Jones and Company

My brother Tom raised pigs. Rather, hogs. They lived their lives in the pigpen and its accompanying closure. These hogs became immortalized in our family with a front-end portrait shot of Jones that Tom took when he was into photography. It is a memorable view.

Aside from this photograph, I do not have any special or fond memories of the hogs themselves. More that they simply were. They were part of the landscape, a factor in life on our home, grunting, oinking, growing larger and larger, grunter deeper and louder, and then gone. Slaughtered, chopped, packaged, and put into our freezer. Such is life and death for farm animals. And they taste very good.

I stopped eating pork before I stopped eating meat altogether. The taste of bacon and ham are but a memory. But the image of Jones remains vivid in my mind, helped along by his studio-quality portrait, and accompanied by Wilbur from Charolette's Web and Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh, two very memorable characters that didn't always behave so much like pigs, or hogs.


[Photo of Jones to come]


In all the world
There is no way whatever.
The stag cries even
In the most remote mountain.                     --The priest Fujiwara No Toshinari

I know, Adonai, that the way of humans is not in their control, humans are not able to direct their steps as they walk.                                                                   --Jeremiah 10:23

Windmill

The ladder up the windmill
Photo by Mary North Allen

Looking up the hill
from beside the barn 

The windmill above the barn no longer provided the energy needed to run the pump at its base. An electric switch opened a circuit to bring electricity to power the pump. But the blades atop the windmill continued to rotate in the wind, and the ladder to the top of the windmill was still intact.

A winter view toward the northwest from the windmill
Photo by Mary North Allen

More than once I climbed to the top of that ladder. From just below the windmill blades I could see over the barn roof and the treetops, up and down the three small valleys that came together at the creek juncture below the house. And when I turned around, I could see beyond the orchard to the large hilltop alfalfa field and the lone tree in its middle. 


It was a fine view.

View toward the ocean from atop Mount Agamenticus,
York, Maine, elevation 691 feet
Photo by Gabi Mezger

Not seeking
Just being...


Not defining
All accepting.


No demanding
Faith expanding.


Without knowing
Ongoing...


Inner listening
Gladness -- glistening.               --Albert Krassner


Be still, and know that I am God.   --Psalm 46:10

Potatoes

My father loved to garden and he always had a large vegetable patch. On late spring evenings and weekends, I helped him with the planting, sprinkling the seeds just the way he told me to into long, straight furrows below taut strings stretched from one end of the garden to the other. The most fun were the potatoes. My father bought seed potatoes and cut them carefully so that each piece had just one eye, and then let them dry thoroughly in the sun before we planted them. He dug the holes and I placed the piece of potato eye up in the bottom of the hole. Then he covered it over with soil.


I loved harvesting the spring crops, especially asparagus. The tender green stalks were the first fresh vegetable of the year, and they arrived before the weeds took control. Hunting for the green sprouts against the brown soil was a joyous search down the long asparagus bed, hoping not to miss a stalk that was just the right height for eating, finding and slicing them off just below the soil line. 


But potato harvest was the best - a time of mystery, exploration, and surprises. 

Paul Allen with his shovel,
used for many things, including
planting and harvesting potatoes

Throughout the summer, as the potato plants grew, my father mounded soil around them, creating small "hills." Some time in August the weeds always gained the upper hand. Perhaps my father lost the desire to keep up with them, but from then on we had to search for the vegetables among the weeds. At that time of summer, the leaves of the potato plants could easily be discerned among the weeds, but it was still too early harvest the potatoes. We might find green beans, but for potatoes we had to wait. 

In mid-to-late autumn potato harvest time would arrive. One by one, we searched out the dead or dying potato plants among the weeds. Sometimes we couldn't find any trace of a plant remaining, but my father was certain there was a hill of potatoes just about "here." He was usually correct. Once we located a potato hill, my father dug down into the rich soil, trying to be at just the right spot - not so close to the center that he sliced through a potato and not so far away that we missed them altogether. 

My asparagus patch needs weeding.

