The Accidental Agrarian

Check Your Weather App

2011-12-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

Blogland has been a silent wasteland for last last few months. My fingers have had no itch that required the scratch of a keyboard, nor has there been some great revelation washing through my conscious mind, eager to find the incarnation available on electronic paper. Sure, I did build an entire 40 foot wall, complete with windows (installed by me), two 4x8 doors (built and installed by me), siding attached (by me) as well as a giant 8x8 plastic window (designed and built by me). Yes, I have become "Contructo Man."

But for the folk who know me, when electro-journal becomes silent, that usually means my brain is either empty or spinning too fast. It has been the latter. I'm not sure I can remember a time when my brain has ever felt empty. 'Tis the reality of our DNA.

Winter is a difficult time for people living with a depressive/anxiety disorder. Where the hell has the sun gone to, anyway? Nature looks water-logged, sodden, threadbare - the Oliver Twist of the natural order. Thus, on orders of my wife-o-path, I spend the first twenty-minutes of every day staring into 'the light'. It's not at the end of the tunnel. No, it's sitting on my desk - a genuine SAD (seasonal affective disorder) lamp. It's like having your own sun in your room. Not quite as hot but apparently with the right spectrum of light the brain needs.

Come to think about it, chickens have the same hankering to be in the sun. Yesterday, while feeding I notice a faint sliver of light shining into the barn. Within that jagged piece of light stood as many chickens as could fit - it almost looked like a rock concert (without the crowd surfing). All around this still company the entire community of chickens whirled and moved and pecked and did all things 'chicken.' But the smart ones were taking in the sun - through their feathers. Yes, chickens will do what we would call 'sun tan.' In summer, they'll dig a shallow hole, face the sun and fluff dirt all over themselves. Then, they'll spread out the wing facing the sun and just lie and sleep. Magnificent.

I can't spread out too much, as my desk-sized sun is only five inches in diameter.

A few months ago, as you may have read, I travelled to England and Scotland to visit my friends. While there, we took the journey to Iona, a small island off the west coast of Mull. You travel to Oban and then take a series of ferries and buses and before you know it, five or so hours of travel ends at Fionnphort (pronounced Finnafor) a delightful little port town with a gourmet restaurant begun by a Canadian.

Going to Iona - my third time - was a privilege beyond measure. Iona is a long way away, especially if you're from Canada. But even when you get to the British Isles, it is still a long way away. The trains vary in degree of efficiency and speed and schedule. Coming from Durham, it took almost twelve hours and please remember, the British Isles are about the same size as Vancouver Island. What I'm saying is getting to Iona is a commitment - you really have to want to go there. And 'yes', I did want to - especially with Gerry and his new bride, Amanda. So we undertook the trip, he and she to become members of the community and me, to lay to rest those unresolved issues that still followed me from my time as a teacher.

The day we arrived, the wind was blowing at threatening levels: threatening to close down the ferry between Mull and Iona (a mere ten minute journey), threatening to cut power, threatening to leave me stuck in this little village. I spoke with the villagers about the storm. Their attitude? "Ach, 'tis nothin' You should be here when it really blows." Good perspective. But the winds abated and we eventually arrived, they to the Abbey and me to my B&B.

As I readied myself for bed (I just happened to score the most amazing B&B on the island) the wind picked up again and thus began its assault against the house. The only thing between me and the storm were a double-glazed pane of glass. I lay on the bed and just listened, for it wasn't a sound heard much at home: ocean breakers, half submerged rocks receiving their pounding but remaining resolute, wind carrying spray high aloft, and the house - a true shelter in a time of storm.

I arrived on Iona on the fifth anniversary of my silent and anonymous departure from CBC: October 24, which coincidentally was my mother's birthday. I didn't plan this - I only recognized that I'd done it after I had booked my tickets. So here I was, on this less than auspicious day, back to the same place where in August of 2005 I began to sense that my teaching days were coming to a grinding halt.

On my first morning, I awoke to clearing skies and a gentle wind. There is truly nothing like the Scottish sky, what with different coloured clouds dancing in wild and fantastic shapes, blues and greys from the heavens, sunbeams here and there. I went for a walk that day (with my new churchwarden's briar in hand) and let thoughts from the past filter through the geography of memory. As I walked, I saw the very bench I had sat upon those years past, the oaken bench where I knew instinctively that I couldn't continue my work back home.

We often talk about having a 'monkey on my back,' a metaphor for past experiences that hinder one's ability to function in the present. Well, I invited all the monkeys to have a seat and enjoy the view. I looked at them and said "good bye" and farewell to that which still haunted me. I left them sitting on the bench. They are still enjoying the view. And so I returned home to the farm, seemingly recharged and ready to entertain the challenges one faces in the agricultural life. But it was not to be so.

When I went to England, I brought my blog along in paper form. I thought I'd read through it, particularly to see how I have changed since living and working on the farm. But as I read it, I became... not disappointed, not alarmed, but something was bothering me. And then it dawned on me: farm-life had, at first, been one grand romantic adventure, with me as the protagonist, the land as my ally and the slings and arrows of life be damned! in the face of this duo. This, I now realize, was the flaw that accompanied me here. Farming is anything but romantic - it is just plain hard work.

Bring into this mix a depressive/anxiety disorder, brain injury from meningitis, a very steep learning curve (with I must say I have managed to climb) and you have a few possible outcomes. You can imagine yours. But mine was a breakdown, complete and utterly final. Period. Without warning. My internal weather station didn't pick up the storm that was brewing inside me. I had the wind knocked out of my sails, a metaphorical corollary to my literal experience on Iona.

And you ask perhaps "why are you telling me this?" Perhaps you ought to check in with your weather station. The lazy warmth of blue skies can often hide a coming storm. Listen for the wind.

168 Hours Of Nothing Much

2011-10-29T06:28:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Gerry's flat in Durham. We're in a very old building, the very building that the Queen Mum's family used to own and visit. It was a townhouse by the cathedral, don't you know. Makes it very easy to head to the flat for church at the cathedral and have Geeves prepare the tea and scones for afterwards. Her family donated it to St. John's college, one of the few colleges to still attract students who want to consider ministry as a vocation. History.

This entire city is one big history lesson. I sat under the cathedral walls this afternoon, enjoying a briar. The cathedral was built by William the Conquerer after he did the 'open can of whuppass' on the neighborhood Anglo Saxons. It's now a UNESCO world heritage site. Walking around gives one a sense of perspective: people have been here for a few thousand years and will continue to be long after I've left.

Coming to Durham has been a kind of pilgrimage for me, primarily to see Gerry and his new bride Amanda. They are hand-and-glove and definitely soul mates. They are both finishing their Ph.Ds which means that I've had to turn on some more of my brain cells to follow conversation. It is very different from shoveling crap, feeding chickens or dumping yogurt for the pigs. I use the word 'pilgrimage' deliberately because Gerry is a kind of marker in my life, a reminder of that time when my slow slide into depression was accelerating at unchecked speed. We met on Iona, he 23 and looking forward and me, 45 not knowing where to look.

Much has changed in five years. This is hardly a profound observation. Gerry's intensity has been tempered by years of experience; he is fully engaged in writing his thesis as well as preparing lectures, papers for publication and stag parties; he and Amanda are dorm parents to a few hundred hormone-heavy teenagers who are in their first year of university. It has been a pleasure to see this 'sexy Scottish beat' (so aptly named by Marlene) tamed by a diminutive beauty from Brighton. Amanda has an ability to listen in a way I've never experienced before: her eyes never leave yours; her posture is open. And her responses are said very gently and jam-packed with widsom.

While Gerry and Amanda have been doing their academic duties, I have spent my days wandering throughout the city and its environs. I have basically picked a direction and begun to walk. It has been very therapeutic. As I walk, my mind goes back to my time as a teacher and living here in this university town has made me realize just how much I do miss working with students. My guest room is in the dorm (thankfully well away from the students) so as I come and go I wander through lounges and cafeterias and see people huddled in conversation, students engaged in all things studentish and profs waxing on with each other.

These conversations happen all over the city. I've been to "Flat White" a few times. It's a great little coffee house (sorry though, Reza's coffee is still to be beat by anyone out here....), atmosphere in spades, and the clientele mostly from the university. Yesterday I sat nearby two profs (bow ties properly tied, Dr. J) who fulfilled every cliche you've ever had about English profs gesticulating with hands and arms, speaking at light speed, giggling and using words like "rapscallion" in context in their conversation. Yes, you read correctly.

In the same café sat students pouring over math (sitting discretely apart but she finally does let her knee rest upon his.... took long enough....), another prof arguing with another about something medieval with facial expressions serious enough to make one believe these observations might just have relevance outside their small cadre of scholars. Outside sat a young red headed lad with a lass on either side, a thick edition of Bleak House inbetween them. His prospects didn't look so bleak as it was clear that both blond heads were clearly gobsmacked with this fellow.

