Photo 1: My view all morning yesterday at Cedar Circle Farm with Buddy & Jerry:
Photo 2:My seat all morning:
Photo 3: And the resulting straight rows of fluffed-up soil:
Photo 4:Back home, I finished the restoration of my “new” cultivator:
Photo 5:And let Bel put Big Jim to work in our fields:
Not a bad day.
So I bought this tiny shell from a coughing man who wouldn’t stop telling me about his recent trip to Mexico.
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Best random quote from my Mom of late: “And it sucked the pet hairs out of that sofa like you wouldn’t believe.”
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Who’s the bastard who flipped the summer switch too early?
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While ignoring you, dear readers, I’ve been melting in the sun with the team of Belgians at Cedar Circle Farm in Thetford, Vermont. Buddy & Jerry, to be precise, the over-weight fellas who are now being asked to come out of their winter slumber and get to work. The farm’s teamster, Dean, hurt his back a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to get them ready for a summer and fall season of farm work and wagon rides. And so they called me in to play substitute teamster for a couple of weeks. Lucky me, indeed.
It’s quite a place, with 50-acres of organic production along the Connecticut River. And, better yet, it’s an “experimental” and educational farm so it’s on the front lines of a number of great innovations to farm more thoughtfully with regards to the environment, the community and the producers and consumers alike. For Cedar Circle, that’s meant – among many, many other things — extensive research in green manures and cover cropping, no-till production, sunflower crops to produce oil and fuel and even a battery-powered tractor used for cultivating. Here’s how the farm’s co-manager, Will Allen, described it to me as he whipped around in it: “It’s better than cultivating with horses because it doesn’t fart on you.” Checkmate.
The first day of work for Buddy & Jerry was rough – for them. They’re a great team that has obviously been well cared for and well worked by Dean. But, unfortunately, they don’t do much – if any – winter work. So they huffed and puffed and lathered up within a half-hour of simply warming up last week when we commenced their new exercise routine.
But yesterday I brought my trusty assistant: Our daughter, Bel. Her eyes were lighting up last week when I told her about Buddy & Jerry and the extreme beauty and satisfaction of working a team of horses in a 50-acre field. And then Sunday night came and she launched into full-lobbying mode to “skip school” and work Buddy & Jerry. She won.
And she helped; a lot, mostly with the harnessing and the prep work but most importantly by holding the team still in the field as I hooked them to the harrow. Priceless.
It was a great day.
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Wait until you see the new horse-drawn cultivator I just restored. I can feel your excitement.
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Last weekend, Big Jim and I harrowed a quarter-acre for what we call the “expansion garden,” a plot connected to our existing garden that we want to spill over to in order to give the old plot a break. Mission: Accomplished. But Big Jim was about as happy with the 80-plus-degree “spring” farm work as I was. Lather, foam, curse…repeat.
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But I won’t tell you about the horse ride I went on with my neighbors on Sunday. Because that would be one-too-many horse stories and you miserable fucks without the gentle beasts would start feeling left out.
It was a great ride, though. Sorry you won’t hear about it.
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I want my spring. The season, that is.
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Daily mantra: Get it.
Oh hell. I mean, what the hell? Or is it: To hell with it?
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They’ve got us surrounded. This much I’m sure of. And if you don’t believe me, go to a supermarket near you soon. They. Are. Everywhere. There.
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I’m amazed that I haven’t read anything in the Vermont press or blogland about the hate-filled advertisements that saturated our state before — and after — the legislature’s historic vote to allow gay marriages. But, then again, perhaps the best strategy is to ignore these lunatics.
But a couple advertisements need to be noted. The first was from the “Defense of Marriage” folks who ran a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of the Times Argus right before the veto-override vote. Amidst the raw and logically-butchered prose was a shaded box that contained this group’s definition of “gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.”
And here’s how they defined “lesbian”:
“Likes to play with fingers, tongues and belts, etc.”
Oh fuck. I’m a lesbian.
Oh wait. Can’t be.
But, seriously, that’s the entire text to their definition of “lesbian.” Me thinks these boys are doing some fantasizing, no? Good grief.
