Well, I've had a pretty dry spell causing poems of late so I took out my copy of Richard Hugo's "Triggering Town" with hope for inspiration. I must have drifted off into a mindscape of being an orphan or something and when that noun popped into my head it "triggered" an outburst; a poem, maybe....
The Orphan's Cook
Smoke-smudged amber glass
Tempers my view outside and below
A scatter of children milling
'Round the gravel yard watching their dusty feet.
Chattering English sparrows
The silent ones cannot hear.
A cloaked woman paddles the perimeter fence
Watching a peculiar child.
The spectator stops and turns her stale gaze inward.
She clutches the chain-link
Leaning her body against the mesh
While sunlight washes the courtyard.
A sedan stops nearby the intent watcher.
A door opens.
The driver calls out,
"Beth?"
With a final glance at Ami
Dragging her blue uniform jacket,
The woman steps away
Into the car.
The children follow the bell ringer.
Only a crumpled coat remains outside.
One runs back to pick it up.
The hardwood floors creak to lively steps
Marching toward their porridge.
___________________________________
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
No Memory Layers
March has been pretty mild at Blue Moon Farm. Lambish as they say comin' in. Of course that doesn't mean we haven't had a bite of cold wind chiseling at our necklines now and then. I've been in a quandary over what to do with the eight black angus heifers we harbor here to mow our grass. I'm concerned that their unsettled attitude when confronted with novel experiences may hinder my plans to conduct management-intensive grazing on our pastures. The episode in the squeeze chute and headgate trying to give them a scours shot (whether I should have even given them such an injection is another whole topic to blog about soon) was quite traumatic for those cow-gals and a serious lesson in non-preparation for me. Having tended these heifers for a fall and winter, my mind is a tangled maze of experiences, ideas and ideals, and images or "patterns" (as Douglas Hofstadter of "I am a Strange Loop might tell us http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/people/homepages/hofstadter.htm). Most of the events I experience with these gestating heifers of mine are as novel for me as life is for them.
The heifers are supposed to be pregnant. I didn't have them "preg" checked as experienced hands would suggest. I considered the event in light of their skiddish behavior since arriving at this little ranch or ours. A stranger, envision a vet, walking up behind them one at a time, their heads in succession locked in a headgate after being encouraged to move down a pinch chute from a larger corral. This vet staged behind the gated heifer pushes his lubricated rubber suited arm up their vagina to his shoulder, spreading their cervix with his fingers, squeezes his hand on through into the uterus and then probes around inside for a fetus the size of a golf or tennis ball depending on the time since conception. These heifers were with the bull during some of July, all of August and part of September). Why "preg" check them if they are staying with us through their calving and thereafter? Well, my best laid plans for having cattle on this farm is not experience. Had I a brain full of experience I could have planned at least one or two other options or outcomes for these heifers depending on how accommodating they are to our farm plan, our ability to handle them and our willingness to put up with their 'attitude'. Sometimes, it seems, what I expect of a cows behavior and how the cow decides to behave when I present novel situations for them to react to are not similar.
I have no experience handling cattle. Sure I was around many cows in Montana for the twenty-some years I lived there, but it was not my job to handle them; make them do something I wanted them to do. The difference is huge between seeing a cow up close and personal and herding, manouvering or driving cows into places or situations in order to handle them or count them or brand, ear-tag, castrate, you name it, them.
This tangled image I'm laying out has a purpose or lesson to share. Farmers in America today are having a crisis in so many ways financially, technically, and personally. There are not many farmers in my area with young families. Most farmers near me mom and pop farmers that cannot afford to split the farm so their children can each go into farming on their own. In fact, because of modern monster-truck sized machines to do the work on today's farms most or all of the kids have split for college degrees and 'real' jobs in the American economy far away from the farms they grew up on. So who's going to take over these farms? Not the kids unless they are failing miserable at the American Dream and maybe those kids are not the right one's to run a farm anyway. So, some corporation is going to buy out Mom and Pop and the farm will be run by 'economists' who hire left over locals to "manage" the corporations "mega-industrial engineering project" that used to be called a farm. There is much lost when farm parents die and the brightest of the kids leave the farm for other occupations. The leftovers in rural areas might not be able to take over or be hired by corporations to serve their agendas with the land. A city kid like me doesn't bring any knowledge of the particular land at stake. So who's going to mind the henhouse of the future. Colleges seem to be training managers for corporate headquarters. I think we've seen the corporate, mega-industrial "farming" approach and have our doubts finally taking some action for change. But, "Who?", I ask remains unanswered. Meanwhile, the memory of the land slips away like the shipload of World War II vets they all were.
Am I driving you nuts yet? Well, here's my point. I wish I had grown up on a farm so I understood cow behavior better: What to expect from cows under even normal situations; how to respond when my heifers start acting up like teenagers getting their cellphones taken away for an hour of 'time-out' or some such. This whole dream I have of a cow-calf operation managed as an intensive grazing management scheme; feeding them sunshine via green pasture and finishing their little beeves on grass is pretty easy on paper. But, in fact, without the experiences of a child growing up on a farm under the mentoring of farmed honed parents, I'm a bit at a loss to find anything in my braincase that is of much help other than intuition and imagined experience from volumes of reading on the subject of grass farming with cattle.
