Maggie's Farm

Yer editor at work, editing the heck out of an overgrown 15-acre boulder-strewn meadow. Photo does not capture the height and density of the overgrowth, nor does it fully capture the Yankee red-neck elegance of the world-famous blog celeb Bird Dog.

We were happy to see that there were still struggling grasses underneath the growth, which will now have a chance to thrive again. I think we will need to mow again in September in an effort to thoroughly discourage the saplings and to give the grasses and wildflowers a good head start next Spring.

We carefully gave a wide berth to a huge Painted Turtle who decided to dig a hole and lay some eggs in the field while we were working. Got some photos. This is the meadow adjacent to the beaver marsh.

Photo is Le Thoronet, one of the three Romanesque Cistercian abbeys in Provence.

Rough farm work this weekend, but I'd rather be digging quahogs for supper here in the mud flats. It beats an Easter egg hunt easily.

Stift Melk, along the edge of the Danube, is one of the world's most famous abbeys. Founded in 1069, it remains a Benedictine center. The current early 1700 baroque buildings do not charm me, but it's an impressive structure - and it's on my August trip.

Did Jane Jacobs and her disciples take a moment in time and try to freeze it?

It's a worthy debate: Gentrification and Its Discontents - Manhattan never was what we think it was.

Thanks for reminding me about FFA and 4-H. We had a 4-H when I grew up, but I did not belong.

Where did those good things go?

I put in my tomatoes, cucumbers, squash seeds, herbs etc. I think we're done with the frosty nights, finally.

I also fertilized my Money Tree, and planted a row of Beer Plants (cover your empties with about 2" of soil spaced about 6" apart, water, and wait). I like to time my Beer Plant planting every two weeks so there is always a fresh crop throughout beer season. I planted some Coors Lites, the usual Rolling Rock, and a couple of Sam Adams. In two weeks, I will plant some Guiness and some Old Milwaukee. Maybe some Ballantine Ale too.

Gardening is one of the few ways to get untaxed value.

For those who feel that they do not have enough Bob Dylan in their lives, there is always Dylan Radio. All Dylan, all the time. A bit of an overdose, in my opinion. They never mix it up with any Schubert concertos.

It brought to mind an interview with the late great Lena Horne which Mark Simone replayed on the radio the other day. She was saying that she approached a song as a short play, and that she focused on telling the story more than on the music. She said she talked the song-story before she ever added the music. Simone told Horne that Sinatra had once told him something similar; that he wanted to distinguish himself from other singers by making the the words more important to him than the tune or the notes. He disparaged other pop singers as note-hitters wedded to the tune, rather than good story-tellers. Of course, Horne and Sinatra could do both.

You obviously cannot compare Dylan's singing to those two masters, but you can compare his phrasing, word-handling, and story-telling to anybody's. Plus he writes his songs himself. Writing a good song that sticks to the soul is lots tougher than writing a good poem - which is plenty tough itself.

But I don't know what I am talking about...I truly do not.

As you know, Lena Horne died last week.

That was an email late last night from the pupette I mentioned here yesterday, informing me that she just got another call-back for a Hollywood movie role for which she has, unbeknownst to me, been auditioning.

I thought her summer plans sounded perfect, so I do not know what to say except "Break a leg, babe."

Having kids keeps life from getting dull, routine, and inexpensive. There is always something to ponder; good and bad and neutral.

Now, back to the gardens to be an outdoor slave to Mrs. BD. (Perhaps The Wagoner's Lad had it backwards? Well, in the right mood, I will do anything for the Mrs. In the wrong mood, nothing. Doesn't bother me at all to be a difficult person sometimes, and I often feel I need to be more so.)

Thing is, I have always enjoyed manual labor, especially the semi-skilled sort when the tasks are well-defined. Brain-work fatigues me, but physical labor invigorates me.

Next weekend, a big invigorating 2-3 day job at the farm. I sent out a flash email to all sibs, telling all to bring all tools (chain saws, hedge-trimmers, weed-wackers, etc.) and promising to provide beer and water and gas and cigars and lunch. We have a 25-acre field up on the hill to clear, now that the tractor bridge over the trout stream is fixed after the big wash-out two winters ago. The meadow will need a twice-over with the tractor and the brush hog, and the wind-fallen White Pines will need my baby bro with his 3' chain saw and his cutting skills. He won't say much and he is not overly friendly, but he is a youngish retired exec and he likes to work non-stop. Always in motion.