There is a promenade along the river where one can walk among the still trees, hearing only the breeze or flowing waters. Benches line the river and here again are the young folk engaged in conversation, all manners of postures speaking of new friendship, intimacy and rigorous conversation along academic lines.

I didn't really 'do' the tourist thing here: mostly I let the farm evaporate from my consciousness for a while, enjoying time to do nothing much. Imagine, a week of doing nothing much. But, Walt has emailed and said that the chicks have arrived, lamb is heading out to restaurants, feed is ordered. In this electronic world, the place left behind is never far away. But until then, I shall endeavor to do more of 'nothing.' Try it.

I Don't Mean To Eavesdrop, But...

2011-10-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

I am partially deaf. This is a side-affect from the antibiotics during my bout with Meningitis Man. I won, but he got some hearing. It means that I don't hear my choir as they should - the sopranos sound like they're singing out of a tin can, and it's not because they are singing poorly. There's just something wrong with the nerve that runs from the hearing mechanism to the brain. Hey, if the choice is being dead or not hearing everything, I'll go with the latter.

Hearing in enclosed spaces is particularly problematic. Voices bouncing off hard surfaces zing past my ears and only fragments of conversations find their way into my brain. If you come into the Grille, you might see me sticking my face close to customers in order to hear them. I wish I could lip read - now that would help.

We have a family that regularly comes in on Sundays. It`s a big Dutch family and they usually arrive just after church. My first clue is the accent. My second clue is that Dad first of all finishes his nick stick before he comes in - perhaps a needed remedy to cure any anxiety after sitting through another homily. Their kids children are in their late twenties and the grandchildren (in their twos and threes) have just begun their journey through life.

Watching parents and their children in a public place does provide examples of parenting styles that you definitely don't want to emulate. For example, nearly every parent, who after hearing their child order, says "And what do you say?" This nearly always spoken in up-speak, a subtle non-verbal cue that said child should immediately respond with the correct answer. Therein begins the guessing game that sees kids in various states of confusion because regardless of their stage of development the parents expect them to know what to say. And then, if the kid doesn't answer fast enough, the question is posed with graduated intensity and at times, ferocity as the body language of the parent changes from benevolent to leaning forward with tilted head. As if asking "what do you say" numerous times, faster and faster is going to help a two-year old answer more quickly. When this happens I always wonder if the parents - obviously concerned with correct social etiquette - are going to tip way over 15%. Alas, there is no correlation. Sadly, in their desire to influence their child towards polite social behaviour, they cross the line and become rude their selves. Amazing.

Back to the big family. Kids go through stages of development and no matter how much you want your kid to stop eating with their hands, for example, they won't or can't until the earth rotates through another 360 days, or however long it takes. Parents go barking up the wrong developmental tree. I've been stuck up that tree, myself. And so today, the banter of this family came to me in broken bits and pieces, but as I walked past the table (having finished a round of pouring black bean sauce) I could definitely hear one of the moms reminding her child not to eat with their hands. Over and over. To know avail. And then she said something that truly amazed me. She said, in all seriousness, "You're making Jesus cry when you eat with your hands." Really. My brain began to freeze and you know that slow-motion thing survivors of disasters describe happens to them, how a few seconds feel like minutes, how you can describe in minute detail what happens second by second? I think I had some of that.

I stood behind the cash register and did a quick flip through my theology files, both courses taken, essays written, books consulted and conversations held. I could access those big important files like "various views of the afterlife" (you can fill in those blanks should you wish), the virgin birth, eschatology and the like. I could even remember some pithy lectures I penned along such important lines like "Amos the Agricultural Businessman Prophecies Doom Upon the People of Israel for Treating Yahweh Like Baal" (that was a top 40 session) or "Baby, Can I Squeeze You?" (not a long lost Marvin Gaye song, but rather a look at acculturation that leads to syncretism). One of my personal favourites was "Hollywood and the Apocalypse."

But nowhere in my years of graduate studies or nearly 20 years of teaching had I ever run across a psychological/physiological/theological (the new Trinity for some?) permutation like this. I looked at the mother with dismay. I looked at the child with a sense of loss.

Well, on the bright side, this kind of parenting will keep psychologists well fed into the next millennium.

Thoughts Arriving When Patrons Delay...

2011-09-27T22:39:00.001-07:00

It is one of those slow nights at the Grille, with the darkness lurching forward and scattering any remnants of warm summer nights. It's only 7:30 and the long shadows are long gone. The MCC Thrift Shop sign across the street is nearly invisible. Welcome, Autumn - you who tease us with blazing colours and those rare warm days, you who is preparing the earth for the onslaught of Winter.

Thinking of autumn leads me to thinks of years long past at UBC, years of singing and my baptism into the beauty of sound. My choir director, a man thoroughly dedicated to unlocking the artist in us all, knew that the key to opening this door lay within the pages of beautiful music, especially the music of that Viennese genius Johannes Brahms. And so autumn leads me to remember the gifts that Brahms left us a century ago, music penned to evocative and beautiful poetry. Brahms, you need to know, wasn't the most optimistic of characters and towards the last decade of his life (and who really knows when that will be except the historian?) he left us music that pondered the questions of his own eventual death. On the grand scale we have his Requiem, with soloists and an orchestra of monumental proportions. But on the micro level, he left us jewels to be sung a cappella, a mere few minutes in time. When he wrote Im Herbst ("In Autumn", Op. 104, no. 5), he must have been looking at the remainder of his days. Sure, he had nine more years to live, but none of us know when that day will arrive. If you don't quite know what I'm talking about, you're probably not old enough because the day when you realize that looking back contains more time than looking forward - well, it can be sobering. Hey. I don't expect to live to 100.

Im Herbst. Autumn is also a season of harvest and bounty and thankfulness for crops, but the autumn explored here moves like the cold wind over a bald and desolate prairie. I remember a time in Manitoba when I stood outside and thought my eyes were going to freeze out of my head. Cold leaves you confused and impairs you totally. Leaves you indefensible. If I remember correctly, Brahms used a 6/4 meter and when you sing it it feels like you're stumbling over rough ground, cold, drunk with fatigue. The first two bars are very unstable - tonally - and he takes his time getting to C minor, the home key (which is much chillier than its relative, C major). Singing it fells like being lost at dusk with the mercury dropping: staying outside any longer might land you with hypothermia.

Ernst ist der Herbst. Und wenn die Blätter fallen,

sinkt auch das Herz zu trübem Weh herab.

Still ist die Flur, und nach dem Süden wallen

die Sänger, stumm, wie nach dem Grab.

Autumn is a cold and hard season, and when the leaves fall,

so fall the heart into aching weariness.

The meadow is still and to the south have flown

all the songbirds, their songs now mute as if to the grave.

Bleich ist der Tag, und blasse Nebel schleiern

die Sonne wie die Herzen, ein.

Früh kommt die Nacht: denn alle Kräfte feiern,

und tief verschlossen ruht das Sein.

Day is bathed in twilight, and mist-like clouds cover

the sun like they veil the heart.

Night comes early:then all creation celebrates
and life itself rests in an unfathomable secrecy.

Sanft wird der Mensch.

Er sieht die Sonne sinken, er ahnt des Lebens wie des Jahres Schluß.

Feucht wird das Aug', doch in der Träne Blinken,

entströmt des Herzens seligster Erguß.

Man becomes peaceful and gentle.

He sees the sun sinking, he suspects that life is like the end of a year

His eye grows moist, yet in the midst of his tears

shines from the heart a blissful rhapsody.

So you're asking yourself, "Beautiful poetry? Is he daft?" This is, after all, year number three living here. In the last three years, I've had more firsthand experience with mortality than I've had in an entire lifetime. Living in the city - or perhaps the distraction my previous career (and I won't say at that place which shall not be named...) left me blind to the changing of the seasons. The only season I could sense was the encroaching winter deep within me. I think I wrote about that a long time ago.

But perhaps the point of marking an actual season is to mark the same that is occurring on the interior of one's life. Sure, one can look at the seasons at a literal level and for most of my life (and most likely yours as well?) that's how I looked at them. When did they become symbolic? I believe that time arrives when you're able to look back upon life - a personal autobiography or retrospective, perhaps. When I sang this piece in university it was understood as only a young man could: full of wonder for the future, energy, unbridled optimism and the belief that one could take on the world and the world would submit. A sense of invincibility. Over the years, some of that did occur. But invincibility has been tempered with vulnerability (my first instinct was to say inevitability). And I'm in good company here, especially if a person like Brahms had the internal courage to address it.

Again, if I take my cue from nature autumn reminds me that those fine green fields that sustained sheep and cattle and geese are slowly falling into slumber. Creation, preparing its cocoon of rest, has begun a slow decent into sleep. At this time of year, it's not such a bad thing to ask oneself "will I have the strength to continue come spring? When the sun returns and the warmth of its rays renew the stirring of life within earths depths, will I find myself renewed in equal measure?"