I used to worry about who would be growing my food when I got old. Then, Lyn and I decided to find a farm and grow own food and some for our community. We've struggled through the learning process of raising chickens for meat and eggs and good humor. We've hutched rabbits with the plan of enjoying raising rabbits for meat and entertainment (albeit, entertainment at a very subdued level, since rabbits are pretty much lumps in the corners of their cages most the time). We've learned the in and outs of cutting our own firewood to heat our little farmhouse through winters "up north". And, along with our aging neighbors, some retired, some going to retire Lyn and I have weathered the winters in Northwestern Minnesota. Yet, we're missing so much memory of how dad used to do it when we were kids. Why? Because dad was not a farmer even though we were kids. And dad showed us lots of things we need to know to live, but the ins and outs of handling cattle is not one of them. So, we must learn those tricks of the trade the hard way; one stupid mistake at a time. Unfortunately, my technical training in biology, especially wildlife behavior, warns me that too many mistakes with these heifers and they will become unwilling to go into situations where they have experienced to much mental trauma from my mis-handlings. In other words, if they were timid when I got them I could make them wild again by not knowing how to condition them for upcoming novel experiences. Repeated 'bad' experiences will set me up with cows that run from anything unusual. And hyper cows are not herded well from one small pasture paddock to the next, especially the small half-acre or so sized ones this little farm is going to provide.
Oh, crap, this turns out to be harder than the reading I've done suggested, more complex than I planned, more demanding than I could have imagined. So, why are we trading in our old farmers for college educated industrial corporate farm managers? Seems to me its a perfect way to justify the continued direction high tech farming is headed. Huge machines so one person can farm three thousands acres or a few folks can run thousands of cows on industrial milking platforms or in concrete feedlots. Genetic altered seeds so we can grow exactly what we want so exactly that it doesn't take any experience to make a perfect 200 bushels per acre.
Sure I'd like some simple answers to my head scratching here, but this is not a short story. I'm feeling like this farming adventure takes years of ups and downs, ins and outs, shakes, rattles and rolls before the haze clears and common sense and experience take over. Heck, I'm in my first year at this. Guess I better just sit back, buckle up and hope the Toyota ranch I'm driving doesn't accelerate out of control.
OK, sun's out for a couple of late March days. Cows are waiting for their next conditioning sessions with the novice herdsman, a pocket full of alfalfa cubes and some novel activities like following me around this place they need to experience. I've got wood to split too. Let's talk about scours (that's diarrhea in cows) next time. We've all had personal experience with diarrhea, right? So I know you'll relate somehow.
I saw one of the heifers take a bite of new grass today. Keep it up sun I can't keep these heifers on hay forever.
The heifers are supposed to be pregnant. I didn't have them "preg" checked as experienced hands would suggest. I considered the event in light of their skiddish behavior since arriving at this little ranch or ours. A stranger, envision a vet, walking up behind them one at a time, their heads in succession locked in a headgate after being encouraged to move down a pinch chute from a larger corral. This vet staged behind the gated heifer pushes his lubricated rubber suited arm up their vagina to his shoulder, spreading their cervix with his fingers, squeezes his hand on through into the uterus and then probes around inside for a fetus the size of a golf or tennis ball depending on the time since conception. These heifers were with the bull during some of July, all of August and part of September). Why "preg" check them if they are staying with us through their calving and thereafter? Well, my best laid plans for having cattle on this farm is not experience. Had I a brain full of experience I could have planned at least one or two other options or outcomes for these heifers depending on how accommodating they are to our farm plan, our ability to handle them and our willingness to put up with their 'attitude'. Sometimes, it seems, what I expect of a cows behavior and how the cow decides to behave when I present novel situations for them to react to are not similar.
I have no experience handling cattle. Sure I was around many cows in Montana for the twenty-some years I lived there, but it was not my job to handle them; make them do something I wanted them to do. The difference is huge between seeing a cow up close and personal and herding, manouvering or driving cows into places or situations in order to handle them or count them or brand, ear-tag, castrate, you name it, them.
This tangled image I'm laying out has a purpose or lesson to share. Farmers in America today are having a crisis in so many ways financially, technically, and personally. There are not many farmers in my area with young families. Most farmers near me mom and pop farmers that cannot afford to split the farm so their children can each go into farming on their own. In fact, because of modern monster-truck sized machines to do the work on today's farms most or all of the kids have split for college degrees and 'real' jobs in the American economy far away from the farms they grew up on. So who's going to take over these farms? Not the kids unless they are failing miserable at the American Dream and maybe those kids are not the right one's to run a farm anyway. So, some corporation is going to buy out Mom and Pop and the farm will be run by 'economists' who hire left over locals to "manage" the corporations "mega-industrial engineering project" that used to be called a farm. There is much lost when farm parents die and the brightest of the kids leave the farm for other occupations. The leftovers in rural areas might not be able to take over or be hired by corporations to serve their agendas with the land. A city kid like me doesn't bring any knowledge of the particular land at stake. So who's going to mind the henhouse of the future. Colleges seem to be training managers for corporate headquarters. I think we've seen the corporate, mega-industrial "farming" approach and have our doubts finally taking some action for change. But, "Who?", I ask remains unanswered. Meanwhile, the memory of the land slips away like the shipload of World War II vets they all were.
