Monday, March 31, 2014

Mindful Monday



Nature
 that framed us of four elements, 
warring within our breasts for regiment, 
doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

Christopher Marlowe
Tamburlaine the Great

Monday, March 24, 2014

Mindful Monday


Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?
Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould
myself?

Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Chapter 5: Solitude

Friday, March 21, 2014

It Ain't THAT Hard!

Our Newest Resident said something interesting to me today.

During a quiet moment, I asked him how he felt after being here a week.  Was it what he had expected, or was it different?  He said that he was feeling good, and after a while he said that actually he had been mentally prepared for endless back-breaking work and he was surprised that it wasn't that way.

This is a curious thing to me.  This idea that living out here might be really hard.  I've seen and heard it said many a time—in magazines, t.v. shows, and even this past week at a friend's house—that John Denver was wrong.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Mindful Monday



It was one of those March days
when the sun shines hot 
and the wind blows cold:
when it is summer in the light
and winter in the shade.

Charles Dickens
Great Expectations

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Shall We Gather?

We had our January farm meeting last night!

What?  You think that's a little late?  Not at all.  It was just in time, if one considers the weather this winter (which anyone living in at least the Eastern US knows was no fun at all), and if one considers that some of the meetings contributors needed to come from two states away; I think it was pretty darn timely.

You might be wondering what stake someone two states away has in a meeting here in the great state of Tennessee.  Well, it's like this . . .

Monday, March 10, 2014

Mindful Monday


Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings—
beating color up into it
at a far edge,—beating it, beating it
with rising , triumphant ardor,—
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,—
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself—is lifted—
bit by bit above the edge
of things,—runs free at last
out into the open—! lumbering
glorified in full release upward—
                                      songs cease

William Carlos Williams
Dawn


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Our Favorite Game

The day before had been rain.  Nothing but rain all the day long.  Through the night I could hear the rain begin to freeze and the slishing sound of freezing rain filled my dreams.  We woke up to a crystalline world with every branch and leaf coated with a thin layer of clear ice.  Then set in the snow.  In no time at all the grey glassine world was transformed to white.  We spent the morning watching brilliant flakes blow off the roof in eddys and swirls.  Then the call came, "No work tomorrow". Ah, Freedom!  Let's go play!

Monday, March 3, 2014

Mindful Monday



Let it rain,
Let it rain,
Let your love rain down on me.

Eric Clapton
Let it Rain