Farm Stories

Alone, alone…

October 25, 2010

One day I discovered a rat in a live trap that I had set in my crawl space. We both jumped when I opened the crawl space door. And then I spoke in surprise, and the rat relaxed its body and came to the wires and looked curiously at me. I went upstairs to get it some food and returned, and hand fed it slices of banana through the wire bars. It ate its banana pieces calmly and I ate some too, and I thought, “This rat knows my voice and my scent, probably grew up knowing me. Hears me on the phone, smells what I am cooking for dinner, knows where I have been by the tang of my boots and hand tools. I am part of its world and it is at ease with me. How can I not know a creature who knows so much about me?”

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Big Gifts in Small Packages

October 19, 2010

Pat and Ken have returned to their travel trailer in my driveway for the night, and I sit surrounded by what they left behind them – hundreds of packets of potential life. Pat has given me one of her life’s work – her seed collection of over 250 varieties of herb. Pat connected with me [...]

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Cheep Entertainment

September 5, 2010

I just went out tonight to close up the chickens and found four of my city houseguests crammed into the chookhouse. They each had a chicken in arms, on a shoulder or cuddled under a chin. There is something about hugging small complaint beasts that transcends ego, reason and expensive clothing.

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Destinations

September 1, 2010

One of the items I gleaned from Basil last evening was the skeleton of a gazebo, not too rusty, mostly intact, and I want to set it into the acre of alderwood – I want a space you can just come upon suddenly and know that you have to sit inside of – like a metal cage with a human in it, encircled with thimbleberries and salmonberry.

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