Am I driving you nuts yet? Well, here's my point. I wish I had grown up on a farm so I understood cow behavior better: What to expect from cows under even normal situations; how to respond when my heifers start acting up like teenagers getting their cellphones taken away for an hour of 'time-out' or some such. This whole dream I have of a cow-calf operation managed as an intensive grazing management scheme; feeding them sunshine via green pasture and finishing their little beeves on grass is pretty easy on paper. But, in fact, without the experiences of a child growing up on a farm under the mentoring of farmed honed parents, I'm a bit at a loss to find anything in my braincase that is of much help other than intuition and imagined experience from volumes of reading on the subject of grass farming with cattle.
I used to worry about who would be growing my food when I got old. Then, Lyn and I decided to find a farm and grow own food and some for our community. We've struggled through the learning process of raising chickens for meat and eggs and good humor. We've hutched rabbits with the plan of enjoying raising rabbits for meat and entertainment (albeit, entertainment at a very subdued level, since rabbits are pretty much lumps in the corners of their cages most the time). We've learned the in and outs of cutting our own firewood to heat our little farmhouse through winters "up north". And, along with our aging neighbors, some retired, some going to retire Lyn and I have weathered the winters in Northwestern Minnesota. Yet, we're missing so much memory of how dad used to do it when we were kids. Why? Because dad was not a farmer even though we were kids. And dad showed us lots of things we need to know to live, but the ins and outs of handling cattle is not one of them. So, we must learn those tricks of the trade the hard way; one stupid mistake at a time. Unfortunately, my technical training in biology, especially wildlife behavior, warns me that too many mistakes with these heifers and they will become unwilling to go into situations where they have experienced to much mental trauma from my mis-handlings. In other words, if they were timid when I got them I could make them wild again by not knowing how to condition them for upcoming novel experiences. Repeated 'bad' experiences will set me up with cows that run from anything unusual. And hyper cows are not herded well from one small pasture paddock to the next, especially the small half-acre or so sized ones this little farm is going to provide.
Oh, crap, this turns out to be harder than the reading I've done suggested, more complex than I planned, more demanding than I could have imagined. So, why are we trading in our old farmers for college educated industrial corporate farm managers? Seems to me its a perfect way to justify the continued direction high tech farming is headed. Huge machines so one person can farm three thousands acres or a few folks can run thousands of cows on industrial milking platforms or in concrete feedlots. Genetic altered seeds so we can grow exactly what we want so exactly that it doesn't take any experience to make a perfect 200 bushels per acre.
Sure I'd like some simple answers to my head scratching here, but this is not a short story. I'm feeling like this farming adventure takes years of ups and downs, ins and outs, shakes, rattles and rolls before the haze clears and common sense and experience take over. Heck, I'm in my first year at this. Guess I better just sit back, buckle up and hope the Toyota ranch I'm driving doesn't accelerate out of control.
OK, sun's out for a couple of late March days. Cows are waiting for their next conditioning sessions with the novice herdsman, a pocket full of alfalfa cubes and some novel activities like following me around this place they need to experience. I've got wood to split too. Let's talk about scours (that's diarrhea in cows) next time. We've all had personal experience with diarrhea, right? So I know you'll relate somehow.
I saw one of the heifers take a bite of new grass today. Keep it up sun I can't keep these heifers on hay forever.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Red River Graphics
Getting ready to cut some firewood on the farm this morning. The snow has just about disappeared and so quickly we're dumbfounded. That only means that they are singing, "How Highs The Water Mama?" in Fargo and other points along the Red River. So, I thought I'd give you a link to a graphic of the watershed we are partial to here at Blue Moon Farm and Ranch. If you can expand the details of this graphic you'll be able to find the Buffalo River Watershed sub-basin. Follow the line representing the river in the polygon depicting the BR Watershed and just before the end of that line is Blue Moon Farm and Ranch. Wave if you can see us.
Red River of the North Watershed Basin
Lyn and I plan to drive over to the headwaters of the Buffalo River today and visit the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters. We're gathering some information for our granddaughter, Jaela. We're part of a school project with her and we're developing a "care" package for her so she is successful in her current job as student at Lolo Elementary School in Lolo, Montana.
Maybe I'll check out conditions on Tamarac Lake for a little ice fishing expedition this afternoon. Right now, though, I better get out with those heifers and see if I can temper their wild genes a bit.
Sure hope you all can send us a High Pressure weather system pretty soon. This mud will not dry enough for me to level the corral and sacrifice surface areas. Need some sun upon it pretty soon or the heifers will be up to their bellies in mud. The heifers are pugging it with their hooves and making a mess of things around high use areas; the bale feeders, mineral skid-feeders and water fountain.
Do good and keep your eye on the greenside.
Red River of the North Watershed Basin
Lyn and I plan to drive over to the headwaters of the Buffalo River today and visit the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters. We're gathering some information for our granddaughter, Jaela. We're part of a school project with her and we're developing a "care" package for her so she is successful in her current job as student at Lolo Elementary School in Lolo, Montana.
