Late April

If it keeps raining at night we'll never get the first 5000 in the ground. I kept rummaging this around in my brain, shuffling the line back and forth and all around like a loose thread in the breeze. "I could talk film all day," he said. "Yeah me too," I responded. The conversation went from Jarmusch to No Country for Old Men to Wes Anderson to Cronenberg. "Somehow the music just doesn't fit, the score doesn't quite go with some of the scenes in Bottle Rocket," he said. That brought me back from the tomatoes but not out of the soil. I continued to stare at the young Arcadia broccoli plants in the ground in front of me and kept scraping at the tiny green Lamb's-quarters weeds with my slender hoe. This was the 3rd or 4th straight hour of "cultivation" today. "Yeah," he said. I've been in the zone for about an hour and a half now.

The meatloaf and the shofar

I hadn’t seen Jim in some time and thought it was going to be good to reconnect with him that day at the small Pennsylvania hall where we would be doing some “pro-bono” video work for the local chapter of the anti-sludge movement. His wife Colleen had asked me to do this knowing that I, along with two close friends, run a small DIY film fest every summer. She thought I might want to get in on the action. I wasn’t that educated about all the issues surrounding the use of humanure but apparently it had become quite commonly used these days as a cheap fertilizer on Pennsylvania’s many farm fields and, I suspected, an even cheaper way for Jersey to shit on my beautiful state yet again. Literally.

After the presentations had ended and Jim and I had both packed up our equipment I was on my way out the door when Jim stopped me and invited me to come to dinner at his house that night. Cool I thought. That would be great. I told him I’d check with Jen and most likely we’d see him around six. Earlier that morning, just before the farmers from Georgia started to tell their stories of sludge havoc, I heard him mentioning to his wife Colleen about a meatloaf. Wow, I thought, it was going to be a good time at the Stolz house tonight. Being as the only time I get home-made meatloaf is when my mother makes it for me, which is maybe once a year, the word alone is one of those words that won’t often get missed by my ears. It sits back there in my subconscious waiting to be caught again out in the conscious world.

When we arrived at the house Colleen was scurrying around the kitchen carrying a bowl of fresh spinach greens and ordering various commands to her youngest son who’s birthday it was that day. I had known her eldest son for about 8 years now but we rarely saw each other so were not on real familiar terms. He was going through the awkwardness of his early teen years but was extremely intelligent and of an independent mind. He was much like his parents. They had raised the two boys all the while pursuing advanced degrees from Lehigh University. As Jen and I offered to help it became quite apparent that there was no need. We simply watched as the well-oiled system in this warm home naturally moved along. This was a team in action. There was real chemistry in the interaction and love in this kitchen.

Jim had for years been working with mentally challenged adults but I was surprised to see him arrive at the door with two of his clients for dinner. All told there were now eight of us in the kitchen. The two sons sporadically left the kitchen and bounded up the stairs. Upon returning downstairs the eldest did his duty to throw the younger Denny around a bit in the living room. Denny shrieked with laughter and kept coming back for more torment. Down on the massive floor pillow and then back up again and then down again. We stood next to the sink and watched as Colleen put the finishing touches on her dessert and Jim introduced us to the two distinguished dinner guests. Both men looked more than disheveled but had big smiles going and eager, if a bit anxious, eyes sparkling as they surveyed the familiar grounds. The older fellow, named Jimmy, grasping his worn hat in one hand and thrusting his other out to shake mine looked directly at me and said through a white bearded grin, “I’m Jimmy!” “Not to be confused with Jim Stolz! Although he’s alright that Jim Stolz. He. . . .he’s alright Jim Stolz.” “Wayne,” I blurted. I’ll have to keep it loud and clear with this guy I thought. He’s not going to miss a beat. Harry stared apprehensively at the two of us and Jim (the Stolz this time) said, “Are you hungry Harry? Well say hello to Wayne and his wife Jen. Go ahead.” Harry came right up then and said hello, his eyes glancing nervously to the floor. His face was red from the cold outside. He had a healthy girth about him but was younger than my 35 years I suspected and liked to keep his distance.