With excitement, I pulled out the large potatoes that rose upward with the shovel. I pulled out others peeking out through the sides. And then we reached in with our hands and searched for more, still hidden behind the sides of the hole my father had dug. The best potatoes of all were the "doll potatoes," the little ones, just right for little girls and dolls. Those I treasured. Those were for me.

By the time we were finished we usually had several bushels of potatoes. After drying in the sun, they were stored in our cellar and provided sustenance for our family for many meals during the cold, short days of winter. 


One potato, two potato,
Three potato, four,
Five potato, six potato,
Seven potato, more!               --Nursery rhyme


You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.  --Psalm 145:16

The Barn Loft

View from the barn, looking up the driveway
Photo by Mary North Allen

The barn was great fun to play in, especially the loft, and most especially when it was mostly filled with hay. Exploring the dark corners below the eves from atop a solid bank of hay was invariably an adventure. By moving a few bales around, my friends and I could create a hiding spot behind which no one could see us. We, however, could peek between the slats of the barn walls and see the driveway, the house, the other farm buildings, and the view up and down the valley. What a liberating feeling! Sometimes, in one of those back corners, we would find a nest full of eggs. The hens must have also liked the seclusion.

Door from the barn loft to the main floor
Photo by Mary North Allen

The greatest fun in the barn loft was provided by the long, thick, heavy rope that hung down from the peak of the roof almost to the floor. We would skinny up it, as though we were sailors aboard a huge sailing ship: Put your hands up as high as you can and hold on tightly to the rope. Scooch yourself up. Hold on tightly with your knees, and again reach up as high as you can. Keep repeating as you swing gently from side to side, until you are as high up as you want to go. You can see the inside of the roof, and maybe a few pigeons. Then slide down (quickly for fun, but carefully, so as not to get rope burn if you are wearing shorts!) until you're at the height where you are ready and then -- jump!

View of the barn with the loft doors closed
Photo by Mary North Allen

Better than the sailor routine with the rope was swinging on it. Not far above the floor, just at the perfect spot was a large knot. When the two sides of the barn were filled to the rafters with hay, but the middle section was empty, we opened up the sliding doors as wide as possible. One of us climbed up the ladder to the rafters and made our way to the back of the barn, away from the doors, beside the open central space. The one standing below swung the rope up and back and the one on the rafters caught it. The big knot just reached the spot where we sat, ready. Perching on the knot, hanging onto the rope tightly, we jumped. Down, down, we fell, then the rope went taut and we would swing outward, out the barn door, out beneath the open sky, with a fleeting view of the trees and fields and streams as we swung upward to meet the sky until the rope could go no further, then backward and into the barn, then out again, and again, each time a shorter swing, until we came nearly to a stop. Then the rider let go and jumped off the "seat" to land on the barn floor. What an amazing and wonderful ride! It was impossible to get too much of it.

One of several rock outcroppings
at Loker Conservation Area

Nonesuch Pond in Natick, through the trees

Last Friday, I walked the trails of the Loker Conservation Area with five other women -- part of Earth-Connecting: Walking Wayland. I felt so comfortable -- easy conversation, sharing of knowledge about the land and the trees and the Earth, and a powerful sense of connection to this plot of land. The conservation area is close to the highway, and on one stretch of the trail the sounds of the traffic were quite loud. Normally that would have interfered with my ability to connect to myself and the Earth and to let the healing power of the Earth into my heart and soul, but not this day. This day something different happened; I felt the connection and the healing almost immediately -- the evergreens giving color amid the browns and grays of late winter / early spring, the rock outcroppings, the view between the trees of a distant pond across the highway, shared moments of silence as we each made our quiet, personal connection to the land, and somehow most of all, the knowledge that we were crossing the divide between two watersheds, from the SuAsCo - Assabet, Sudbury, Concord - Rivers Watershed, in which we all live, into a tiny corner of the Charles River Watershed. We connected to Boston Harbor with our feet. Two ways to touch the ocean. 