Maybe I'll check out conditions on Tamarac Lake for a little ice fishing expedition this afternoon. Right now, though, I better get out with those heifers and see if I can temper their wild genes a bit.
Sure hope you all can send us a High Pressure weather system pretty soon. This mud will not dry enough for me to level the corral and sacrifice surface areas. Need some sun upon it pretty soon or the heifers will be up to their bellies in mud. The heifers are pugging it with their hooves and making a mess of things around high use areas; the bale feeders, mineral skid-feeders and water fountain.
Do good and keep your eye on the greenside.
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Cow Dilemma; Or Condiment Depending.
This in from friend, Mike B of Great Falls, MT in an effort to help me figure out if my black angus heifers were going to be too fearful/aggressive for my intensive grazing operation on Blue Moon Farm. Mike has a way of keeping me trimmed and tabbed and the world in perspective. Being a new guy in the world of ranching it's nice to know there are other ways to look at a often times too serious experience in handling the wild and crazy ways cows respond in the pinch chute and headgate for the novice handler. Thanks, Mike.
Subject: Re: Cows
Date: March 15, 2010 6:44:04 AM CDT
To: rondolyn@arvig.net
When I ponder raising cattle--and I never do, really--I had not thought that one would encounter this problem. We've seen so many cows, walked among them, etc, I just hadn't considered the problem.
I remember Floddy telling about the time maybe Jay waved a garbage bag in front of some of his dad's milk cows years ago. It f..ked them up for weeks, according to CF. But, you don't milk.
I'm no help, that's for sure. You got experts all over whose opinions matter. Hope you get this sorted out.
Yes, conundrum and condom are the same thing. Also condiments, condominiums, and condoleeza. The Eskimos have 32 words for 'snow.' We have five for 'rubbers.' This is one of the many Mysteries of Our English Tongue. I'm glad you asked me this question.
Now, 'dilemma' is another word altogether. That is what you have here, a dilemma. Not a rubber. Shine a light on a rubber, it just gets easier to see (not a pretty sight, btw). Shine a light on a dilemma...well, I'm not sure. Unless it's in the night or in a dark room, or something. Then I'd know, but maybe it's a cloudy day and the light couldn't hurt, right? So, shine one on your dilemma and let me know how that turns out. Use a flashlight, not a match or a torch, especially if your dilemma is in the Ammo room or if is has something to do with gas cans. Maybe you should just drag the gas can out in the yard and see what the problem is with the damn thing. Like maybe someone put diesel fuel in it, or maybe a rat drowned in it. Just dump it out, flush it with water and THEN maybe strike a match, but I'd still go with the flashlight, if I were you. Avoid needless third degree burns whenever possible. You know, that reminds me...avoid needles, in general, too. Nothing but goddamn trouble there.
Any other dilemmas? Glad to help.
MBee
When I ponder raising cattle--and I never do, really--I had not thought that one would encounter this problem. We've seen so many cows, walked among them, etc, I just hadn't considered the problem.
I remember Floddy telling about the time maybe Jay waved a garbage bag in front of some of his dad's milk cows years ago. It fucked them up for weeks, according to CF. But, you don't milk.
I'm no help, that's for sure. You got experts all over whose opinions matter. Hope you get this sorted out.
Yes, conundrum and condom are the same thing. Also condiments, condominiums, and condoleeza. The Eskimos have 32 words for 'snow.' We have five for 'rubbers.' This is one of the many Mysteries of Our English Tongue. I'm glad you asked me this question.
Now, 'dilemma' is another word altogether. That is what you have here, a dilemma. Not a rubber. Shine a light on a rubber, it just gets easier to see (not a pretty sight, btw). Shine a light on a dilemma...well, I'm not sure. Unless it's in the night or in a dark room, or something. Then I'd know, but maybe it's a cloudy day and the light couldn't hurt, right? So, shine one on your dilemma and let me know how that turns out. Use a flashlight, not a match or a torch, especially if your dilemma is in the Ammo room or if is has something to do with gas cans. Maybe you should just drag the gas can out in the yard and see what the problem is with the damn thing. Like maybe someone put diesel fuel in it, or maybe a rat drowned in it. Just dump it out, flush it with water and THEN maybe strike a match, but I'd still go with the flashlight, if I were you. Avoid needless third degree burns whenever possible. You know, that reminds me...avoid needles, in general, too. Nothing but goddamn trouble there.
Any other dilemmas? Glad to help.
MBee
Subject: Re: Cows
Date: March 15, 2010 6:44:04 AM CDT
To: rondolyn@arvig.net
When I ponder raising cattle--and I never do, really--I had not thought that one would encounter this problem. We've seen so many cows, walked among them, etc, I just hadn't considered the problem.
I remember Floddy telling about the time maybe Jay waved a garbage bag in front of some of his dad's milk cows years ago. It f..ked them up for weeks, according to CF. But, you don't milk.
I'm no help, that's for sure. You got experts all over whose opinions matter. Hope you get this sorted out.
Yes, conundrum and condom are the same thing. Also condiments, condominiums, and condoleeza. The Eskimos have 32 words for 'snow.' We have five for 'rubbers.' This is one of the many Mysteries of Our English Tongue. I'm glad you asked me this question.