As we sat at the table making small talk Colleen set the main focus of the meal in front of us. I felt like a kid again as I gazed at the huge amount of meat. The sixty something Jimmy sat squeezed in next to me looking like a sailor with his white beard and blue knit cap. “Colleen,” he said, “You always make the best food.” This meatloaf was a first for me. It had bacon strips all across the top. Everyone shouted out how important the bacon was. “Mmmmm bacon,” murmured Andy. Ooooooooh yeah, I thought. “Anyone want a beer?” Jim asked. Jim was good for a fresh draft of something tasty he kept on tap at all times. Harry, having gotten just about all the way through a 22oz. bottle of Moxy cola said definitively, “Yes Jim. Yes. A beer for me too.” Harry had finally settled down after going through what seemed like 5 trips outside for a cigarette. This was the life. Meatloaf, asparagus, spinach salad, and Denver chocolate cake. Colleen said that the chocolate cake, which was really much more like a mousse/fudge/liquid brownie topped with fresh cream, was her mom’s recipe. After the first-bite oohs and aahs were exchanged and I had finished my second mouthful I wondered if I’d make it through the rest of the heaping bowlful she had served up. This was the kind of gourmet chocolate dessert that would be served in tiny little shot glasses if eaten in one of New York’s finest eateries. How could we possibly finish entire bowls of it? So rich and so good.

Just about at the end of the meal Jim asked Denny if he wanted to see what Harry had brought to show him for his birthday. Until this time I hadn’t really thought about the cap this husky fellow had been sporting all along. It was a multi-colored knitted skull cap that accentuated perfectly his smiling mildly whiskered red face and intense brown eyes. A yarmulke! I thought. That’s what it is. Denny was intrigued with the big gym bag that Harry hoisted onto the dinner table but having just turned six that day, was easily distracted as well. Harry proceeded to pull two large objects from the bag, each with just a simple one-word description. First was what looked to be an extremely old book. It was in tatters to be exact. The second was an enormous horn! What the hell is that I thought!? “This is the Jewish Holy book, the Torah,” Harry said looking directly across the table at Denny. “And this is a shofar.” I had never seen a shofar (ram's horn) before but it was truly a wild, ancient looking thing that just made the moment so absurd and beautiful there was nothing anyone could say. It was like Harry had abruptly transformed himself from the fidgeting uncomfortable guest to an intensely focused teacher when showing the objects to the young boy. He could sense that Denny’s attention was not all there. “You’ll learn more about this when you get older. Jim can explain it to you when you get older,” he kept repeating softly.

All You Pirates

"There's a dark carnation and a wrinkle in the road. . . "



Goodnight sweet Tweet.





Lyric from the song "Shake the Chandelier" by the Gourds. Photo of life circle taken by tmrgoat 2009 in Lancaster, Pa.

Leaving Winter

I tried to leave Winter on the morning of March 13. Friday the 13th to be exact. I drove the 13 miles to the new farm's location anticipating my first ride on the Case tractor since 2007. It was a fun tractor to drive. It was over 40 years old and somewhat unpredictable, kind of like the boss. But it was such a pleasing machine to look at and hear and operate. Jen had said when I took her for a short ride on it that it was so "nice."
Walking up to where Tim was already working I glanced over the 57 acres and marveled again at the sheer size of it all. It was like a bowl. Three grand hillsides enclosing you. Each hill with its own tree line softly closing in the entire property. Off to the right and down the truck path stood the giant Ash tree. It was the cornerstone of the property. It stood there looking worn and old but sturdy, being the diameter of several persons.

I got onto the tractor and headed out with the first load of composted mushroom soil. This was after having the New Idea spreader loaded by Tim who was seated in the New Holland trake-dah (read: Pennsylvania Dutch tractor). The controls slowly came back to me. Raising and lowering the bucket, the PTO, the brakes that didn't really work, the start position on the stick shift. Winter laid her grips right into my face with a brisk steady breeze. Being less than 30 degrees outside, the thought of Spring wasn't a thought at all. Thankfully the sun was starting to break through the haze of thick gray clouds and I knew it would be a warm day in about an hour. Well, almost warm.


We rode and rode and rode all day. The sod never got soft as we thought it surely would by noon or one o' clock. One quick stop for Bob's roast beef sandwiches at around 2 was the only break we took. There's a kind of fire in the belly that stirs in these first weeks of March. A frantic, spastic, deep energy that cries, "Let me out!" The ground began to look covered after about 6 hours of steady blanketing. First in long passes down the field, then crossing over these in an attempt to fill in the gaps. Ron showed up at about 10am, his son following with another spreader filled with cow manure. During a pause in the action Tim filled both spreaders and Ron, the dairy farmer and neighbor of the new farm said to me, "Tim worries a lot it seems. I don't think we'll remind him it's Friday the 13th." "No," I said, "And I don't think we should talk about the full moon last night either!" Was it full last night? I remembered it looking pretty near as I stared at it just before going inside the Fire Company.