The next most obnoxious ad is from the angry man and all-too-frequent-caller to Vermont talk radio (read: WDEV), Dick Day (aka: Dick in St. Albans). When I hear him introduced as the “next caller,” I prepare myself for the vile venom that is about to be spewed. But all I hear is:
“Grrrrrr…..ggggg…..ggggggg…..hate…….grrrr……grrrrr….grrrrrrrrrr……hate…..”
But Angry Dick also just plunked down some cash to air his very own advertisement (editor’s shout from behind: Good boy, Dick!), an ad that “features” the home-phone numbers of state legislators who “dared” to vote in favor of gay marriage. And when does Angry Dick want you to call them? “Between midnight and 6:00 a.m.”
Sorry, Dick, you’re just an ass.
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Good day: Tomorrow. Because it’s off to Cedar Circle Farm to see my friends, Will Allen and Kate Duesterberg, and their farm in Thetford, Vermont. The farm has Belgian draft horses that need to get into shape for the farm season. I’m going to pay them a visit tomorrow and see what kind of fun we can have with the team after a winter of eating, eating and eating. Stay tuned.
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The sun came out and I am done.
Photo 1: Yep, our eleven-year-old daughter, Bel, is doing the driving. And that’s her grandmother (or mother-in-law to me) taking in the views. The horse, by the way, is Big Jim.
Photo 2: That’s Bel and Blaze, the two-year-old colt who was born on our farm and getting ready to learn how to work next to Big Jim.
Photo 3: And that’s just some damn nice pasture color.
“I will try to be a correct animal though, and if you throw me a bone with enough meat on it I may even lick your hand.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, from “The Crack Up.”
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“The great achievement is to lose one’s reason for no reason, and to let my lady know that if I can do this without cause, what should I not do if there were cause?” – Don Quixote (my favorite touchstone book of all time).
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Like I was saying. Or was I just thinking it? Whatever.
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Please. Please. Please, can we just all agree that the piss-ant-conservative-clown-fucks are off-the-charts crazy over their daycare-like complaints that Obama shook the hand of Hugo Chavez? If this is all they’ve got, pity the poor fools.
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I didn’t mean to keep secrets. Really. I wanted to be nothing but truthful with you. Nothing. But I failed. Miserably. And now all I can do is write short, stupid sentences that are really nothing but a distraction from the reality between us. Ouch.
Which is to say: I feel your pain.
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I should know. I’m a recovering liberal. I once went door-to-door for Jimmy Carter in the rural suburbs of Iowa. I really, really wanted to believe in it. Oh my, I was being such a 13-year-old.
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So I moved this cow this afternoon.
On one end I met a couple of Old Timers (aka: the sellers of the cow) who gave me the once over and almost immediately sniffed me out as a bona fide flatlander (Proof? See above.). Maybe it was my bicycle hat? Or maybe it was my crooked smile and my Johnny Carson-like “hello” I gave them as I climbed out of the truck? Or maybe it was the Yellow Lab in the cab? Or maybe I’m just paranoid? Nah. It was the Lab.
And on the other end was a family (aka: the buyers of the cow) who were nothing short of ecstatic about the arrival of their new farm animal. But they apparently don’t believe in fencing. Because when I asked where she was going, they said, “just let her out there.” And out she went…and down she went, too….straight down the road…and surprisingly fast for a pregnant cow.
“Oh no,” said the nice woman who had just given me the okay to do the not-okay. “Get her!”
Get her? What the fuck?
We were in a land of nothing but thick woods and one road out – yeah, the road the cow was running down. And did I mention that the “nice woman” was also holding an equally nice 18-month old baby? She was.
She grabbed me a bucket of grain as we watched the cow move out of sight in what could only be described as a cow canter. She was free! Free! Free! Until her very real inner-(and over)-domesticated self stopped in a dense section of woods about a quarter of a mile down the road. The sound of grain-in-a-bucket gets the domesticated kind every time [insert wife joke here].
Up the road we went, me with the grain, the cow with the appetite, and the woman with the child. And I thought: Go with it. And bill accordingly.
Mission: Accomplished. For real.
