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Spring News |
September 2007
April 2006
October 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
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April 12 , 2006 Hello to you all! We discovered that our hens stop laying eggs when it is dark and cold (who can blame them?). We discovered cracks in our house walls where the wind blows cold, floorboards that could double as ice cubes, and how lovely it is to have at least one warm place in the house--around the wood stove. Finally able to crunch through brittled brambles, we discovered the far corners of our property and new views of the mountains. We discovered stone walls and rushing streams, beaver dams and tree stands. After a two-week blitz over Christmas and New Year’s, we discovered that we have a three-season bedroom. Geoff and I put up sheetrock, mudded corners and cracks, trimmed the large sliding windows, skylights, and doors with pine, primed, and painted painted painted. We moved in, delighted; and moved out, dismayed. Beating a hasty retreat to the living room, we plotted our next moves against the encroaching cold. We discovered how serious Jordan (10) was when he said, beginning in September, that his life depended on getting a cow. Though we nodded, deferred, deflected, and resisted, he continued to construct elaborate dairy operations, draw pictures of his favorite animal, and read books about cow care. At last we embraced his desire as a fated consequence of our move and connected him with a local 4 H cattle group. We set about making plans to purchase a Jersey calf. Born on January 13, and adopted by us on March 18, she is named after Geoff’s dad’s prize-winning Jersey—Daisy Mae. We have a cow! We discovered how much the local schools appreciate having Geoff as a substitute music teacher, and how a half foot of snow didn’t phase the thirty or so people who showed up anyway when I shared my work and danced at a local fellowship dinner. My second book came out—Nietzsche’s Dancers—and I discovered again how much ideas in that book are coming alive in our move here. In the book I wrote about how the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) uses images of dance to represent a process of creating ideals for humankind that, as he says, “remain faithful to the earth.” His call to dance is a call to affirm life in all of its moments. I wrote about how the early American modern dancers, Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, set out to discover movement practices--life practices--that would realize Nietzsche’s visions for what dance can be. We are doing the same. We are discovering now how spring comes to Hebron Hollow. The Canada geese are the first to know. Scouts arrive in twos and threes. Landing on the frozen ponds, they honk quizzically. What happened to our water? They stand for days, waiting patiently, as the edges of their ice islands dissolve. Later comers arrive in pairs, nesting in dried cattail clumps. Then come ducks, sparrows, swallows, red winged blackbirds, robins with bulging breasts, pigeons (yes, in the barn), hawks, and at least one blue heron. A fox trots across the hill. Groundhogs pop up out of their burrows. Ladybugs dot the window panes. Motorbikes rev their engines. The hens start dropping eggs again—first two, then three, now half dozen a day. (Know of any good egg recipes?) The sap begins its run. In January a neighbor stops by. “May I lease your sap woods?” “Sap woods???” we reply. “Yes.” He takes us out back and shows us 15-20 maple trees, some over 100 years old. He loops them together with sky blue tubing and sets up a storage tank. For the month of March we go listen to the sap run. We catch some for ourselves and boiling boiling boiling, for 6 hours, reduce 35 units to one. Light stretches out. On the first of March we discover the dormer is sun-warmed. We move back in. We gasp each morning as the sky turns deep blue around the silo, and golden rays crawl down the hillside behind the house, hugging the chicken coop and gracing the bare white birch branches. Daisy moos. Her most endearing feature, we are discovering, is not her dark globe-eyes, nor tawny coat; not the thin white crescent on her shoulder, nor the calf and milk she will give us two springs from now, but that low sonorous moan she makes when she wants Jordan to come frolic on the greening stalks of grass. We sign Kyra (4) up for kindergarten. Jordan writes his first song on guitar. Jessica (8) crafts a set of animal poems (see one below). We start seeds inside, saving the sprouts from the nightly frost. The cats go outside, Zelsha and the one of her eight kittens we kept. Jessica and Kyra ride inside and out, straddling their favorite “horses,” setting up jumps and stables, and tracking mud in both directions. Kai (8 months) crawls right through it. He stands for 10 seconds, 15 seconds. He takes three steps on his own, heading for Jessica and her stuffed black dog. We are all there cheering. Our farmer friend brings by a small flat-bottomed rowboat, 2 oars, 3 life jackets, and a dock. Are we interested? We set them up on the beaver pond in front of our house. The oars are different sizes, the boat holds at most 1 adult and 2 children, the dock is an old greenhouse table (with slats) that adults fall right through, and we are having a blast, rowing up and down, chasing geese, spying on turtles, and admiring the new horizons. Finally, an early draft of my new book is emerging, in sync with the day lilies, lilacs, and irises. And Geoff is keeping us all afloat—designing sounds and demonstrating instruments, serving as a teaching artist in the New York State Arts in Education program, and cultivating other music and teaching opportunities. We are planning our first workshop for early August or September. It is nearly time to start sharing in a concentrated way what we are developing here. We wish you all a happy April. With love from,
“Freedom Bird” Free as the wind, March 2006
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