*****

Lilly had kept sheep, goats, and a caramel colored ram that could have been mistaken for a lion for about three years now. She has fifteen that shuffle around together on the 12 acre hillside piece of land. They have names like Cinder and Hershey and Mr. Fox and a perfectly round shaped, salt and pepper wool covered girl called Minikin who has onyx colored, smooth, ancient looking curved horns. The Shepherdess took such pride in getting them all together and explaining to those of us with no knowledge of these animals all their distinct habits and needs. Today they would get vaccinated and have their hooves trimmed and cleaned. "There is so much on the to-do list but these two things are in the A category and must get done today," Lilly said.

The sheep as a group are quite attentive, it turns out. However, one by one they are all uniquely skittish and are likely to scatter at the slightest movement by a human. Like any animals, they come running at the sight or smell or sound of food! Yet they know immediately when they are trying to be coerced into a group movement. The goat of the herd is brave and high spirited as he comes up to you and licks your hand, wondering if the treats will soon return. He is dressed in a highly prized cashmere wool coat that is grey, white, black, brown, and all shades in between and loves to be brushed. He looks calmly at one human face after another as if to say, "Yes, thank you all so much for coming. I am the famed Caaaaaaashmere goat. You will no doubt notice my beauty and stature. Eh hem. . . .let me see if you still have pretzels in that pocket and if I might just taste but one more."



Ruth was inside the barn bay all by herself as I worked the door with Tom. Lilly waited by the small entrance coaching Ruth on to how to ease one more of the sheep to her strong hands. From there it was onto the platform to receive the season's vaccines and tlc. Five sheep rounding the small bay inside, the Cashmere goat shoving one of the sheep with his horns, the distraction of the tasty hay bale and the Shepherdess calling from the entrance made for a swirling, door banging circus. Without fail each animal eventually came running out into Lilly's hands horns first or flailing vertically in Ruth's hands. "Shut the door!" one of the women would say as Tom and I would scramble to shut the heavy barn door without squishing one of the other sheep that was, at the same time, breaking fast for freedom.

We took a break and had a taste of Ian's homemade sour red wine. I thought of how much Lilly would have to do in the next month with it now being birthing season. How could she possibly have done any of this alone? She had. She complained that it was always a struggle for her lower back at those times. Wrestling with 15 animals that weighed around 200 pounds each was definitely a bear of a way to start Spring but also so worth it, it seemed. Every one of the sheep having its own personality behind those strange, staring, mythical, stoic eyes. All the colors mixing together and waddling around you and pushing at each other and baaaaing the deepest guttural whines. Theirs were the hooves of Iceland. Of old times. Of the Winter that strove to to have its full term.


Photo of sheep by Lelayna Klein, proprietor of Lillian's farm in Kempton,Pa.

The Doctor and the Nurse

I arrived around 5:30 am and to my surprise their son was awake. He stepped outside the door onto the driveway and said with a sleepy grin, "Hey guy how are ya?" "Good, good," I said. This was our usual greeting I had realized over the past week of working together. If you could call it work. We spent some hours organizing mini digital video tapes and he was definitely getting some editing work done but there were also many intermittent pool tournaments and runs to Subway or the castle. "Right on time!" the doctor said. "Yeah well, I try," I answered as enthusiastically as I could at that hour. Wanting to please the old man and his wife.

As we headed down the road for the Philadelphia airport the talk was small and mostly amounted to comments about the amazing number of cars on the road so early in the morning. I was confused when the doctor directed me to bear left at the intersection in Shillington instead of heading towards the turnpike. He must be going to take 422, I thought. That was all well and good except that an hour from now the rush would be in full swing and we would be bumper to bumper with the growing number of commuters heading to the city. Finally the conversation picked up as my mind drifted to the many times I had taken this route including the one last week to the very same destination.