Taking a moment alone in silence
to connect to the trees and  the Earth

Kol haneshama tehallel Yah, Halleluyah. 
Let everything that has breath praise the One, Halleluyah. --Psalm 150:6


I have walked through many lives, some of them my own...   --Stanley Kunitz

Skiing, Sledding, and Tobagganing

In winter, we went skiing, sledding, and tobogganing down the hills that rose up from the sides of the valleys. My skis were old wooden ones that had been my mother's when she was young. I wore my regular snow boots and put my feet into large loops, big enough to encircle my boots, and then clamped myself in. Easy as pie.


We had a hill that we called our ski slope. It began at the end of the path across the marsh. ("Path Across the Marsh," January 22) A long stretch of the lower hillside was meadow, open and potentially ski-able or sled-able, but only in this one area was the hillside free of trees all the way to the top, providing a nice long run, when the snow conditions permitted. Our ski slope was groomed only by our skis as they made tracks in the snow. Going down the second time in the same tracks - if one could manage that - provided a faster run than the first time. But too much snow made skiing - and sledding and tobogganing - impossible, for in the deep snow we could go only a very short distance, or no distance at all, before sinking down and coming to an abrupt halt. 


Some years we had a "January thaw," a respite from the frigid below-freezing and often below-zero weather that was the norm of my Wisconsin childhood. The snow softened as it began to melt. Then the temperatures inevitably dropped and the top of the snow froze hard, leaving a crust. Depending on the thickness and strength of the crust, we could either walk on it or else, with each step we might be held up for a brief second and then sink down into the snow, making walking very difficult. On those rare occasions when the crust was thick enough to carry the skis or toboggan, we gloriously zoomed down our small hills at high speed.


One winter the conditions were just right for a wild, wild, toboggan ride straight down the steep hill below the barn, conditions that included the craziness to even try this run. The hill was steep enough that we picked up more and more speed, so when the front of the toboggan hit the first wall of snow from the snowplow along one side of the driveway we bounced into the air and over it, to almost immediately hit the wall of snow on the other side of the driveway. But that wasn't the end of our jumps, for the driveway had a circle, so, after a short zip across the middle of the circle, we had two more tortuous jumps as we hit the two walls of snow on both sides of the driveway on the other side of the circle, and then -- danger! Quick! Bail out before we hit the barbed wire fence! It was glorious and crazy and fun and scary all at once, and whoever was on the back of the toboggan was lucky (or unlucky?) if he or she made it to the bottom of the hill without sliding off.


Another winter - or maybe it was the same one - my brother Tom created a sled run through the woods across the valley; a toboggan was way too awkward to navigate this trail. We flopped belly down, head first, on our wooden sleds with their metal runners, and steered carefully, very carefully. One sled at a time in case the other person crashed, zigzagging between the oak trees. At one particular spot we would be zooming down the hill and suddenly we were headed straight for a huge tree, but with adroit and swift steering we swerved to the right, then back again to the left after the tree to continue downward at top speed and into the safety of the open pasture below. This winter ride was also at once glorious and crazy and fun and scary. And my brothers and I are here to tell the story.


There come to us moments in life when about some things we need no proof from without. A little voice within us tells us, 'You are on the right track, move neither to your left nor right, but keep to the straight and narrow way.


There are moments in your life when you must act, even though you cannot carry your best friends with you. The 'still small voice' within you must always be the final arbiter when there is a conflict of duty.


Having made a ceaseless effort to attain self-purification, I have developed some little capacity to hear correctly and clearly the 'still small voice within'.


I shall lose my usefulness the moment I stifle the still small voice within. 

--Mahatma Gandhi

Be strong and of good courage...                              --Deuteronomy 31:23

The Back Porch

View from our back porch. Photo by Mary North Allen

When we moved into the old farmhouse that would be our home during my formative years, my parents had the foresight to have a screen porch built in the back corner of the house, off the kitchen, in the shade of the big old maple tree, beside the cherry tree. It was a large room, with enough space for a table and chairs and two twin-size beds or cots. All summer long - and warm days in spring and fall - we ate our meals at that round table with the folding leaves, and on hot summer nights we vied for the opportunity to sleep on those coveted beds, to be the ones who would feel the gentle breezes of the night on their faces, who would awaken to the chorus of bird song and frogs emanating from the surrounding marshes and fields, who would sleep soundly rather than tossing and turning in a fruitless effort to find a cool spot of bed on the hot second floor of our not-so-well-insulated and not-at-all-air-conditioned home.

