How much that we do, is in hope of something else?
The moon is full,
Seed heads hang heavy on stalks of grass,
Leaf growth is slow.
It's hot.
August, like march, promises much.

How often are we disappointed?
How often does September come, like April,
with not enough rain,
or to much?

  We tie flies in summer, dreaming of winter fish.

During lambing
in the spring,

We tie flies, dreaming of summer steel head.

  Now in late summer I irrigate fields, in hope of fat fall lambs.

High prices/Lbs. on the hoof, and enough water in the creek to hold us till the rain comes.

In farming, we live in hope.

Prayers have become pertinent,

And we are not far removed from the inconceivable divine.

I won't tell you where I have been,
I will tell you that I was in Western Montana,
when really it was Northern Idaho.
I will tell you that I was in South West Idaho,
When really it was the Southern,
Eastern part of Oregon.
   People have a tendency of destroying what they love.
I will not tell you where I have been...
Only of the places that I have loved.

Winter now over, fear now subsides. What is done is done. Lambs, some of them, nearly sixty pounds, suckle and “gain,” Some of them even a pound a day. Waterlogged fields and fear of frost, in a matter of days becomes a distant memory.  There were more “singles” born this year than I would have liked, but singles gain well and fatten quickly. Scarce feed last year in September, manifests it’s self in this year’s lambs, only a %170 lamb crop. It is what it is; I’ll have lambs early to market, and spend less in getting them there.

There is something to be said for that.

   Driving past vineyards and cyclists today I railed against a machine that I have no ability to fight against, and I passed my frustration on you. I am sorry that my own short comings, frustration, and anger, will become your frustration with me; were you were to become my wife. It is an idea that terrifies me if I was honest with myself, and horrifies me were I to be honest with you.

   Driving to that farm today, the one for sale on the internet, again were I to be honest, broke my heart. That farm (to my eye) is a place full of a life lived. In my mind, in the way that the house, garden, and barn yard were laid out, was a place where I could see a man walk from the mud room to the shed, harness horses or idle a tractor, and while they ate, or a diesel tractor warmed up, that man would walk down to the cow byre and throw flakes of hay to cattle, and there he would stand, for just a moment before turning toward his work, and think on all of the things that he had done well in the year past, and consider the things that he wished that he might have done better.

   My dear,

                I am a man who already knows what I have done well, and I am a man who at times, wishes I could have done better.  I lament my failures, and (in regard to my farm) am sustained by the things that I have done right. I mean to offer no offence; but I consider my love for you in very much the same way.  I know what I have done well, and at times know that I could have done better.

   I once said that renting a farm was like dating a woman, and that owning a farm (by contract) was in a way like being married to a woman. What little I know about either, I know in my heart that someday I would like to own a farm…. And that soon, I would like to be married to you- 

      With all of my love-

                    Me-

     

The greatest sadness... The greatest joy.

I've four of the greatest dogs I've ever owned at the moment.

Gwenn:
six years old,
finicky,
loose eyed,
Wide running,
impatient,
sensitive and tough.

Jett: 
Five years old,
Prick eared and always reliable.
hard fast,
maybe a bit sticky eyed,
knows her lines,
patient.
   She'd gather sheep through an artillery range,
No bother,
Sharps the word and quick's the action.


Murphy:
three years old,
head strong and brilliant.

O'deilla:
Three years old,
sensitive,
intuitive,
heads up...
and blind.
The vet described the cause of her blindness as a massive bacterial infection,
That caused her ocular nerves to swell,
and to her guessing,
made her blind within a few hours.

It's funny....
My dog,
named after the patron saint of ocular diseases....
Is now forever blind.
She is my greatest sorrow...
and still my greatest joy.

     

Starbucks 25/2/15

I am looking for clarity amongst madness-
My birthday three days ago
and Mother's today.
We celibate our births
While lamenting the loss of the breasts
that gave me life.

What did I dream of 34 years ago as I nursed?
My hand absent mindedly grasping at my mother's hair
Her blouse
Her finger?

Did I dream at all
Or was I merely content?
     
      Recently-

I have fallen in love with Dorothy Day
And I hope that she is never canonized.
I want her to be my saint.
I do not want to share her.
I want her all to myself in a cabin on the coast-

There

Our child would sleep contentedly between
us as the water boils.
    We would make love on the bed

She and I-

Later I would pour her bath
Near to the wood stove.
  
   She would smile at me in the dim light from the wash basin

I holing our child,

She content,

and me her good man.   

Sunday Night Obituarys

Five dollars for the collection plate
And five twenty five for a beer-
Eight for a pack of smokes
and whiskey to banish misfortune
  
Never mind the cost. 

Weather Report

Snow falls and the winter woods are quiet.
Song birds flit from branch to barren branch.
Their chirps and alarms break the pregnant silence.

.Chickadee, junco, nuthatch, and house wren.

Harrier.

Wind from the NNW 10-15mph
Eighteen degrees

Fog develops late in the afternoon
while herons stalk the parcel brown marshes.

The streambed
like coffee grounds
Lays black, against the buckskin bank.

Snow falls on the quiet winter woods.
      Chance of precipitation 80%