This is what western civilization would like us to believe will happen ad infinitum. Like the tar sands of Fort McMurray will never run out or there will always be a newer car at the end of the rainbow. It's the myth of linear progression - the hope of perpetual economic growth, accrued interest and the unending payment of dividends. When I ponder this, my compounding interest begins to doubt the veracity of these claims. Today as I was delivering in Vancouver there stood, at the corner of Howe and West Georgia, a man in the middle of the intersection, raving mad, screaming at the top of his lungs over the traffic noise, weaving in and between vehicles, lunging towards cars and pedestrians. He looked like a professional from the financial district who had just lost his entire livelihood. His anger was electric even from 40 meters away. Yet no one paid him any second thought - at least outwardly. I mused to myself that perhaps he had traversed from autumn to winter in a single day.

Back to the poem. I love the optimism of the third stanza, but Brahms doesn't spoon-feed you any easy answers. No. He takes you through a whirlwind of harmonic confusion and tension: the text seems resolved but the music continues to probe the depths of who you are and what you say you believe and how you've come to terms with your life. Mercifully, Brahms does find resolution - on the last word: rhapsody. Finally, we reach the key of C major, the key that historians and music theorists like to call "sunny" (could be all those white keys...).

My brother Dave has told me over and over again that it is useless to waste one's breath and place the question "why" before the episodes that life hands us. Instead one might rather ask "how do I move on." Autumn may be that time when we're given the opportunity to rest with nature and in the quiet of winter contemplate the renewal of spring. With the reappearance of spring, we too can experience growth.

Oprah, that purveyor of all things halcyon likes to end her magazines with the axiom "This is know for sure." Well, this I know for sure: growth is always preceded by loss.

Pocket Pig: The Newest In Counselling Stategies

2011-09-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

I spent some quality time with my pigs this evening. We have about 10 pigs, all the way from wiener to "75-more-pounds-and-you're-off-the-butcher" size. Their ability to consume yogurt still astounds me, as well as their prodigious bread consumption. Ten gallons of yogurt is all gone in about 5 minutes. Throw in about 25 loaves and you have entertainment for, let's say, 10 minutes. They are, if anything, efficient.

Today my usual routine of breaking bread and filling buckets with yogurt was interrupted by a few visitors. Bob and Lyndon - the couple that bought our flock - have two adorable kids named Ellis and James. At age 8 James is a non-stop talking machine, pulling cat's tails and trying to ride Peanut; Ellis is a curious and friendly 11 year-old who has her eyes and ears open at all times, especially when it comes to animal welfare. Today, we had to walk out to the creek because she was sure the cows were trapped on the other side of the creek. "How do they get across?" I told her that with the creek at only six inches in depth, the cows were OK and could ford it with ease.

A while later she came back and informed me that the newest wiener pigs had walked under the electric fence and that James (upon her insistence) had held the electric fence and "no" he didn't get shocked and isn't that a problem? I assured her it was. So out came the weed-whacker and after a few pulls, the trusty Huskvarna smoked and belched and purred into action. I discovered that most of the perimeter was choked with blackberry brambles. Some of the wire had sagged and was wrapped in grass. The whacker did the job on the grass but I had to resort to armstrong via pruning shears to deal with the berries.

Blackberries are the scourge of the farmer's paddock. They weave an impenetrable fabric of hardened stock and thorny leaves; they eat fence-lines, they destroy pasture and they render barbed wire redundant. If left unchecked they will slowly and as surely as Harold Camping's inability to predict the end of the world, ruin your fields.

Prior to my conversation with Ellis, the pigs had been happily sleeping off their latest gorge of blackberry yogurt (mixed with cooking oil today - sort of like chocolate for pigs). But as I pulled and pruned the real blackberry shoots there suddenly stood all around me my herd of pigs, heads down, busily munching all the cuttings. I couldn't believe it. One - stealth pigs. Two - eaters of brambles. So I kept cutting and pulling and they kept chomping and crunching. While the brambles occasionally drew blood from my hands, the pigs snorted them down with seeming ease.

And so I thought: wouldn't it be grand to have such a metaphorical pig in one's back pocket, something you could toss your slings and arrows and shite and such and it would dispose of it quickly, quietly and with great efficiency, leaving only the waste behind. And where do pigs leave their waste, you might ask? Along the perimeter of the field, rarely to be noticed by anyone. How utterly appropriate. And think of the money you could save on meds, counselling and the endless conversation that often is wasted when trying to deal with all that stuff.

Perhaps our proactive porker could scarf the slinger and thus assiduously avoid the birthing of brambles.

Problem solved.

I'm Nearly Famous Now

2011-09-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

I am probing my brain this evening. Or, is my brain probing itself? Questions only a disembodied dualist would ask...

We have, once again, procured some cattle. Our beautiful big cow named "Beef" went for a walkabout and was hijacked. He is now in someone's freezer. "The Meat-Thief of Greendale." Not quite the same ring as "The Count of Monte Cristo." Not near the romantic spin, either. Just a plain old thief who decided to chop up our cow and keep it. May the fleas of a thousand camels play rugby in the nether regions of his body...

Walt went to the auction - with firm instructions and agreed upon parameters - to find cattle that were mostly tame and docile. And on this account he was successful. We have two beautiful Hereford cattle in the back field, enjoying a few months of remediation (fresh grass and bread from our organic baker) until they too will enter the Elysian Fields and roam the fertile hills with all the brethren who have gone before them. Perhaps they'll meet #123 and Loin. Who knows? We also have a Highland/Simmental cow and her calf coming to reside for the next number of months. We're getting those from Stephen. The calf is truly a beautiful animal: Highland's have a wonderful coat that is really unusual for a cow. They look like an R.O.U.S. If you haven't seen A Princess Bride you might like to know that an R.O.U.S. is a "Rodent Of Unusual Size." Come on by and have a look. Better yet, email me, take some for your freezer, and have a taste.

Walt and I were out in Vancouver doing our deliveries last week. The folk who buy our stuff are really great people. At one place, we were given fresh organic sandwiches and a chocolate cupcake to die for. I actually moaned in the presence of Walter. It's a good thing he's partially deaf... I think he missed it. Occasionally we get a few chef's visiting us on the farm since they want to know where their meat comes from. This usually takes the day and we talk almost non-stop, have a BBQ (do more moaning), drink good wine and talk food. They think it's such a big deal that we invite them over. But really, what's the big deal? We're just a couple of farmers trying to produce food like our ancestor's used to - nothing artificial, no chemicals and respect the animal's "animalishness." New word.

So these guys - some who drive imports whose value is 20x that of my truck - come over, get on the Wellingtons, wander around with us, gawk at the amount of yogurt a few pigs can consume, marvel at how quickly said swine will swallow beer-soaked bread mixed with grain, look at chickens and realize that "no" I'm not lying when I say "CHICK-OWNS!!!" and I'm greeted with a unison ascending crescendo of sound. This is like Disneyland for Chefs.

Back to the last stop of the day: Walt and I decided to have a burger at the restaurant. This place is famous for its burgers. Killer view of the ocean, too. They have a young and brilliant chef who is all smiles and laughter. Most coincidentally, he was serving our lamb that afternoon: home-made lamb ravioli. As Walt and I munched (burger) and slurped (beer) we overheard a server mention the lamb special. The couple ordered it. A while later, we heard the same server mention that the farmers who grew the lamb were outside. He pointed our way. Thankfully, the ocean breeze mitigated the ripe shit-smell emanating from my shoes... So, this lady walks up to us, and Oh My Goodness! I thought she was either going to genuflect or weep. Thus began a short soliloquy of thanks for the goodness that she had just enjoyed. "What's the big deal?" I thought. Walt said that we're the next generation of rock stars. As food sources become more scrutinized, greater numbers of folk are going to source food directly from the farmer.

I guess this next form of rock star does mesh with my rock-star status among the Amish (see a blog from who knows how long ago...). The latter group of farmers were amazed at my musical exploits and further marvelled that I now too, like them, were stewards of the land. The former kind of status is now just because I'm a farmer. Speaking of farming, I need to go outside and say "goodnight" to the girls. Close up the doors and listen to them coo, chirp and, I believe, snore.

All Is Quiet On The Western Front

2011-09-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

The evenings are already becoming cooler, a sure sign that autumn is pushing our very truncated summer aft, soon to be forgotten by the onset of cooler days and dewy mornings. Summer. Six short letters. Did we even have six weeks of warm weather? Not yet. We can only hope for an "Indian Summer." My apologies to all peoples of indigenous origins. Why a summer that spills into autumn is called that, I couldn't really say. Now, what would Wikipedia tell us?....