Now, 'dilemma' is another word altogether. That is what you have here, a dilemma. Not a rubber. Shine a light on a rubber, it just gets easier to see (not a pretty sight, btw). Shine a light on a dilemma...well, I'm not sure. Unless it's in the night or in a dark room, or something. Then I'd know, but maybe it's a cloudy day and the light couldn't hurt, right? So, shine one on your dilemma and let me know how that turns out. Use a flashlight, not a match or a torch, especially if your dilemma is in the Ammo room or if is has something to do with gas cans. Maybe you should just drag the gas can out in the yard and see what the problem is with the damn thing. Like maybe someone put diesel fuel in it, or maybe a rat drowned in it. Just dump it out, flush it with water and THEN maybe strike a match, but I'd still go with the flashlight, if I were you. Avoid needless third degree burns whenever possible. You know, that reminds me...avoid needles, in general, too. Nothing but goddamn trouble there.
Any other dilemmas? Glad to help.
MBee
When I ponder raising cattle--and I never do, really--I had not thought that one would encounter this problem. We've seen so many cows, walked among them, etc, I just hadn't considered the problem.
I remember Floddy telling about the time maybe Jay waved a garbage bag in front of some of his dad's milk cows years ago. It fucked them up for weeks, according to CF. But, you don't milk.
I'm no help, that's for sure. You got experts all over whose opinions matter. Hope you get this sorted out.
Yes, conundrum and condom are the same thing. Also condiments, condominiums, and condoleeza. The Eskimos have 32 words for 'snow.' We have five for 'rubbers.' This is one of the many Mysteries of Our English Tongue. I'm glad you asked me this question.
Now, 'dilemma' is another word altogether. That is what you have here, a dilemma. Not a rubber. Shine a light on a rubber, it just gets easier to see (not a pretty sight, btw). Shine a light on a dilemma...well, I'm not sure. Unless it's in the night or in a dark room, or something. Then I'd know, but maybe it's a cloudy day and the light couldn't hurt, right? So, shine one on your dilemma and let me know how that turns out. Use a flashlight, not a match or a torch, especially if your dilemma is in the Ammo room or if is has something to do with gas cans. Maybe you should just drag the gas can out in the yard and see what the problem is with the damn thing. Like maybe someone put diesel fuel in it, or maybe a rat drowned in it. Just dump it out, flush it with water and THEN maybe strike a match, but I'd still go with the flashlight, if I were you. Avoid needless third degree burns whenever possible. You know, that reminds me...avoid needles, in general, too. Nothing but goddamn trouble there.
Any other dilemmas? Glad to help.
MBee
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Mouse Prayer
I am the mouse you watch for
Great White Owl posted above
Snow filled plain against dulled blue sky.
I am the image of your search
As you are the purpose of my senses.
Your radial burst eye disks
Can you see me here in sweetgrass snow-covered?
I cannot see you pepper-flecked
White stillness perched.
Yet, you seek me as I avoid you.
Shall I spoil my position,
Run my tunnels out of this cover
Appearing on your sky-grayed
Table? Should I appeal to your
Audio sensors off-spaced to detect
My lightest sounds here below?
As I am your quest
You are my watchman. We compliment
You and I, like a musician's tuning fork.
One harmonious sound when stroked.
We make championships of our being.
In a moment we are one time
In your silent grappled grasp.
And if you were made to roar
You would bring down the clouds
Upon our table and smother the earth
In the triumph of ageless whittling.
The Earth's coalesced matter
Fired by the combustion of the sun
Has made us time beings. Our song
Is one with all melodies;
Made strong by the great chorus.
I am here for your being
As you exist for my I-ness.
If you take me I am completed.
When I let myself go you are entire.
Together we ripple Energy’s form
Not changing matter.
Don’t move while I reposition
From being long still in this cold
Winter's discontent.
Is that your tattooed breast
Above the merciful talons for my taking?
There, I am intent again
Living on beneath your unsettling.
Mis-take! Your repositioning
Opposed my blink. Comfort
Has given you away and I am taunt again.
Today it is a draw.
Not my success.
Not your failure.
I will not stray far.
The cover is good here and I have no wings.
You have miles to go
On Sun's angled rise.
The snow that covers me
Goes with you to your tundra plain.
Do not look for me next year.
I will leave others
To dodge your aim for their being.
I will be made sacred by the weasel,
Horned owl or rough-legged hawk.
I am many.
My generations have honed tooth and talon
And come from one or another.
You will die of old age or accidents of man.
Or careless;
Your white spirit takes you from the brood.
We are more for meeting today,
In the loop now, if you will.
Be.
Sense.
Respond.
Great White Owl posted above
Snow filled plain against dulled blue sky.
I am the image of your search
As you are the purpose of my senses.
Your radial burst eye disks
Can you see me here in sweetgrass snow-covered?
I cannot see you pepper-flecked
White stillness perched.
Yet, you seek me as I avoid you.
Shall I spoil my position,
Run my tunnels out of this cover
Appearing on your sky-grayed
Table? Should I appeal to your
Audio sensors off-spaced to detect
My lightest sounds here below?
As I am your quest
You are my watchman. We compliment
You and I, like a musician's tuning fork.
One harmonious sound when stroked.
We make championships of our being.
In a moment we are one time
In your silent grappled grasp.