The 3-season porch we added to our house.
Photo by Gabi Mezger

We loved that porch. A bird house - wren-size - hung on the lowest branch of the maple tree, and we reveled in the bubbly sounds of the wrens' calls and in watching them enter with food and exit empty-beaked as they fed their young ones during the warm spring days. Other kinds of birds stopped on the maple branches for shelter or snacks, and as the cherries on the cherry tree ripened, red-wing blackbirds and others snatched up the tasty fruit. All were a source of joy and wonder. On weekends and after dinner, we sat and we talked, and not a single mosquito bothered us. The sky grew dark in the late summer and the whip-poor-wills began to call from the underbrush. The moon rose over the tree tops and spread its faint light across the hills and marshes. The sound of an occasional car on the road and lights twinkling in the house up the valley reminded us that we were not alone. Our dogs barked in response to sounds beyond our ken. Cows mooed in pastures unseen, and the chickens in our barn settled in for the night. At its best it was idyllic, serene, healing, and renewing.


So many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners....so many nights....so many words, so many events, so many emotions...so much, so very, very much happened here.


On April nights when it has become warm enough to sit outdoors, we love to listen to the proceedings of the convention in the marsh. There are long periods of silence when one hears only the winnowing of snipe, the hoot of a distant owl, or the nasal clucking of some amorous coot.              --Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac


In the name of G!d, the G!d of Israel, on my right Michael, on my left Gabriel. In front of me Uriel, behind me Raphael, and all around, surrounding me, the Presence of G!d. In the name of G!d, the G!d of Israel, on my right Sarah, on my left Rebecca. In front of me Leah, behind me Rachel, and all around, surrounding me, the Presence of G!d.                   --First verse, bedtime Shema liturgy, second verse, Rabbi Jill Hammer, based on passages from the Zohar

Theo's Nature Memories

I was wandering around on the web and came across the idea of making a nature journal with children. You can find what I read about nature journals on this website. I realized that I wanted to start a nature journal with my grandson, who is now 22 months. The last time I saw Theo, I took him outside. After playing with his trucks and in his sand box, I wanted to do something to connect to nature with him. He didn't want to go far from the house, so finally I had the idea to look up. It was a partly cloudy day, and the sky displayed a mosaic of small white puffy clouds. I pointed the clouds out to Theo. I pretended to try to grab them and catch them and bring them down to him. He thought it was terribly funny and leaned back and laughed, a big belly laugh. This of course egged me on. I pretended the clouds were cookies and tried to grab them again and again and give them to him. Each time I did it, he laughed that big joyous belly laugh. I lifted him up so he could try to reach the clouds, and he thought that was just as funny.


Now, ready to make a nature journal for Theo, I decided to start with our experience with the clouds. I hadn't taken pictures that day, so on another day with white puffy clouds, I took several pictures, and chose one for the cover of the journal. Theo came over last week and I showed him the journal. He didn't seem to remember our cloud experience, but he did seem to like the notebook, at least for a moment or two. 


I took Theo outside again. I had to carry him because he has broken his leg and has a cast all the way up to the middle of his thigh. He is heavy! I carried him along the pathway through my garden. When we came to the first tree, we stopped. I said, "Hello, Tree," and Theo said, "Hello, Tree." We spent some time looking at the tree and speaking to it. Then we continued along the pathway and back to the  lawn. Theo wanted to go around again before returning inside. This time when we reached the tree I said, "Good-bye, Tree." Theo said, "Bye-bye, Tree." The first page for Theo's Nature Journal will have this picture of the tree we visited and the words "Hello, Tree" above the picture and "Good-Bye Tree," under it.

I contemplate a tree. 

I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground. 

I can feel it as movement: the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air--and the growing itself in its darkness. 

I can assign it to a species and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of life. 

I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law--those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate. 

I can dissolve it into a number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it. 

Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition. 

But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It.…What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.                     

                                                                                                 --Martin Buber, I and Thou