On to other matters. It has been, in a way, quiet on the farm this summer. Quiet in the sense that I have been alone with my thoughts. Walt has been busy doing his thing in Vancouver, selling our wares to restaurants like Hawksworth, West, Uli's, Nelson the Seagull, Aphrodite's, Campagnola - among others. It seems we have something that is tickling the palate of those whose wallets can afford that which everyone should have available. I could write more about that, but not on a public forum...

Alone with my thoughts. And my animals. We are recycling around 2000 pounds of yogurt every two weeks. The pigs are going to taste like a milk-fed wonder; the geese are eating organic bread; the chickens are enjoying yogurt shakes every morning mixed with brewer's mash, the lambs have blackberries and shoots as well. In fact, the blackberries have been pruned up to about four feet.
Back to the yogurt. Since it takes a while to open 15 gallons of 500 ml yogurt containers (yes, this is Canada where metric and imperial enjoy an open marriage...), I usually have a seat on a feed bucket, grab a knife and begin the process. I am always paid a visit by the kittens who, it seems, have discovered the joys of blackberry yogurt or plain Greek-style yogurt. If it's not kittens then a few renegade chickens will scratch about my feet, peck my shoes, and generally be a nuisance until I leave them an open container in which they'll bury their beaks until their beaks click on plastic stripped clean. You should see a chicken eat yogurt: think very small excavator and you have the idea.

Sitting and opening a few hundred containers each week gives one time to think and for one who is predisposed to thinking, it can sometimes be a problem. Not so much now, but I have been known to chase thoughts down intellectual rabbit-holes from time to time. But that's changing, too. A friend came by and we began talking theology and I found that the language was beginning to escape me, almost like trying to catch wisps of smoke in the air. I also found that all those debates that used to fuel my days, frankly no longer held the interest they once did. Shocking! Could it be that once you are removed from a particular context the issues that one would die over cease to matter because you no longer derive a pay-check, that endorsement of one's orthodoxy? That does sound cynical, and I really don't mean to be. But really. What actually matters as we tread water through our daily lives? Does the fervent belief in predestination ala Calvin trump the careful feeding of one's flock? As you may tell, I grew up a modernist, where being right was more important than being a caring human being. I digress...

Marlene had a big party here tonight: many of her future staff came for a BBQ. Lots of good people. I looked at Marlene, now the captain of her own ship. A more capable pilot I have never seen. But it was her time on the bridge, so I slipped away towards dusk, the banter of colleagues receding behind me, the pre-semester jitters no longer part of my ethos, and made my way towards the grain silo. And as is my usual routine, I took a sack of organic bread, and as I began breaking it with the geese the receding party sounds of laughter found its way across the gravel yard and mingled with their chirps and whirls. The geese sounded a little nervous as I approached, not unlike our guests in the back yard: humans about meeting new students; geese about getting enough food. Nevertheless, what an appreciative audience. Their voices have yet to break so the mathematical equation "excitement X auditory response" is still equal to "fairly quiet". This will change in a few weeks and we will be home to a 140 goose mass choir. Now that's a course I don't miss teaching. Sorry, Ken.

And then of course, the night feedings of the chickens and lambs. More work in the quiet. At dusk, the chickens become silent just as creation begins its decent into sleep. As I make my way upon the walkway, buckets in hand, I say "good night ladies" and this is met with clucks and purrs and chirps. This is the exact opposite of our daytime conversation, you know the one that begins with my raucous "CHICK-OWNS!!" Are they talking to me? Are they saying "thank you" for the good food, the grasses, the yogurt, the mash? I may never know. But when I gather their offerings in the morning and talk to them, some of them follow me and I stroke their feathers and we have these "Dolitte-ish" conversations. These conversations happen only with the elect few since most of them have flown the coop and are already madly sucking down worms and clover and anything that moves upon the ground.

It is particularly in the silence of summer evenings, with birdsong at dusk and fading insect sounds that I turn to my inner thoughts and think about my past life. My previous life is a fading memory, my life of singing and directing and research and recording. Or to be more precise, the muscle memory of my previous life is fading. And so, my instrument is much more quiet that it once was.

Being a musician is ultimately a solitary activity - it's just you and your instrument. I love my instrument but the demands of farming have required its sacrifice. Perhaps sacrifice is too dramatic a word. Mind you, I did spend years of rigid discipline and self-denial (insert small wink wink here) developing it. In order to appreciate its ways, I had to surrender to its demands - no blood-letting mind you - but a willing giving over to what it would take to tap into the mystery that is the human song. Sure, there was plenty of frustration but also abject joy and jubilation. When I was a devotee to the Muse, many other parts of life lived in its shadow (Amelia is now winding her furry self between my legs - she's my other cat, by the way...). With farming and its demands, the Muse is now something that lives more in memory than in actuality. She has been gracious in her departure from the centre of my life. She, of course, will always be my companion, a guide into those hidden areas of our lives that belie explanation or rational exposition.

It is in the deep and abiding stillness of these times with cats and kittens, chickens, geese and pigs asleep in wallows that I wonder if She in her elegant way, is saying that the primacy of our relationship can never be broken. While my main audience on the farm is mute to my ramblings, my relationship with Her lives on in the memories of all those whose lives I was privileged to speak into. The Muse and I have enjoyed life as a duet, not unlike Monteverdi's Nero and Poppea in their final song together. In the fervent heat of performance, when will and intention and instrument and blood and bone become one, both the artist and the listener become open to transmutation. Living within the presence of sound leaves one with the promise and possibility of the alchemic experience on the interior level. The alchemists of yesteryear hoped copper could be turned into gold. But they were looking at the wrong element, something too literal. They should have seen that expelled breath (essentially a wasted gas) could be spun into the golden thread of sound. Forget about base metals: just sing and spin gold into peoples' lives.

And so this conversation between Mlle Muse and me shall continue, but not this eve. The silence in the house is telling me bed-time is long overdue.

My iTunes Are Running Riot Through My Mind

2011-08-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

For the Mouse is a creature of great personal valour.

For—this a true case—Cat takes female mouse—male mouse will not depart,

but stands threat’ning and daring.

. . . If you will let her go, I will engage you, as prodigious a creature as you are.

For the Mouse is a creature of great personal valour.

For the Mouse is of an hospitable disposition.

ƒrom JUBILATE AGNO by Christopher Smart

I believe that humming while you're farming is a normal activity. Normal like chewing on grass. There is a canon of farming tunes - that I'm still trying to get to know - songs like "O Susanna" or "Give me a home where the buffalo roam" or maybe even "The Red River Valley." These are farm songs meant to be sung by hardy looking fellows, rough of skin, gnarly facial features, beards like steal wool or gals all rose-cheeked, biceps to die for - you get the picture.

When I'm farming, tunes suddenly pop into my consciousness without any announcement. But the tunes that pop into my head might be, well, unlike any other farmer. Like when feeding is done suddenly there's "Praise my soul the king of heaven" (Lauda Anima), or when rescuing a chicken from the electric fence there's Elton John's "Someone saved my life tonight". I've even had Bach's "Crucifixus" from the B Minor Mass run through my head when we're catching squab. Why, just last week I sang "The Trumpet Shall Sound" to the chickens while I gathered eggs. I guess the song jumped from my imagination straight to my voice.

Back to that poem above. I've had this poem in my mind these last few days. It's by Christopher Smart, a poet of a "strange and unbalanced mind." My kind of guy. He lived in the eighteenth century and was always getting into debtors' court. He gradually slipped into madness and spent his last days a permanent resident of Mr. Potter's Madhouse. No word of a lie. No longer my kind of guy. But, Benjamin Britten took Smart's poem Jubilate Agno and set it to music. It's called "Rejoice in the Lamb." The song about the mouse is verse four or five, if I remember correctly. And so, every time I feed my pigeons and upon opening the feeder see mice, I have this tune running through my head. I can still hear Donnalyn Grills singing it (we did this piece in my undergrad).

But the mice Smart writes about and the mice I throw to the chickens seem to be of two different kinds. Mine are inhospitable, breed without thought of overpopulation, wantonly eat my feed and bite my hands when I pick them up. Most unceremoniously, the last thing these mice - of great personal valour - experience, is a quick flight through the air only to be gobbled up by either a cat (shall I consider naming my next cat Jeffrey?) - who by the way is quite prodigious at eating mice, or a chicken, which by the way is as equally impressive as any feline hunter on this campus.

The Quartet Of Extra Time

2011-08-02T23:48:00.000-07:00

It's my other anniversary today, you know that one. The days that lead up to August 2 are always filled with thoughts about my experience with meningitis. Nearly dying will do that to you. Four years today I was lying in a coma and the outcome was, according to the doctor, 50/50. So it seems I beat the odds, this time. The lottery of life! But alas, none of us will live forever in our present shape.

