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.

A myth of our own

We pulled into the driveway and Eric said, "Welcome to psychedelic land." My thoughts were on the beef stew that I knew had been cooking for hours on the stove. The night was cold. This night would give its all to prevent the great Sun from returning to its rightful place.

The people said their greetings and gifts were exchanged by a few as others ate and talked. There were 15 persons present all told. Christmas cookies seemed to be everywhere. The wood stove gently worked its magic, keeping us warm from the December air outside. It was the Solstice. The house was "off the grid" and thus, powered only by this black stove and the Sun. The people were, in their various ways, "off the grid" as well.

Behind the house Sean and Tara had built a ring three levels deep made of pine boughs and adorned with quartz stones and sea shells. The path between the ring lead to a stump atop which lay an ice sculpture of sorts with a large white candle in its center. Once assembled outside the boughs, one at a time each person entered the Solstice path placing each step with care, trying to stay off the sacred ornaments, until they had finally reached the center. The wind chill made the night temperature feel much colder than the actual temperature of 18 degrees F. As usual, my feet were the first to cry out to me, "get back to that stove, get inside, this will take hours." The wind would not yield quietly to the Sun this night.

Many candles having been blown out and re-lit the ceremony was slowly fulfilled and we stared for as long as our extremities would allow at the shining center representing all energy and life giving power in the universe. The tea candles of each individual flickered, struggling to stay lit, drawing their fire from the center as we humans would continue to do all the days to come. The stars in that frigid night held their places. This was not their time to shine.

My feet numb and the ceremony over I didn't linger long before heading for the warm house again. I had internalized nature's vistas many times before and thus, making it my religion, understood that it needed my perception and further reflection on it to truly bask in its glory. It needed us. For who else would appreciate its beauty?

A couple of days later, driving back from hiking alongside a rushing, rhododendron-lined creek, Eric commented as we saw the Sun in its waning hours, "I feel privileged to see this, look at the light, its crazy, everything is purple!"

To Our Lady of the Wood

He had taken deathlife the day before in the mid-morning hours. This time had not been the usual day-long marathon of past seasons. He wanted to suffer, he said to me, "for the craft." But in just two days and 9 hours of shivering cold he had taken two female deathlifes. This time the suffering would come after the hunt.

When I arrived she was hung from the tree by her two front legs. Her head fell back lifeless now. The brown, white, and black coat that had sheltered her from these cold winter days was now stripped. I could see only the remnants of the fur around her four ankles and hooves. Deathlife was white bone and bright red flesh. The muscles had frozen from hanging outside in the frigid night air of early December. Her coat lay draped over the blue metal summer chair that sat just to the right of her body.

He commented on the amount of fat stretching across her back. "She must have been eating really well," he said. "Yeah, corn and soybeans are everywhere," I responded. How many fields had this deathlife known? What dreams had she conjured in the minds of those that had been lucky enough to see her and pondered at that moment, or in a later reflection, the magic of her beauty? And too, how many had glanced without even the slightest reverence for the creature they had just witnessed? How many times had she lept and bounded through stream and over rock and wood? Such a mighty strength she had mastered in her muscular legs and back! Such keen eyes and ears.

"Look at the amazing black patch just behind her nose," he said. "She was such a beautiful girl." I could not stop looking at that head which now rested like some unknown thing on the bed of dead maple leaves on the ground. The eyes now lifeless as the sky above. Gray and clouded over. As I sturdied the frozen rib cage so that he could cut off the bottom right leg I noticed my hands start to burn with cold. This was only appropriate after all. It was the least I could suffer to be saved from death with this life.

Where the food comes from

We headed out on Rt. 143 north to Mike's place tucked down against the other side of Hawk Mountain in Drehersville, Pa. He was there dressed in long underwear and tending to the woodstove at noon. We all commented on how nice the paint job was inside the living room and kitchen. He had painted the ceiling with a high gloss exterior white and the walls were the most calming green he could find. The place was brimming with warmth against the damp Thanksgiving Day outside. Mike said, "Yeah, lets go take a walk."

The three of us headed out into the woods behind the Airstream trailer. Following the train tracks we came to a good spot to head down into the small cluster of young pines. Mike's brother was visiting from West Virginia with his blond haired 4 year old who was displaying a rare shyness that her father said was not usually the case. I told Mike I had seen a full size Doe in this spot when I waited there to "see what i might see" last Monday morning at 6am. The old tractor part must have been sitting there for 20 years. None of us were sure exactly what part of the tractor it was. Something to do with harvesting for sure.

After tromping around the estate Jen and I headed back over the mountain to make our dinner. I had gone the 1/4 mile up the road to the farm earlier that morning and gotten some stored heirloom sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, tuscan kale, and bulls blood beets. The frozen turkey in the freezer was to wait until Saturday when it would make the trip with us up north to my mother's house. I put the white potato in the oven right away and then cut the baby brussels off the stock to clean them. Jen cleaned them while i cut up the dark green kale and got it braising in the pan. She then peeled the beets to reveal the deep blood-red streaks inside. "I should have gotten more from the greenhouse," I thought.

We took our plates to the living room and put in the film The Outlaw Josey Wales. As the massacre of the southern farming family took place in the first ten minutes I could already feel a kind of food coma overtake me. Josey wept while he let the words slip slowly from his grimaced face, squeezing the wooden cross he had made to mark the area where his son and wife were now buried, "The good lord giveth and the good lord taketh away."