And if you were made to roar
You would bring down the clouds
Upon our table and smother the earth
In the triumph of ageless whittling.
The Earth's coalesced matter
Fired by the combustion of the sun
Has made us time beings. Our song
Is one with all melodies;
Made strong by the great chorus.
I am here for your being
As you exist for my I-ness.
If you take me I am completed.
When I let myself go you are entire.
Together we ripple Energy’s form
Not changing matter.
Don’t move while I reposition
From being long still in this cold
Winter's discontent.
Is that your tattooed breast
Above the merciful talons for my taking?
There, I am intent again
Living on beneath your unsettling.
Mis-take! Your repositioning
Opposed my blink. Comfort
Has given you away and I am taunt again.
Today it is a draw.
Not my success.
Not your failure.
I will not stray far.
The cover is good here and I have no wings.
You have miles to go
On Sun's angled rise.
The snow that covers me
Goes with you to your tundra plain.
Do not look for me next year.
I will leave others
To dodge your aim for their being.
I will be made sacred by the weasel,
Horned owl or rough-legged hawk.
I am many.
My generations have honed tooth and talon
And come from one or another.
You will die of old age or accidents of man.
Or careless;
Your white spirit takes you from the brood.
We are more for meeting today,
In the loop now, if you will.
Be.
Sense.
Respond.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The White Owl by Richard Chapman
I'm posting this work by my poet pal Richard Chapman of Butte, Montana. To me he is the poet Butte has always wanted to give us. I hope you enjoy the medicine of his owl, "The White Owl" and like Lyn and I are moved and brought wellness by it's mystic powers.
_______________________________
Subject: The White Owl
Date: February 15, 2010 3:22:21 PM CST
To: rondolyn@arvig.net
Hello Ron,
I told you I have something for you. You may use this for Lyn or yourself. It is like magic, it came like magic. In a medicine bag which I have never had it may have said to me you need one. Or a friend needs one. Pass this on. The meeting was mine, but the power from its source is for distributing. Here have some, and grab hold. For it is moving.
In Friendship
RdeCC
White Owl
I made coffee and dumped the garbage.
On a chemistry acid spill proof top
I laid out my laptop and began editing
Programs and screens to an interface.
It was simple to fall behind key strokes
Into the walls as time glided silent,
Lifting at last to roost on a post
As I mended color and seconds together.
That afternoon we set up electric drives
And were waiting on generators
To cycle and I thought to go home
It would be a long drive from Gilford.
Six hours if it didn't snow over
Or fate found cause to strand me,
On a solitary ice polished road.
I was just beginning my floe south
The seats were warming behind my back
And the sun caught in thick
Layers of clouds was a brightish form,
Diffused its beam through cotton wool,
But here ahead on a power pole
With the wires worried in frost
And the cross arm layered in snow
Sat a white owl, perfectly set
The snowy plains drifted over
Were unbroken white like its breast.
Its eyes, huge with a spline of feathers
In sunflower circumference round centers of black
And its head squat followed me,
But it was those iconoclastic eyes
Which penetrated my Christian spirit and put me nearer
To a sweet grass omen, for it waited,
Where our crosses would pass.
"Which side of darkness did you come?"
I didn't slow down for its answer.
It's pure profile used to the limbs of night
It's bearing formed by the soft star light
And wings so soft they don't express flight.
I wouldn't stop and open my door
If I did, he'd of flown breaking our spell.
No I kept to the road, watching him
I drove beyond his deliberate look.
He is a primal flash a frozen lightning bolt
Perched above a pure white plain,
No gold or silver to break our communication.
Our visitation was good luck- I knew it to be
For I felt a stride open in my thoughts
I felt like my hand found a running brace
And I grabbed the slipping strand for position
I reached out for our human race.
We are familiar with two sides from now
There are as many truths in the future
As we've drug along from our past.
The old man's wisdom slung homeward
On travois, rutting soils over time
With lengthy long lasting reminders.
And my land ahead spread out like the sea
White and frozen waves unmarked
Where I look at the distant horizon no key
On wings if we could only fly
To what is there pulling like a magnet
Our human desires?
Which side of the present do you come?
He needn't speak. I asked with my mind.
American Natives chanted scripture for its wings
Imitated his body by dance and loosened head
How they could be moved during a hunt
For tribes' sake used it's spellbind as guidance
A white branch, a snowy limb, an arctic air
A vision staked their path, it doesn't happen often
Creates belief as a staff capped in bronze,
As sure as rubies pressed in layers of gold
And held high before us to bow to its presence.
He's a courier behind or beyond my present
One white owl and me a passer-by
If you could believe like I have felt
It meant for the whole of us to try.
_______________________________
Subject: The White Owl
Date: February 15, 2010 3:22:21 PM CST
To: rondolyn@arvig.net
Hello Ron,
I told you I have something for you. You may use this for Lyn or yourself. It is like magic, it came like magic. In a medicine bag which I have never had it may have said to me you need one. Or a friend needs one. Pass this on. The meeting was mine, but the power from its source is for distributing. Here have some, and grab hold. For it is moving.
In Friendship
RdeCC
White Owl
I made coffee and dumped the garbage.
On a chemistry acid spill proof top
I laid out my laptop and began editing
Programs and screens to an interface.