I had dinner with my brothers. Our wives have departed for a shop-at-the-trough-'til-you-drop experience south of the border, so we thought we'd get together. I toasted Dave and thanked him for most likely saving my life. He was all, well you know, totally guyish about it: "Like it's no big deal, so I saved your life!"

I began the day taking a load of recycling to the Transfer Station (a completely innocuous term that would really confuse any ESL person). Just another day, me and five hundred empty yogurt containers, ten very happy pigs and of course, the girls clucking with delight. As I drove, I decided to hit "shuffle" on the iPod and what comes up? A song my West Coast Mennonite Chamber Choir sang, a Bach invention. It was like being punched in the gut - again. All the memories of musical life past surfaced. I find it's quite close to the surface, but there's enough farming pressure to keep it from bubbling to the top. We could say my musical life is composting. Oh, the deepest desires and how they battle with this present reality! Forget "The Illustrated Man." I'm a living example of "Irreconcilable Truths Man." And I suspect, so are many of you.

My day continued with picking up our newest arrivals: 140 geese. And then Anna arrived with Elias, her beautiful 15 month-old son. Anna was a student of mine, long ago. One of those über-smart types, but very grounded. Out of the blue she called and asked to come over for coffee, which was totally appropriate since we probably drank about 100 litres together when she was a student. There we sat, talking long into the hot and lazy afternoon, she a living intersection to my past life, which seems to be fading from memory. I used "college words" again, and we explored topics like we used to (albeit keeping an eye on the little fellow playing in the garden). I found that my mind was not as sharp as it once was: those tools aren't receiving regular sharpening at this time.

And today ended at 10 p.m. with me fixing an electrical problem - a short in a cable - in order to get the heat lamps working for the goslings. There I stood, mosquitos dining without fear of death as both my hands were involved with screwdrivers or pliers, repairing wires and cable. Voila! Heat for the birds. Could I have so easily moved into this necessary role four years ago? Could I have built a barn or designed plumbing or do electrical? Without a doubt, no.

Death and depression. They tend to either freeze you in place (especially if you die...) or invite you to adapt and survive. Thrive? Anna asked me "what motivates me." This was more difficult to answer than I thought. I had all sort of pat answers - none which suffice anymore. As I think further on this question (and thank you, Anna) perhaps what motivates me is to continue plodding along, day by day, and in that maybe begin to understand a little of why and how life has changed as it has. Ultimately I will never fully understand how I went from "He who tills the soil of the human soul" to my present motto "Fresh from the soil, food for your soul".

Interesting parallels here. Not really planned, either. Soil and soul. We are made of the stuff of soil. Our souls are nourished by food both literal and symbolic. I have moved from one to the other, but continually carry the latter in the palm of my hand, a precious drop of water that like today, nourished a parched spirit.

OK. It's late. I'm alive. So are you - which is why you're reading.
Here's to four years. G'night.

An Ode To My Pigs

2011-08-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

With all the good dairy products going down the gullets of our pigs, I had to compose and small ode to them, before they depart for someone's plate. Here goes...

There's a four-legged pink-belly here on the farm

He snorts, barks and squeals (but he means you no harm)

For it's just that his noggin has only this thought:

"Bring me some food! Bring it all - lazy sot!"

Munching clover and hay, whole corn and fresh bread

"Oh which one to choose?" says Thought Two in his head

With creme fraîche and pudding, boiled eggs and sour cream

He eats 'til he drops: it's a porcine wet-dream.

Some mango and mocha, then quark and cream cheese

The pig - in mid slurp - hollers "more if you please!"

Like Henry the Eighth 'midst loud smacks and slurples

Six Masters' King dribbles slop while he burples.

"Sir Pigness" "Lord Swinefart" "Duke Pork of Greengrass"

How can those four legs carry such a large ass?

In training that's why! Our Olympic contender,

in the dash to the trough, world record defender.

For five seconds, ten - and then thirty - now forty

He comes up for air, his long snout white and sporty

"He's circular breathing!" - Tony's eyes all agog

"Oh Martha! This will be one hell of a hog."

I Like To Talk To My Otherself

2011-07-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

Today, I am officially inviting any or all of you to dialogue with me on my posts. I am beginning to wonder if my guests from Moscow Central, or Bhutan, or Peapot Indiana are really just spam missles (spampsters, according to Marlene), heat-seeking messengers of electronic aggravation, which upon meeting my firewall burst into alphabet bits. Sir Spamalot? But then again, there may actually be nothing really worth commenting on, thus revealing to me the truth of my suspicions: I am writing to myself. I mean, isn't it hubris to think otherwise? Well, it's not bad to have an audience of one. "The Audience of One." Is there a movie in that somewhere? Book deal?

As I write I'm sitting beneath the shade of the dogwood tree, listening to the language of leaves as they gently rub one against another. This being the day of our Lord - with folk all over celebrating the miracle of the resurrection - we're celebrating a smaller miracle here on the farm: We're eating breakfast outside, in shorts. No shoes. No socks. The feel of warm wind against bare skin is confusing my body so in order to acclimatise, I'll have to sit longer before I go out to see "the girls."

The neighbours are up. And sounding happy! I would imagine there is some serious dehydration over there across the hedge as last night witnessed what was surely a humdinger (where did that word come from....) of a party. Started at 3 p.m. with jello shots and ended way past midnight. Such stamina! Never being partial to jello booze, I've never imbibed vodka-filled sugar bombs the way some folk did. We had a riot listening to the conversation as it ebbed and flowed - mostly flowing as the intake of spirits accelerated in ways to make Fibonacci proud. As the imbibing became more serious the men rallied like warriors of old and the hollering, cheering, expletives and testosterone-induced grunting could have made one forget that they were playing ping-pong outside.

It really is great to be sitting outside. Finally. We've got summertime air, slowly heating up. I can hear bees, flies and crows as well. The songbirds are resting until later this afternoon. These sounds take me back to my time in Australia, half-way around the world. Imagine doing in 17 hours what once took months by sailing ship. But when you fly, its hard to appreciate the distance. Because one flies in an aluminum cocoon and speeds difficult to comprehend, flying diminishes one's awareness of distance. When I arrived it felt like I was in a larger Vancouver. Upon exiting the airport with Graeme and Barb, we were met with a wall of buzzing sounds. They were perplexed when I asked what the noise was, since they were acclimatized to it. Cicadas. Now there's something John Cage should use. The whole trip was a "baptism of the imagination" but the thing that impressed me the most were the varied and different sounds. No surprise there, when one considers how I used to make my living. The first morning I awoke my brain had no reference point for all the new bird sounds: I could have been on another planet.

And so these past few days I have been trying to place a sound that I've not heard here on the farm. I have heard what sounds like a squeaky door-hinge moving in the wind. This perplexed me. First off, this sound would happen in places where there were no open doors. Second all our squeaky doors sound like a sailing ship in gently rolling seas. So finally yesterday, I found the source. A wayward soul has found its way onto the farm. She's lonely and one of a kind: We have inherited a Guinea fowl.

It's hard for her to remain anonymous. She's completely exposed: a sea of brown feathers and one black-and-white polka-dotted bird with a white head. Hard to miss. And her cluck is definitely from another continent. But, the girls seem to have accepted her. Perhaps they can translate the body language or even the sounds. Others of the avian variety have not been so fortunate. The girls have "dispatched" with great aplomb all others who've tried to infiltrate their turf. Come to think of it, there are no pigeon carcasses on the ground anymore. Well, that could also be the three dogs whose stomachs are never satiated.

Fish out of water? While Mademoiselle Guinea has found acceptance (I can't really tell if she's attached to a monsieur) she spends her days mostly alone, picking up good bits from the ground. She'll follow the flock, but she tends to remain on the periphery doing her own thing. What a fine model of independence! I wonder if Eli would catch the metaphor if I invited him to contemplate the significance of our little African hen...

I've begun to wonder if Mademoiselle G a little talisman sent from the Deity? Hey, there are talking donkey's in the Old Testament and even stranger stories in spades so Guinea hens are not without the realm of possibility. Well, if I use my own brand of hermeneutics and some typical post-modern introspection, I could say...
1. I am the Guinea fowl. Educated in matters deemed irrelevant by larger society, I find myself the polka-dotted bird amongst a sea of brown. I peddle my wares at the periphery, truly un-mainstream. Or to add an arrogant twist, it's time I recognize that I'm the unique one while the rest of you are pawns of "the Man." Sorry - that was harsh.
2. The farm is the Guinea fowl. There's a very large market out there, but it's dominated by commercial interests whose gate-keeping mechanisms ensure the eradication of competition by their continued dominance. Their numbers are significant, and while the Guinea is warily accepted it must remain on the outside lest it become dinner for the flock. The flock, after all, can turn faster than green grass through a goose.

I think it's time to let my brain have a rest. We're having a bunch of chefs from Vancouver over tomorrow so I think I should do some clean up. After all, just because we're a farm we don't have to look like all the stuff that exits the rear ends of our animals.