My Mom always tells me "Your Grandpa would use a scythe for that." I say to her "I love my power tools."

The swimming hole needs to be dredged out too. We have a small but adequate dredge that will hook to the tractor with chains, but I am not sure we will have time to get that done next weekend. Not sure where the long chains are either.

The BD pupette, finishing her freshman college year in a week or so at her beloved small rural liberal arts college, will be promptly flown down (on the camp's nickel) to her super-most-specialest-favoritest traditional (daily morning flag ceremony with prayers, etc) 100 year-old girl's camp down in the wondrous Smokey Mountains so she can take the NRA shooter training course before camp opens. Her camp counseling duties will include running the shooting ranges and training the gals for competition. I know she is good with a .22. They are paying her surprisingly well, too.

I think they do shotgun and .22. She is no stranger to guns, but has never taken the NRA course for trainers. Wilderness camping and hiking, kayaking, etc. are no problem for her. She can as easily drive a John Deere tractor as she can do the subways of NYC, and brushes off rain and mud on the farm like a true Yankee. Except when she is dressed to do New York...

I thought that this Shakespeare- and drama-intoxicated (and two-time Oxford Shakespeare summer) pup was planning a theater internship in NYC where she could earn some Actors Equity points, but perhaps that is afterwards but before our Danube trip. What do I know? (Nobody ever tells me anything around here - but I am OK with almost anything if it has some vitality and adventure and self-testing in it. Sitting around the house shooting farts into sofas and chairs, as I am wont to put it, is not permitted in the BD household: life is too short for that, and the big world is beckoning, saying "Come on out here and give me your best shot, and take yer chances - and yer punches.")

Well, what I do know is that certainly prospective justice Kagan never took the NRA course. She opposes the Second Amendment, so I doubt she knows how to have fun with guns, or how to defend herself.

Somebody recently opined to me that only governments should be entrusted with the use of force. I just bit my tongue and smiled. Doing a lot of that, lately.

I like having daughters who can handle firearms.

They don't permit visiting any more, but anyone can see this gallery of masterpieces online: Lascaux.

I have been through four cords of firewood in ye olde office this season, and fireplace season is not over yet. Chilly mornings, chilly evenings, in the low 30s (F). 38 degrees with a cold rain this morning. I do not live on Cape Cod (where I was a young lad for a while when my Dad was in the service), but one good thing about the Cape is that you can use a fire every night, even in August. Takes the damp chill off, or seems to.

My wood supply is down to fresh green wood felled by the Nor'easter a while ago. I cut and scavenged it. Mostly Maple of various types. I haven't even had time to split it yet. However, I figured out how to burn green wood effectively and pleasantly. All it takes is to throw a handful of charcoal briquettes into your starter fire. They get the heat up so that your green wood dries and burns at the same time. A nice, slow fire with plenty of wood-steam and an enjoyable hiss. You may have to freshen it with a new briquette or two now and then.

It works great. Sort-of. A hot wood stove will burn green wood just fine, but a fireplace is trickier. Once you have enough heat with a good bed of coals in there, green burns well.

What other blog would offer such a handy tip?

Via Failbook via Things That Are Doing It (h/t, I forget - will link when I remember.)

Another one, also safe for work, below the fold -

A reader introduced us to Theodore Roethke's 1957 "Last Class," an amusing rant about teaching literature to rich girls at Bennington College. 

I cannot find the whole thing, but here's the first page. Roethke wrote it under the pen name of Winterset Rothberg.

In a chat with an Italian guy from Torino with his two little kids and wife on the flight to Milan, he said "You are only visiting for ten days? In Italy, we have 8 weeks of vacation. We have been in the US for a month, two weeks in New York."

In a chat with a Brit on a ferry on Lake Como: "When you travel with a wife, you see villas and gardens. That's just what you do." They were on a one month trip around Italy.

When do these folks ever work? We talked with plenty of friendly people on our trip, including a Swiss gal who had come down from Bern to the lakes with her dog (travel in Europe is very dog-friendly) for a long weekend.

Some more Italy photos - a cafe in a pleasant piazza in Stresa with a bottle of our staple - the local Barbera:

 Another shot of the Isola Bella gardens:

A view from the funicular which connects Stresa with the ski village of Motterone. In the "Borromean Gulf," the left island of the triangle is Isola Pescatore, the far one is Isola Madre, and the one on the lower right is Isola Bella:

More photos on continuation page -