"Wayne," the man declared with a comfortable steadfastness in his voice, "When we came up here years ago I used to go hunting at Tulpehocken Farms. There was only one red light from Sinking Spring to the Farms. It was all farms. No Penn State Berks, no Berkshire Mall." "Must have been in the 70's?" I said. "Well yeah, well no that would have been 1968," chimed in the nurse from the back seat. They spoke with authority and ease about all this. Their knowledge and tone was so different than mine. Than my generation. Or maybe it was just my tribe of artists and craftsmen. So wobbly and indecisive about everything were we. So assured and congenial and matter of fact were they. It was soothing to talk to this couple. They carried the assurance of 52 years of marriage with them. They carried over 25 years as missionary doctor and nurse in Africa. They had raised five kids. Who was I?

The conversation did not turn to literature but I couldn't help thinking of that other great man from Shillington who had just passed the day before. He too had no doubt driven this route from rural Pennsylvania to the city of Philadelphia. Certainly his literary characters had. Was he not in many ways of the same mold? Was not too, the other John of literary fame who had written so beautifully of the relationships between women and men in his native Pottsville, PA. John Updike had passed unexpectedly from lung cancer at the age of 77. Doctor J was now 78 and his wife a few years his junior. How amazing were these people. In less than an hour they would be on a plane to Beijing and then to Hong Kong and then to their final destination of Zambia! What will I be doing at 78 years of age!?

At the Seipstown Grange we had eaten lunch made by many of the master gardeners from Northhampton and Lehigh County. We were there to hear Tim read about groundhogs and tomatoes. "So Updike died," I said to Tim. I said that I had recalled an NPR piece the day before where one of the hosts claimed that John O'Hara had written about small town Pennsylvania first but that John Updike had surely done it better. This was a matter of taste and subjectivity wasn't it? "Well," Tim paused, "Updike was a better writer than John O'Hara." I had to disagree. When had John Updike analyzed so acutely the psyche of a woman whose marriage was on the verge of being compromised? Where in all his many books was the female character that could measure up to John O'Hara's description of the mind of Caroline Walker Engish? It didn't exist. At least not in my limited readings of "The Poorhouse Fair" and "Rabbit Run." Surely this great American writer of 77 years had been the more literary of writers but the better writer? I didn't think so.

As we pulled up to the curb of the United Airways International terminal, Doctor J smiled and said in a kind of friendly growl, "Man, I can't wait to tell that ticket lady we're going to China!" I humored his remark and smiled as well. These were great people. Later that day there son would express his worry for his father who had just gotten passed a bout of bronchitis. Maybe it was too much to be going back to Africa again for so long and at their ages? But this is the only way they would have it. This particular child of the doctor and the nurse had been known to weave words together quite lyrically himself. The lyrics of his song about Reading, Pa crept into my head:

Run rabbit ruuuuuuuuun, into the sun
Move move awaaaaaaaaay, forget about yesterday hey hey.

Winter Feasting

Charles Bronson was on the television. Everyone took turns cutting into the old tough guy and I was surprised how much he looked like Enrique. It must be the mustache I thought. "No, its his whole face, his expression," Jen said. "He reeeeeally does look like Enrique!," Sara cackled loudly. Then she exclaimed gleefully, (or maybe it was Dan?) "Its Dutch Wish!" This got the whole crowd of 12 roaring as they waited in TV purgatory land to see the Pittsburgh Steelers crush the San Diego Chargers in the second round of the playoffs. "Dutch Wish" of course was the re-interpretation of the title of Charles Bronson's famous movie Death Wish. "So you're into Jesus huh?," Bronson said while pointing his pistol at the young gangster. "You're gonna meet him soon."

Everyone had eaten their fill of Tweet's lamb stew and after several rounds of hotty tawdy's (thats Jameson, lemon, honey, and hot water) we all settled in for the Sunday's max and relax phase of football watching. Today was special. On this winter day both Pennsylvania football teams were defending their not-so-stellar records in the playoffs. Until the lamb stew, I had been feasting on some potato and leek soup the week before and now had a pot of borscht sitting half full in my refrigerator. The borscht was such a beautiful soup. Such a deep red color and simple sweet flavor making one feel charged and healthy after a warm bowl of it. Like a straight shot of vitamin C to the blood stream.



The Monday evening before it had been Tim's grand dinner of mushroom gravy over winter vegetables and mashed potatoes completed by a stout london broil cut of beef from Stutzman's Pasture's Pride farm. Those rutabagas and turnips and carrots with all their bitter hearts. And not the least was the salad made from Bordeaux spinach and bull's blood beets taken from the greenhouse topped with some blue cheese and a little balsamic vinegar. "And ramps!," everyone seemed to blurt out at once. "Well I'll have to try the salad if it has ramps," said Kim. These little cousins to onions might have been some of the only non-local ingredients to the meal but were still very much appreciated. These were the kind of vegetables that "foodies" would make such a fuss over. Tess reminded us that they were just peasant vegetables. If you could just explain to people what they were and what you do with them then everyone could easily enjoy them. Thanks to Tess, this dinner for eight which seemed somewhat spread about the kitchen and slightly array came together beautifully. And the three layer chocolate mousse! Oh man!