Have a good day.

Parting: The Revolving Door Of The Imagination

2011-07-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

The days are getting noticeably shorter. Alas, we've not really had summer at all. Sure, the numerous days where rain falls aren't as cold, and the cloudy days still permit some modicum of warmth to find us. But summer? Summer has teased us into believing it would arrive amidst great fanfare. Summer has bypassed us, perhaps gone to Ontario, the centre of the known Canadian universe or maybe to the Caribbean where the only industry is Sun Worship or banking (and come to think of it, you don't need good weather to hide your money). I've had to rummage through my closet to find my SAD lamp, which I thought I had retired until autumn. It's back out and I'm once again staring into its multi-band goodness.

Eli and Rae - the love of his life - are watching the new Harry Potter this evening. There are faint rumblings of the "M" word, very faint mind you, but as a father I can sense the articulation of certain words before they're even formed. This may be evidence of the hotly debated "sixth sense". Ethan and I just finished watching the first episode of "Breaking Bad" and we're still a little queasy. Noel has been sequestered in his room, a usual pastime for him. Marlene spent some time weeding. Hmm... has the verb "weeding" taken on any new connotations in today's lexicon? If "sick" means "cool" (which really means "to be admired or envied") then "weeding" could find itself used by a completely different stratum of society...

I am beat! I've been confronting construction demons, building, renovating, even making door jams. I mean really. This is so far from who I am (or thought I was) that perhaps this is now the real me and who I thought I was is.... I'm getting confused. You? In my hours of silence on the farm, I've come to realize that the rôle of musician that used to occupy nearly all my time, seems to be fading al niente. This time last summer I was recording with my Amish friends and the summer before that, a seminal time of soul-nourishment in Australia. But further opportunities seem to be rare as hen's teeth these days. I'm trying to figure this whole decrescendo out of music and how I come to terms with it.

These past few weeks, I met with two very pivotal people in my life, one, my mentor from days long past at UBC, and my friend and ancient near-past student Colin, who I was fortunate to meet for lunch last week. First Fank. When I meet with Fankhauser I can't help but be drawn back to my days as an undergrad. Those four years were probably the most life-shaping years in my half-century. UBC opened up a world of ideas, brought out skills within me I never knew I had and changed me from country-bumpkin to urbanite. Colin, you may remember, is that very fine tenor - once my student - now the master. We had lunch at the Grill and chatted on and on for oh, nearly three hours.

"Parting is such sweet sorrow," says Juliet to her Romeo. Two doomed lovers unaware of their ultimate fate. Bill Shakespeare had it right. He captured the essence of this truth all the more powerfully when he gave the words to Juliet. But not only lovers have to part: with aging comes parting. With parting one is invited to come face to face with reality and truth. You may be asking yourself, "hasn't he written about this before?" Most likely, as there is truly nothing new under the sun. But what I've noticed is that when I meet with musical friends from times past, the stirrings of the Muse return - perhaps like an old lover who when in the midst of common friends recalls the times spent with his love.

These feelings reappear as surely as the seasons turn. Summer ("damned temptress that she be") - or our lack of it - will eventually give way to autumn. It has to. That's the way things are. And these feelings that live within that musical-memory-muscle part of me? I used to be surprised at the severity of their presence or the intense emotions that accompanied their annunciation. Now, instead of fighting them, I try to live within them. I've given up trying to understand them. I think that's what living within the seasons is teaching me. Yesterday, Pucinni's Miserere from his Petite Messe Solennelle cycled through my mind for what seemed like all afternoon. Two pianos, two singers, entwined and spinning a golden sound: Qui tollis peccata mundi - "he who takes away the sin of the world". I scraped some sheep dung off my shoe and as I put my nail gun down to pick up the level I thought "now isn't this a strange thing to be pondering in the middle of my renovation madness."

Seasons of one's interior life. Seasons of the physical world. I think somehow they work on each other. And all around me the music of chickens and doves, the occasional bark of a dog and (a more down to earth) grunt of a pig reminded me of a different music that I am now privy to.

My Life As A Free-Range Chicken

2011-07-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Further to my rumination on the life of the free-range chicken I would like to contemplate it's relationship to my ruination. "On the rumination of ruination." Sounds like a theological treatise waiting to be penned... This is not a slide into self-indulgence, but one more way of framing a pivotal life event. Remember, everything I need to know in life I'm learning from my animals. Eleven years of university could have been circumvented had my father not sold his farm when I was thirteen years old. Ok. Here goes.

You may recall that the main reason for my departure from the academic life occurred because erstwhile said institution and it's ethos were slowly molding me into their own image. To say it more succinctly, I was the square peg being forced into the round hole. Or to be even more precise the joie de vivre that had once characterized my life had eroded away as surely as glaciers melt in the summer's sun. All this is the service of the Almighty. How un-Gallilean...

Consider for a moment or two that I am the chicken you read about in my last post. Of course you will have to engage in some willing suspension of disbelief because I neither have feathers nor can I lay eggs. And of course I am the wrong gender. Am I verging into the absurd? Stay with me. Perhaps the best way to explore this idea is through metaphor. This may also be a way to avoid libelous action.

As the farmer who has been charged with the management of my flock, it is always in my best interest to consider the needs of my birds before my own. For example, no matter how valid my excuse, if I don't feed my girls in the late afternoon, they may not reward me with their morning egg. Sure, they get yogurt and malted barley and apple fritters but they need all that good stuff from our favorite organic grainary. So as the designated "husband"(hence the term husbandry) I should see myself as a servant to my girls, always seeking their welfare before my own for without their needs considered I will surely not fare well (seems that Gallilean Carpenter has a hand in my thinking once again...).

The girls need freedom to be who they are, to live out the essence that gives the chicken it's chicken-ness. Sure, I try to protect them from harm but when I go out in the morning and see a riot of feathers in the field, I know I failed one of them. That's when I cut the grass real short so that frickin' coyote has nowhere to hide. No feathers these last few weeks... With freedom they then roam the boundaries of the farm and eat and drink to their heart's content. Not one of them eats the same thing each day, nor do they remain in "flock formation" like the sheep do. Remember sheep are inseparable.

As I watch my girls each day I monitor their health and well-being. I discovered what looked like a sick one a few days ago, sitting on the walkway. Now how, you may ask yourself, can I pick out a sick chicken amongst all of them? Easy. You look for what shouldn't be there. Chickens have a particular or standard way of sitting: neck up, feathers neatly tucked in, and a gentle curve to their back. Also, when you approach them you should get some sort of welcome or bugger-off cluck and all sorts of different body language. Cluck off and cluck you are but a few of the epithets that have come my way... Back the sick girl: she's now in isolation and we'll see if she makes it.

The varied diet that our gals receive has endeared them towards me. When I come to say hello in the morning they respond by clucking one long cluck in unison. It is the only time of day when the chickens are all saying the same thing at the same time, roughly translated as "open the door!! Now!!" Strangely, they are all facing south. No word of a lie. Because of our early morning tete a tete, the girls follow me where ever I am on the farm. Why? They know I am the bearer of good things. Lately they've been following with greater commitment, what with organic yogurt and brewer's barely mash on the menu. And so they are thriving, my square pegs finding all the square holes to their little heart's content.

My farm is a direct challenge to the industrial model. Challenge? Not literally. We're such a small player that in the economy of scale we'd might not register. I say "challenge" because we are consciously rejecting the industrial model inherited from our British compatriots. The industrial model has influenced everything in our society, for you see, the industrial farm and the factory for widgets and even our school structures all pay homage to that influence. Read on.

If I remember correctly, the modern office arrangement of desks and compartments and rows came out of the industrial revolution, an era obsessed with the goal of efficiency (and profit, let's not forget), output and low cost. Thus began the gradual dehumanization of the worker who, no longer able to follow in his father's footsteps as a cobbler, or musician, or what have you, began the trek towards the anonymity of "the labourer". As I reflect upon this, I'm not surprised that such influence can find its correlation in agriculture. Am I taking a quantum leap? Well, if humans can become a commodity at the expense of someone else and their "bottom line", then it shouldn't surprise us that factory farming developed with the same ideals, ideals developed at the expense of the animals. There's a certain symmetry and inevitability to it.

To conclude, a beatitude you may never have read. "Blessed is he whose boss allows him to flourish". In case you're wondering, this is one of the beatitudes that got stuck in the Apocrypha. 2 Hezekiah 3:9. Check it out... That is truly a counter-cultural idea, one that Marlene tells me is taking the leadership world by storm. And it's more in tune with Gospel truth than Wall Street management styles. This beatitude is in short supply in some circles. Why? Let me open Pandora's Box: control.