Yeah. The old bastard just got another year older today. But he’s still a Yankees fan, still a vegan, still shitting in an outhouse, still calling the sun his electricity and still pretending he’s always winning. Oh wait….
Happy Birthday, you miserable bastard.
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Now it’s my turn: Been busy. Whatever. Thinking about thinking about some things that need to be thought about. So I thought. And thought. Mostly without thinking. Until I thought: You’re thinking too much. Indeed.
And so I just kept working.
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American Torture: Love It Or Leave it.
280-plus waterboardings of two (2!) prisoners under U.S. military control.
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I jumped like a fool beside a young horse. They told me to. “Get him used to it,” they said. But I have no interest in jumping like a fool next to my horse. So I stopped. And started riding him.
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I’m beginning to think that my dog only loves me when he thinks I’m packing a few treats for him.
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I saw a man whom I was told could help me deal with all of this. He said to me: “Deal with all of this.” Of course. And then I left him fifty-dollars in cash so he wouldn’t have to deal with the insurance company hassles.
Maybe he’s onto something.
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What’s that?
Up there?
Your ear?
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Shit eating grin: With the horse in the woods doing exactly what needs to be done in the woods, in April, under 60-degree blue skies and a head full of dreams.
No apologies.
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William Carlos Williams said it best (surprise, surprise):
“the patient horses no one
could take that
from him”
Indeed.
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Oh yes, I’ve been meaning to remind you: I Move Cattle for Hire. I do. And in case I start to forget I get another call to move cattle for hire. I’m beginning to think I’m on the wrong end of a good-ole-boy-Vermonter kind of prank. Because my services to move cattle for hire seem to be in far too great of a need.
I mean, I’m not paranoid or anything. But I’m sure moving a lot of cattle.
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I hope you’re getting the message.
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Oh yes, and did I mention that I move cattle for hire? I do. Call me.
First off, congrats to Vermont for successfully overriding Governor Jim Douglas’s veto of the gay marriage bill. It’s now law – officially kicking in on September 1st.
While the clear “winners” in this victory are the gay and lesbian couples who can now get married and – hopefully – aim to do better than the 50% failure rate of man/woman marriages, there were also a number of political winners.
Beth Robinson, for example, the head of VT Freedom to Marry Coalition, was simply superb. She kept her coalition on message and, most impressively, rose above the angry mob of gay marriage opponents who all but taunted them throughout the public hearings. How, for example, they could remain cool, calm and collected while their opponents compared gay love to man/horse love or man/boy love or father/daughter love is beyond me. But they did. And they deserve credit for it.
The other political winner is first-year House Speaker Shap Smith, my representative by the way. Smith and Senate President Peter Shumlin did a masterful job of orchestrating the timing and the logistics of this bill. But Smith’s job was a whole lot more difficult than Shumlin’s since the Vermont Senate is a whole lot more liberal and smaller (read: manageable) than the House.
As you’ll recall, Shumlin and the last House Speaker, Gaye Symington, tried to get bold with their “super-majorities” in the last session on issues like global warming and taxing the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant but Symington failed to deliver the House. The reason she failed became clear when she decided to challenge Governor Douglas for his job: Symington’s a terrible communicator and leader.
Smith, on the other hand, is at least able to both articulate a thought and also be persuasive enough to bring along enough votes to win the day. That’s refreshing. And it’s also exactly what’s needed in this rare time when the Democrats have veto-proof majorities in the legislature.
Now let’s get to the losers. The person put first on every such list so far has been Governor Douglas. And I agree, but for different reasons. The conventional wisdom says that Douglas lost because his veto was overridden. True enough. But, for me, Douglas is a real loser on this issue for doing what he always does with tough issues: Play politics while pretending not to. It’s about as transparent as transparent can get – but it doesn’t stop the Vermont’s lapdog media from regurgitating his dopey proclamations (i.e. “gay marriage is a distraction).
I think Douglas got exactly what he wanted out of this issue. He got it off the legislative radar in a non-election year by having his veto overridden and he got to throw a bone to his right-wing Vermont base and growing national Republican base by issuing his veto. Mission accomplished, indeed.