Back in the living room the second game of the day, Pittsburgh vs. San Diego, was winding down as Tweet said for the last time that evening, "Its all over." Some of those attending being die hard sports fans but others just appreciating the warmth of the fireplace, the lamb, the good cheer, and the eclectic community in this small part of Pennsylvania. Whether serious football followers or not, we are all fans of the keystone state. Everyone agreed that it was just too damn cold for those boys from California to be playing this far east today. The snow that had squalled in the first quarter was now barely visible on the field. "How do you feel about them now Steihl?" someone asked Mark again. "Well, I'm less uneasy now, but then, I'm always kind of uneasy," he replied with a half grin.

Big City

Back in 89’ the punks hung out in malls. We had our metropolis too. It was called Big City. The inside was a fantastical maze of shops that mostly sold things we’d never admit we wanted and didn't have the money to buy anyways. The Limited, Benetton, Spencer Gifts. To be sure, some of the soccer kids at school would be stocking up via their parents cards for the back-to-school fashion show. But I never understood why all the girls wore Treetorn tennis sneakers and most of the soccer player guys wore L.L. Bean rugby shirts. The outside of the mall presented an open field of pavement for any of us who dared go skating there at night. No security at night. But you had to stay clear of the hessian kids and their monster trucks that would chase you around until you were pitted against a wall somewhere, the headlights glaring in your 14 yr. old face, scared to death. At Big City you’d see the skins and their skin chicks, hippies, acid dealing 15 yr. olds, and what seemed to be a lot of cops. Everywhere you looked it seemed like there were two more cops. Course it was probably just your imagination. Just whatever you had gotten into and had no business being “into.”

Mark and Lou and Bill and I went there on a Saturday night. The food court was where everyone congregated. Coming into this place from outside was truly like walking into Willie Wonka land. A Mecca filled with hundreds of people, mostly teens. We haphazardly picked a table to sit at. We didn’t know much. Just took it all in. My three friends seemed distant yet they sat just across from me at the circular school-cafeteria-style table. Bill talked about a road bike he was just dying to have. He was the picture of innocence. A healthy, geeky, happy, somewhat cartoon looking kid. So much youth and naivete in those brown eyes. But he wasn’t exactly one of the rest of us. He did not ride a skateboard.

“I think I’ll get a Trek, he said, they make these amazing huge frames that weigh like nothing!” The nervous energy of the place was high. He gleefully expounded on the bike and I looked at the cops again imagining that they were looking at me as well. There was Brian across the way. Kids talked about him all the time. Was he really dealing that stuff? Did he really have sheets of it on hand? He was only a sophomore. High school had gotten nuts and we were only in the first year of it. Brian’s massive tye-dye shirt wouldn’t protect him from the rocky future that lay ahead. The uncertainty seemed to be ever looming, as strong and inevitable as the Lancaster county winds. He’d get caught soon enough. It made me fear my own situation a bit. I looked at Mark and anxiously said, “We should get outta here soon.” The more I looked at the neon pink food signs for Chinese, Mexican, and pizza the more my mind raced and the sweat built on my hands and brow. It seemed as though all the sound in the room was muted. There was a low buzz. Everything was disconnected. Time to move.

“Holy shit!” Lou said after being silent for more than a half hour. “What is it man!?” I said. “Look there on the escalator, that dude is trying to get up through those cops!” “Damn,” I thought, why hadn’t we just left? It was hard to see what was really going on over there but the tall, lanky skinhead was holding what looked like a small knife and one of the police men was trying to restrain him. He would make it though. He would bust through them and head up the stairs running for a second chance at the night.

I remember hearing something about the knife incident later that school year. To me it was just par for the course. All of the skins were on the edge. They were older guys/gals. You just didn’t fuck with them no matter what. But then, none of us knew any of them personally. They were way too far out of our circle. That is until Mike and Joel came onto the scene. But even then we thought it was just a mistake, a phase. Things were always like that then. There were so many mistakes, so many phases.