I can't really control my hens unless I force them to live in an unnatural environment. When non-organic (meaning unnatural to the species) strictures are put into play, all sorts of hen-psychoses arise and you have to debeak them because they'll gradually go crazy and at the first sight of blood, peck each other to death. You have to medicate them because disease runs rampant. They get artificial light. There's no dirt, no dust baths. And so on... My hens are loving the life we all would aspire to. The are fed, they are cared for, they are protected and for that they reward me every day with a spherical object of culinary joy.

Thus was my life, the baby chick cum pullet cum adult, who truly believed that life would reward anyone who was true to those internal echoes. Nevertheless, life became a gradual slide to the commercial farm and all that entails. In retrospect, I see that I was a free-range chicken in a commercial farm. I was about as suited to survive and thrive there as an elephant in a porcelain store. And so friends, if you find yourself asking the same questions, don't delay but find the nearest exit. There is no situation so important in which your continued presence is required at the expense of your health, or the sacrifice of who you are at the very core.

If life is a farm, chose your husband wisely.

No At Risk Kids Here

2011-07-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

Looking through the trees, I can see a murder of crows hopping all over Walt's truck. Yes, it's another load of bread from a local bakery. The are chickens hopping all around as well, eating crumbs from recently unpacked loaves of bread and buckets full of organic yogurt. We have so much yogurt that I've begun pouring it right onto the ground. When I come back a few hours later, there's only a small greyish smudge left on the ground.

The pigs are rejoicing today. Not only do they get an unlimited amount of yogurt and bread, they now get brewer's barley as well. Walt has no shame. He went to a local brewery, managed to get past the gatekeeper (aka secretary), introduced himself to the brewmaster, and before you know it, they'd exchanged business cards. We are now getting 1000 pounds of barley a week. Think about it: 1000 pounds. The pigs don't really care that it has gone through the beer making process. In fact, they seemed rather non-plussed that there was a lime and pepper flavour. The flavour combination didn't stop the chickens, either.

What I don't understand is why there aren't other farmers out there collecting all this stuff. Think of how much is going into the landfill for absolutely no reason. Why would this be? We seem to major in throwing out perfectly good animal rations and instead continue to buy feed. No doubt one of the reasons is that commercial agricultural models can't afford to have any anomalies in their feed rations. (Pigs are running laps in the back field!) In other words, to maximize growth and profit, every animal has to have the same ration day. Schedules can then be devised, inputs and outputs calculated and managed, and a reliable estimate of cash flow realized. Of course, there is nothing wrong with any of that, that is, if you are farming a commercial model. But after months of observation, or rather, years of observation, I have noticed that animals don't necessarily thrive when forced to live an imposed schedule. I mean, it might work for raising children - to a degree - but it doesn't work so well with animals.

I suspect that one of the reasons you simply can't walk into a commercial chicken barn is that this model is attempting to create a hermetically sealed environment that controls the carrier and introduction of disease. This unnatural imposition of our model upon animals can work, but when it doesn't, you get the animal version of the plague which results in massive and swift executions of entire flocks of birds, sometimes millions. This of course creates another problem: where to put all the carcasses.

When I was reading a government of Canada brochure on growing free-range chickens, the ideology espoused again implied control. Meaning: put a net over your flock so wild birds won't come into contact with them (I hope wild birds don't shit over our farm); keep your flock away from puddles and other sources of manure; and other such nonsense. Over the past year, I have seen that chickens, when given a healthy mash, will thrive in the sort of conditions that render the word "biosecurity" nonsensical.

When I open the chicken house door in the morning, there is a river of brown feathers that exit the barn as fast as possible. I mean, there is avian joy abounding. Chickens may not have lips, but believe you me, they talk non-stop. The noise and movement is deafening upon their exit. They all begin doing different things at the same time. That's the difference between a commercial operation and a husbandry-based farm. So like good little high school students, the chickens divide into cliques and upon exiting separate. Some head straight for the other barn to begin scratching through dried pigeon litter; others head for the manure barn, and begin scratching for fermented joy; others will head for the dust pits and take their morning bath; some will stay in the barn and try to hatch eggs; if the sun is out, you'll see all sorts of hens "suntanning" - yes, you read right. They lie on their side, and stretch out their wing towards the sun. The Cotê d'azure has never seen so many happy females. And in the early morning and late afternoon, when the pigs are sleeping, the chickens will stand on the pigs and nibble away at the chewy goodness that comes off their hide. In fact, we regularly have pigs and chickens sleeping together. Totally platonic. No interspecies breeding here.

The hens have the run of the property. They drink from whatever source they deem necessary at the time. And freshness isn't a requirement. We have rain puddles, manure puddles, cow drinkers (some algae, always), their own closed fresh-water system as well as spilled water from the pig drinker. And yes, they all drink from whichever source they wish to.

I find it amazing that this ancient wisdom is all but forgotten. We have been so cleverly indoctrinated by the industrial model, an ethos inculcated with the skill of the magician, that to let an animal thrive in its natural environment is deemed a "risk" to its health.

I have one word for that: hogwash. By the way, hogwash is the muddiest pit a pig can find, a place of liquid gooey goodness.

If we could all be so fortunate.

Viv la Liberté!!

2011-07-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

OK, without a doubt I have the happiest pigs on the planet. I mean, wouldn't you be happy if you could eat an endless supply of organic yogurt? I had no idea that for pigs, stale yogurt is an intoxicating mixture that drives their snouts wild. Can you drown in yogurt? I think these guys just might. Have a look.

Olivia The Tickler Of Olfactory Delight

2011-07-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here we sit once again. The Grille is very quiet this Friday. The only action is watching shit-spreading machines go chugging down Yarrow Central Road, shit dust and spray billowing behind like some superhero's cape. Perhaps it's the malaise brought on by soggy summer weather. Or, folks are packing up to go camping. Maybe there's an international terrorist incident and no one can drive into Yarrow. That must be it.

It's just me and Laurie's playlist, with the ocassional pot banging in the kitchen courtesy Olivia. "Olivia The Amazing" she shouled be dubbed. The only 19 year-old I know who can singlehandedly run a restaurant kitchen. Her fiance Kevin is one fortunate lad: who else can marry at that tender age and have a qualified chef as a spouse? I would like to see him in about 25 years.... I'll be 75... He'll be 300 pounds.

Who Needs Hollywood (or) Anatomical Anomalies

2011-06-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

"Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions." Joel 2:28

It is clear that my days of espousing Truth at the Pulpit of Sound are long gone. You, my faithful readers (and I still ask myself 'why') are my only audience and for some reason or another, continue to read the ramblings of a strange and unordered mind. Thank you.

The verse above is from the Old Testament book of Joel. This is one of several books known as the 'minor prophets,' not because they had little to say, but because they are short tomes of judgement, apocalypse and calls to repentance. These are not to be mistaken with the 'major prophets', who essentially say the same things but use far more words and many more pages.

If you would allow me to exercise hermeneutical license I would like to take these words completely out of context and use them for my own folly. Of course, this isn't new. After all, the world was supposed to end a month or so back, based on an equally foolhardy set of interpretive guidelines, that alas, many poor folk fell for hook, line and sinker.

Farm life continues to astound and amaze. Daily, I see things that just aren't a regular part of office life or in fact any life anywhere else. Just a few days ago, I saw chickens standing on the sleeping pigs. Perhaps this is a symbiotic thing, where the chickens scratch and itch the pigs and then eat all sorts of greeblies on the pigs' hides. Pigs get scratched - chickens gets to eat. This is not unlike how many couples function in the kitchen. Please don't assign either animal to a gender...

And then let's not forget barn cats lying on top of Peanut and sheep eating pig slops and cattle running and jumping as if they were Proletariate at the Kentucky Derby. Is there a tear in the time/space continuum? Is the farm part of an elaborate experiment, where humans and animals are moved by unseen cosmic forces because I know that when I lived in the city the only strange things I saw were cars stopping for pedestrians.

I'm not sure I'm seeing visions - am I a young man? These aren't exactly dreams of an old man. They are strange and heretofore unseen sights. I don't know exactly how to write about what I saw today. If I were to anthropomorphize the behaviour of my calves, I could choose a certain lexicon that would leave little doubt within your imagination. But to do this would verge on the obscene and definitely cheapen the language with which we speak and write. What to do.

Well, here goes.

Calves, as you know by now, love milk. I have spoken of their zest for milk, that water-based colloid of butter-fat molecules, containing both phospholipids and proteins. I have also spoken of their inability to recognize the difference between an actual bovine mother and me. This I learned because of the many times I've had both my butt and crotch probed by what must be the world's most short-sighted or learning disabled animal. Perhaps calves have no ability to discern just what a teat is. Maybe their way to survive - after a millennia of conditioning - is to jut their muzzle into any available space, begin the sucking process, and wait for the milk to flow. This is "Pavlov's Dog" gone rabid.