But he’s still obviously the biggest loser for playing the highest-stakes game of politics with an issue that is truly about civil rights, civil compassion and simply providing some joy in a time of great civil strife.
Remember, Governor Douglas’ primary opposition to the gay marriage bill was based on the fact that it was “a distraction” to the more pressing matters that were facing Vermont, particularly the economy. But let’s see if he speaks up to scold the right-wing gay-bashers who are now frothing at the bit over their calls for “revenge,” “constitutional amendments,” and promises to “repeal and revolt” over the legislature’s actions.
Speaking of the gay-bashers, let’s delve deeper into the loser list. Next up, Steve Cable of Rutland, the self-anointed leader of the “oh-my-god-we’ll-die-if-gay’s-are-legitimized” crowd. Here’s how Cable described the mood of his shrinking number of followers to the Vermont Press Bureau after finding out – once again – that they were losers:
“[They’re] blood shooting out of their eyes mad.”
Wow. That’s dramatic. But the real question is: Will Cable continue to quote the Bible in defeat as he did during the entire time during the battle? I guess not:
“This isn’t about moving on,” Cable said. “This is about getting even.”
I guess Cable’s Bible doesn’t include that whole “turn the other cheek” reference.
Speaking of the Bible, the other major loser in this fight was the “Rev.” Craig Benson, another Rutland man who apparently loves to spew hate in the name of the Bible. Please, can someone find the passage in the Bible that glorifies hate, paranoia, false-judgment, and mean-spirited revenge? Because the “Rev.” Benson can’t.
Instead, the “Rev.” Benson joins his fire-breathing hate-monger, Steve Cable, in declaring a massive miscarriage of justice by those seeking love and justice. Go figure. Specifically, Benson mashed his sour grapes with this nonsense:
“Our side was outspent 20-1…and, given that, we were lucky the vote was so close.”
Proof on the spending? None. And for those of us who were “lucky” enough to receive all those calls from the out of state gay-bashers, I’d seriously question his spending accusation.
But what’s easy to dispute is Benson’s laughable claim that the votes were “close.” Since when did votes of 23-5 in the Senate and 100-49 in the House get considered to be “close”? Those votes are what the sports world would call “blow-outs.” And they were.
We can only hope that in the election season of 2010 Jim Douglas will be forced to join Cable and Benson in their caves of irrelevance. There may not be term limits in Vermont but there are limits on how long bigots can swim against the stream of justice – just ask all those Republicans in the 1950’s and ‘60’s who opposed giving civil rights to African-Americans. Yes, indeed, Jim Douglas is our George Wallace.
But let’s end on the positive note: Vermont rose to the occasion and, like its stand against slavery in the 18th Century, Vermont will be forever recognized for its courageous stand. Congrats.
Today’s the day that the Vermont legislature has an historic opportunity to override Governor Jim Douglas’ veto of the gay marriage bill that passed overwhelmingly in both the house and the senate. Let’s hope they do the right thing.
My home state of Iowa already beat Vermont to the punch on this issue. After Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional (duh), members of the Iowa legislature are scrambling to trump the court by passing new legislation.
The video below is an elegant response from one Iowa legislator who is refusing to go along with the latest desperate attempt to curtail civil liberties to our citizens.
It’s a good day to say, “I’m from Iowa.”
In Vermont, the right-wing radio host Paul Beaudry has been doing his best to prove that the spokespeople for gay marriage opposition are hot-wired to Neanderthal Central. Let’s call a spade a spade here: Beaudry is nothing short of a hate-filled goon. Worse, his vile rants never cease to butcher the English language.
Take, for example, Beaudry’s repeated — and demented — calls yesterday for Rep. Bill Lippert to “recloose” himself from the veto override vote because of his “conflict of interest.” Um, I think he means “recuse.” But, hey, why let the English language get in the way of a stupid point.
And guess what Beaudry was using as his “evidence” for his charge of Lippert’s so-called conflict of interest: Lippert’s gay.
Oh boy, don’t you just love it when people hate in the name of Jesus?
Enough already.
Here’s a little tune from the first — and best — Drunken Boat album.
Click to hear: Drunken Boat: Spin Around
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