It was simple to fall behind key strokes
Into the walls as time glided silent,
Lifting at last to roost on a post
As I mended color and seconds together.
That afternoon we set up electric drives
And were waiting on generators
To cycle and I thought to go home
It would be a long drive from Gilford.
Six hours if it didn't snow over
Or fate found cause to strand me,
On a solitary ice polished road.
I was just beginning my floe south
The seats were warming behind my back
And the sun caught in thick
Layers of clouds was a brightish form,
Diffused its beam through cotton wool,
But here ahead on a power pole
With the wires worried in frost
And the cross arm layered in snow
Sat a white owl, perfectly set
The snowy plains drifted over
Were unbroken white like its breast.
Its eyes, huge with a spline of feathers
In sunflower circumference round centers of black
And its head squat followed me,
But it was those iconoclastic eyes
Which penetrated my Christian spirit and put me nearer
To a sweet grass omen, for it waited,
Where our crosses would pass.
"Which side of darkness did you come?"
I didn't slow down for its answer.
It's pure profile used to the limbs of night
It's bearing formed by the soft star light
And wings so soft they don't express flight.
I wouldn't stop and open my door
If I did, he'd of flown breaking our spell.
No I kept to the road, watching him
I drove beyond his deliberate look.
He is a primal flash a frozen lightning bolt
Perched above a pure white plain,
No gold or silver to break our communication.
Our visitation was good luck- I knew it to be
For I felt a stride open in my thoughts
I felt like my hand found a running brace
And I grabbed the slipping strand for position
I reached out for our human race.
We are familiar with two sides from now
There are as many truths in the future
As we've drug along from our past.
The old man's wisdom slung homeward
On travois, rutting soils over time
With lengthy long lasting reminders.
And my land ahead spread out like the sea
White and frozen waves unmarked
Where I look at the distant horizon no key
On wings if we could only fly
To what is there pulling like a magnet
Our human desires?
Which side of the present do you come?
He needn't speak. I asked with my mind.
American Natives chanted scripture for its wings
Imitated his body by dance and loosened head
How they could be moved during a hunt
For tribes' sake used it's spellbind as guidance
A white branch, a snowy limb, an arctic air
A vision staked their path, it doesn't happen often
Creates belief as a staff capped in bronze,
As sure as rubies pressed in layers of gold
And held high before us to bow to its presence.
He's a courier behind or beyond my present
One white owl and me a passer-by
If you could believe like I have felt
It meant for the whole of us to try.
Futility: Slowing Down The Cycles
March 1st is coming in like a lamb here on the farm. It'll probably check out like Rambo. Sunny, warming trend right now though and the cows don't want the shelter at night lately. Seems the full moon might be entertaining them. I have a thermometer in the shelter I can read from the house. With the clear nights and warming days it seems to be colder in the three-sided shelter than it is outside. So, maybe the cows would rather be exposed to the silver of the full moon than the darker, chilly and humid luxuries of the shelter. They adjust quickly to the cycle change. I don't.
I'm trying to adjust though too. It seems to me this springy-ness is happening too fast after a rather slow but slow winter. Right now I want to slow the cycle down and enjoy the transition, but it doesn't seem to be waiting for me. It's like I'm not in charge or something. My friend since grade school, Mike, is turning 62 this week. He's contemplating his Social Security Benefit I'm sure. I'm next in line and I don't have my clock tuned into the considerations that go into the math of knowing when to start my own SSB. It seems to me it's about the money, but it's also a line in the sand of admission too. Admission into the senior of seniors set minus, at least currently, assisted care or hospice and the like of the seniorist of the seniors.
Chickadees don't know how to slow down. They are coming to the feeder this morning like tiny rockets with empty fuel tanks. They are always in a hurry. Don't they know to chew their food for crying out loud. The red squirrels aren't much better, but at least they sit in the bird bath feeder and break sunflower seeds at the rate of about 100 per minute and until the next larger sized squirrels, the fox squirrels, arrive and take over the breakfast nook. Flit, flit, flit, everything is moving too fast. Well, except the cows. Maybe I should be sitting in a lawn chair on the snow pack and watching the cows while in this controlling mood.
Lyn found a dead screech owl by the deck yesterday. We think it starved to death. It's tiny breast was as pointed as my cousin Abby Sunderland's sail mast (http://soloround.blogspot.com/). I suspect the deep winter snow had forced this little owl to come closer to the feeders at night in search of seed-searching mice. But, what do I know about the challenges facing a 10 inch long, six ounce owl in a winter like we're having?
I'm ice fishing every chance I get. My luck at catching has been poor so why do I go? I love the scenes I find myself in on the frozen lakes. Last night I stayed out on the ice until sunset. It was a totally different experience visually than daytime ice fishing. As the sun goes to yellow-orange at sunset and the shoreline shadows race across the lake carrying the evening chill, I have to pull my hood up and put on my gloves to enjoy the lake world being repainted before darkness' cold grip takes the earth. And to feel the air turn toward night made me realize how quickly our evening temperatures drop off in open country around here. In our windbreak sheltered area around the farm house our spruces and oaks suck up the sunshine all day and are slower to cool down than the prairies and open lakes nearby. Two worlds right next to each other. DO NOT CUT DOWN YOUR WINDBREAKS IF YOU LIVE IN NORTWESTERN MINNESOTA!!!
