild or truly inspired silliness that actually spills over into poetry. Click here to see what I mean.

After reading it again tonight, I thought briefly of adapting the method for devotional purposes; though in an Orthodox context that would mean painting Lord have mercy on the first forty sheep. Since that would occupy about two thirds of our flock, the remaining one third would be hard pressed carry the rest of the burden for enough combinations of words for a properly lengthy Orthodox prayer. Since we do not plan on increasing our flock size in the near future, I will table the idea for now.

If you would like to engage in a bit of virtual sheep poetry composition, go here to add a little Dada to your day.

When we left the barn last night we expected that by tonight the lamb would make it through but his mother would not. Instead, the lamb took a turn for the worse and died in spite of the best efforts of our neighbor who has such a knack for taking care of weak or orphaned newborns that she has been our ICU for the last few years. When Susan taught Phys Ed part time she used to take lambs in a box to her office at the private school where she worked. Her current job doesn't allow for that. If our neighbor was not available I imagine that clients might hear a little soft bleating from the back of my office during the day. As for the ewe, she seems, surprisingly, to be recovering well. If she survives, I will be glad, but I don't expect she will be a permanent addition to the flock.

Two new lambs today, bringing the total to nine. One of the mothers prolapsed her uterus, making for a long session at the barn after sunset. Susan and I traded off the flashlight while working to return what was outside back inside where it belonged. We will see in the morning if our work was sufficient. Her lamb is spending the night with a neighbor who delights to take in our ill and orphaned. If all goes well, the lamb will come back home tomorrow. The other eight are doing well, two sets of twins and four single births. There are still many more to come. The unseasonable warm weather may be holding things off, since most of our ewes have an unfailing instinct for lambing in snow storms, ice storms, freezing rain, hail, sub-zero temperatures and other conditions designed to dismay the part-time shepherd.

Today was the feast of Theophany and the Blessing of the Waters. It is a wonderful service which follows the standard Orthodox rule of composition that too much is just about right. It can be hard on the feet and requires more patience than we moderns are used to devoting to a worship service but it does allow room for great shout-outs like this:

We glorify you, the Creator and Fashioner of the universe. We glorify you, only-begotten Son of God, without father from your Mother, without mother from your Father. For in the preceding feast we saw you as a babe, but in the present one we see you full and perfect man, our God, made manifest as perfect God from perfect God. For today the moment of the feast is here for us and the choir of saints assembles here with us, and Angels keep festival with mortals. Today the grace of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove dwelt upon the waters. Today the Sun that never sets has dawned and the world is made radiant with the light of the Lord. Today the Moon with its radiant beams sheds light on the world. Today the stars formed of light make the inhabited world lovely with the brightness of their splendour. Today the clouds rain down from heaven the shower of justice for mankind. Today the Uncreated by his own will accepts the laying on of hands by his own creature. Today the Prophet and Forerunner draws near, but stands by with fear seeing God’s condescension towards us. Today the streams of Jordan are changed into healing by the presence of the Lord. Today all creation is watered by mystical streams. Today the failings of mankind are being washed away by the waters of Jordan. Today Paradise is opened for mortals and the Sun of justice shines down on us. Today the bitter water as once for Moses’ people is changed to sweetness by the presence of the Lord. Today we have been delivered from the ancient grief, and saved as the new Israel. Today we have been redeemed from darkness and are filled with radiance by the light of the knowledge of God. Today the gloomy fog of the world is cleansed by the manifestation of our God. Today all creation shines with light from on high.

Translation by Archimandrite Ephrem.

Father Stephen Freeman has thoughts and links on the Feast here, here and here.

The View from Home

 

Older son asked for help to get him started on an English assignment last night. His class had studied Old English riddles and they were to go home and write their own. We talked about it for a while and this is what he came up with:

I am dry as a bone and wet like a fish.
I am solid as a brick,
But I wriggle like a worm.
I am cold then hot.
I am both ancient and modern.
I am loved by nerds and college students.
What am I?

Answer is in the comments.

In honor of International Talk Like A Pirate Day:

My pirate name is:

Dirty John Rackham

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network


Regular blogging to resume shortly. Aargh!

We are back from the islands and I am back at work. Our actual return was Sunday night. Monday started with Court hearings at 9:00 am 10:00 am, 11:30 am and 2:00 pm. After five days in the tropics the change of pace was bracing to say the least. Sunday morning I was ready to throw away the return tickets and stay on by hook or by crook. Now that we are home again I have to say it is good to be looking out at our own hillsides. The weather is hot and the more nimble members of the flock have hopped the cattle guard and are dozing under the tree in the front yard. We truly have reached the peak of summer when the sheep lying on the cool shaded gravel in the driveway refuse to budge and I have to drive around them. Perhaps our front lawn with its good grass and shade is the sheep equivalent of the picture above. If so, I can't blame them for not wanting to move.

This is not a note from a hillside farm. This is a note from a hillside (and beachside) vacation. I am writing from a rented computer in a little cafe on St. Maartens. Blogger is in Dutch. The ocean around is the impossible blue-green I had always assumed came from photo retouching in travel brochures. Getting to the hotel, we had a quick tour around the island as the driver dropped off tourists in a loop around the coastline. Strange mixture of overdevlopment with just plain folks. Sort of like West Virginia with an ocean view. Off the beaten path there are hillside pastures with cattle grazing. The fencelines are clear; scrub and low grass on the cattle side, tropical vegetation on the other. Roads are narrow, drivers are enthusiastic, potholes and speedbumps keep the overall velocity down, causing drivers to run their little hyundais like sprint cars. Dash here, cut there, brake, swerve, stop in the road to chat. The clock on the terminal is ticking so it is time to hit "BERICHT PUBLICEREN" and get back to the business of relaxing.

Two of our rams who (mostly) coexist peacefully were lowering heads and crashing into one another as I looked out this afternoon. Looks like breeding season is underway. Most of the year our gentlemen sheep walk slowly and eat far more than some of them are worth. This time of year they make their one contribution to our enterprise before returning to their accustomed role as mobile manure producers and living lawn ornaments. Here is one of the few sheep poems I have in my collection. Written by the late New England poet and folksinger J. B. Goodenough, it looks forward to the end of all our rams' labors:

Sheep On The Town Road

Fenced beside the road
Three ewes doze.
The seven lambs, sleepy
With the work of being born,
Lean together.

The ram, in his own pen,
With nothing left to do,
Stands heavy-lidded
In the April sun,
Counting people.

From Milking in November

I found my copy of the book for $1.98 at the Main Bookshop in Sarasota back in June. The poems are spare, with a bit of a bite to them. The book is out of print, but, from the prices listed here, it seems that others value her work as well.

Here is another from the book:

Inheritance

No rum-money
Slave-money
Whale-money,
My grandfathers
Were landlubbers all.

They left me
A tilted house,
A broken-backed barn,
And six fields
hung on the hill.

Fifty years
I thought I was poor.
But I learned this:
Good dirt
Is hard to come by.