I have about four chord of tree boles stacked under snow right now. We thin our woodlots for our firewood and stack the limbed trunks to be blocked and split later in spring. The snow is melting off the pile rather quickly. This means I'll soon be starting up the chainsaw again and blocking 16-20 inch lengths of those trunks and making a second pile. Then, before the muddy season of spring, Lyn and I will split the blocks and stack them for next winters heat. I'm not in a hurry for this work, I have a stack of books to read yet, garden seeds to order and a winter attitude to shake off. Still, the sun rises a bit higher in the sky each day now and we're turning more and more toward the sun each day. And soon enough, I'll be hustling to get the winter wood chores done more hastily than I like. I should have known when the first sharp-shinned hawk of the year whizzed through the yard on Saturday it was time to get off my winter butt and get stacking...
We've been on this farm for over two years and I'm still not in charge. What gives? I'm just trying to make this winter wonderland fairy tale last, but it's like a Dairy Queen in summer; before you can lick the swirl down to the cone it's dripping in your hand whether you want it to or not.
Oh, my God, there's a sparrow on the deck with a short length of straw in it's bill. What next, nests and eggs and peeping chicks. I'm slamming down this keyboard and getting outside. Won't be long and I'll have to wash the long johns and put them up for three months of summer. "Good Golly Miss Molly" I thought I was in charge of this farm.
Green side comin' up.
I'm trying to adjust though too. It seems to me this springy-ness is happening too fast after a rather slow but slow winter. Right now I want to slow the cycle down and enjoy the transition, but it doesn't seem to be waiting for me. It's like I'm not in charge or something. My friend since grade school, Mike, is turning 62 this week. He's contemplating his Social Security Benefit I'm sure. I'm next in line and I don't have my clock tuned into the considerations that go into the math of knowing when to start my own SSB. It seems to me it's about the money, but it's also a line in the sand of admission too. Admission into the senior of seniors set minus, at least currently, assisted care or hospice and the like of the seniorist of the seniors.
Chickadees don't know how to slow down. They are coming to the feeder this morning like tiny rockets with empty fuel tanks. They are always in a hurry. Don't they know to chew their food for crying out loud. The red squirrels aren't much better, but at least they sit in the bird bath feeder and break sunflower seeds at the rate of about 100 per minute and until the next larger sized squirrels, the fox squirrels, arrive and take over the breakfast nook. Flit, flit, flit, everything is moving too fast. Well, except the cows. Maybe I should be sitting in a lawn chair on the snow pack and watching the cows while in this controlling mood.
Lyn found a dead screech owl by the deck yesterday. We think it starved to death. It's tiny breast was as pointed as my cousin Abby Sunderland's sail mast (http://soloround.blogspot.com/). I suspect the deep winter snow had forced this little owl to come closer to the feeders at night in search of seed-searching mice. But, what do I know about the challenges facing a 10 inch long, six ounce owl in a winter like we're having?
I'm ice fishing every chance I get. My luck at catching has been poor so why do I go? I love the scenes I find myself in on the frozen lakes. Last night I stayed out on the ice until sunset. It was a totally different experience visually than daytime ice fishing. As the sun goes to yellow-orange at sunset and the shoreline shadows race across the lake carrying the evening chill, I have to pull my hood up and put on my gloves to enjoy the lake world being repainted before darkness' cold grip takes the earth. And to feel the air turn toward night made me realize how quickly our evening temperatures drop off in open country around here. In our windbreak sheltered area around the farm house our spruces and oaks suck up the sunshine all day and are slower to cool down than the prairies and open lakes nearby. Two worlds right next to each other. DO NOT CUT DOWN YOUR WINDBREAKS IF YOU LIVE IN NORTWESTERN MINNESOTA!!!
I have about four chord of tree boles stacked under snow right now. We thin our woodlots for our firewood and stack the limbed trunks to be blocked and split later in spring. The snow is melting off the pile rather quickly. This means I'll soon be starting up the chainsaw again and blocking 16-20 inch lengths of those trunks and making a second pile. Then, before the muddy season of spring, Lyn and I will split the blocks and stack them for next winters heat. I'm not in a hurry for this work, I have a stack of books to read yet, garden seeds to order and a winter attitude to shake off. Still, the sun rises a bit higher in the sky each day now and we're turning more and more toward the sun each day. And soon enough, I'll be hustling to get the winter wood chores done more hastily than I like. I should have known when the first sharp-shinned hawk of the year whizzed through the yard on Saturday it was time to get off my winter butt and get stacking...
We've been on this farm for over two years and I'm still not in charge. What gives? I'm just trying to make this winter wonderland fairy tale last, but it's like a Dairy Queen in summer; before you can lick the swirl down to the cone it's dripping in your hand whether you want it to or not.
Oh, my God, there's a sparrow on the deck with a short length of straw in it's bill. What next, nests and eggs and peeping chicks. I'm slamming down this keyboard and getting outside. Won't be long and I'll have to wash the long johns and put them up for three months of summer. "Good Golly Miss Molly" I thought I was in charge of this farm.
Green side comin' up.
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