So today. Like usual, I poured the five gallons of milk into their feed trough. Black&White is a full-contact eater and gets into the feeder with his two front feet. This is because White&Black is a pig and due to his size can easily muscle his compadre away. Both are able to hoover milk and continue to breathe in circular motion - very similar to a brass player who can breathe through his nose and continue to play an unbroken phrase.

But today as the feeding came to a frenzied close, Black/White did something I've never seen, and frankly hope to never see again. He moved to White/Black's rear end and began probing his scrotum. But this went way beyond a probe. This was a scrotum lost in another calve's mouth. Now, the scrotum is not shaped like a teat but for the calf it may have the same spongy texture as a teat. This is conjecture on my part. For whatever reason, Black/White latched on with a vacuum seal Tupperware would envy. White/Black stood stock still, head low, unmoved. Perhaps he was sending a telepathic message to Black/White, something like "Ah, dude, this is not what you think it is." Or perhaps it was more like "Shit man! Back off!" But this went on for a few minutes.

Black/White finally released his Space-shuttle-to-Space-station-lock and figured out that this teat was dry. Eventually both calves merrily walked to the pasture for some grass. I walked away, shaking my head, wondering what tomorrow could bring.

We're Selling Our Birthright For A Wooden Penny

2011-06-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

A very strange thing has happened to me today: I am at a loss for words. I have nothing to write about, neither farming, nor music, nor philosophizing, nor humourous. Has the hole between my brain and sinus returned and with that slow leak an inevitable demise of my considerable literary powers? Has running after cattle and the inhalation of all manners of fecal matter reduced my lungs to spongy lobes, unable to feed my brain the oxygen it needs? Has the third reduction in price for squab, due to our strong dollar and an unscrupulous squab farmer who imports it by the container, created a malaise - a mental tar pit - that neither my body nor imagination wish to take one's leave of? The perpetual "cloud-capped towers" and the disappearance of the sun from its required summertime appearance may also play a role. I mean really. I could see my breath outside yesterday morning.

This must be it.

The romance of farming - for two men over fifty - just isn't the same, I think, if one were say thirty, and their children and spouse were also involved. When people ask me, "isn't farming a great lifestyle?" implying that living on acreage with animals and space must compensate for the lack of income and the near poverty wages, I am tempted to rage like the prophets of old. Farming as a lifestyle. Perhaps I should ask them if they work at their jobs as a lifestyle and would they be content to make as little income as we do. This sudden gust of honesty usually changes tack in the conversation quite rapidly. But really now. If our wives didn't work at their jobs, there would be no farming on this land.

As of late I have been ruminating on my ancestors' past. My uncle Pete (now deceased) encouraged my grandfather to emigrate to Canada. In the wake of the Communist revolution, their prosperity dwindling, my father's family gradually (and secretly) sold all their possessions and in the dead of night walked to the train station with tickets to Moscow in hand. Apparently you had to sell everything very slowly lest the Communists get wind of a planned departure. Don't ask me how you can sell an estate slowly...

Enter the Dirty Thirties, WWII, Bay of Pigs - you name it from the 20th century and my parents experienced it. But in that experience they were able to make a living on a farm. Why? The reasons are numerous and complex, too many to digest and discuss. But a big part of their ability to survive was their entry into (what was to become) The Quota System. Originally, it was a way to guarantee prices and payment - a way to level the many bumps and hollows of a fluctuating market. Somewhere along the line, this system of helping farmers morphed into something else entirely.

Enter today. There are acres and acres of land all around me, lying fallow, dormant, unused or used as parking lots for recreational vehicles. Yes, the best land on earth has boats and RV's parked on it. For a long time, I've been asking myself why these acres are dormant. After trying to make a living for the past three, I've come to understand why. It's dormant because you can't make a living on five or ten acres, unless you have a bucketload of capital or equity, or you have quota: dairy, broiler or eggs. But here's the Catch 22: you can only get quota if you already have enough money to open a bank account in Lichtenstein. The quota system, once designed to help farmers compete in the wider marketplace, has now become a way of keeping "the outsiders", i.e. farmers without quota, poor.

The irony of this is not lost on me. My father, his siblings and parents came to Canada because it was a place that promised opportunity and equality. Yet here I sit, hamstrung and hogtied (interesting agricultural metaphors, to be sure) with enough land to house a decent dairy herd or an amazing chicken farm, but unable to afford the entry price. Maybe I should go back to Russia and check out the farming there? Do you think it would be better? Remove tongue from cheek. So why do I keep doing it? Really, I'm not so sure.

There comes a point in any business where you refuse to give in to the inertia that swirls around you. This could be called naiveté or pigheadedness (there it is again, another agricultural metaphor). In the face of this, my brain has again begun asking the question, "well, what else could I do?" and as it did five years ago but (as it did then, too) comes up blank. What I do know for sure (and unlike Oprah's column, this isn't pop self-help psychology) is that unless local people begin supporting local no-quota farms, these will like the Dodo bird become extinct and we will have no choice but to purchase low quality food from mega corporations whose last concern will be your nutrition and health.

Hmmm.... I guess I did have something on my mind.

Minnie Rose Lovegreen I Love Your Book

2011-06-15T08:25:00.001-07:00

It's 7:45 a.m. and I'm already working. The first order of the day is to pet Lumen long enough to get the decibel meter peaking. We're almost there. I'm avoiding going outside - it's kind of like a personal strike. Hey, if Air Canada and Canada Post can strike, why can't I? I'll strike for higher wages and broader markets. While I'm at it, I'll hire myself as a mediator and go hard at the bargaining table. Then, when I've negotiated a higher wage, better benefits, etc, I'll pay myself more, go further into debt and pretend I'm profitable. What a great business plan!

In my inbox today, there were all sorts of messages from Mother Earth News, Grit and ACRES. These are all organically-based farm websites with lots of interesting information, much of it very helpful. As I think back, I used to get emails from Carus Verlag, Bärenreiter and Oxford University Press. My, how my mail has changed. One thing I've noticed in my new emails, is the movement towards back-yard chickens within the urban context. This has really piqued my interest, since there is such a strong interest on behalf of folks out there.

I have a few chickens of my own. And I must say, these are fascinating animals. That is, if you can observe them outside of a commercial battery cage operation. Chickens are nature's answer to the garburater. They spend their days going over the pasture and choosing quite particularly what it is they want to eat. They have numerous different sounds, clucks, purrs and calls that all have a specific meaning, they will also rototill any dirt you have. We had a large mound of dirt in their field and after a few months it's now flat. You can put a "fence-moat" around your garden and they'll eat anything that walks through their path, thus saving your garden from slugs and snails. And once they become accustomed to you, they follow you all over the place. Have you ever been chased by chickens? It's a little bit like a Twilight Zone meets Jurassic Park moment.

As the responsible farmer that I'm trying to be (that is, when I'm not chasing lost cattle... I think my neighbours hate me...) I have spent time looking for resources to educate me on the business of taking care of chickens (Hey! Try the BTO song "Takin' Care of Business" and you've got a new tag line). There are so many books out there ("....of the writing of books there is no end...") that it was difficult to choose the right one (just like a book I have maintains, when you have too much choice you end up paralyzed. The book is called "The Paradox of Choice."). And some of them require a second mortgage due to their cost. Enter Trillium Press, of Bainbridge Island, WA. After our initial contact, they sent me the most delightful book on raising chickens. It's all of thirty-one pages long, cost a mere $12.00, but it is a gold-mine of information.

"Gold-mine" you say? "Motherload" I say. So many books overwhelm you with technical information, jargon or the age-approved dry academic method. Not so with Minnie Rose Lovegreen's "Recipe For Raising Chickens." If you're just starting out with chickens, or are interested and haven't made the jump, find this book and be encouraged. Let me tell you a little about Minnie. Born in 1888 in England, the eighth of nineteen children, she eventually made her way to Canada "for a better life" and settled on Bainbridge Island, WA. She was actually booked on the Titanic (!) but because the sailing time was delayed, they hopped on another ship for Montreal. Now that was a good decision.

The ability to make good decisions seems to have followed Minnie, as she and her husband raised their children on a very prosperous, polyculture farm. And the little book she wrote is really a summation of sixty years of observations. This kind of knowledge and track-record is hard to come by in an author. Because Minnie wasn't of an academic mindset, she writes as if in conversation with you, discussing everything from using your own brooding hens, to looking after chicks, what laying hens need (lots of dust baths, as her observations confirmed mine), what a hen-house should look like, types of foods, keeping your layers actively laying, and what kinds of chickens to choose if you want to brood your own eggs.

After our "conversation" together, I realized that this was wisdom that had been passed on to Minnie from hundreds of years of cumulative and cultural experience. There's no mention of chemical additives or hormones or what have you, just the time-tested ways of husbandry. What I really learned the most from Minnie is that raising animals requires constant observation and monitoring. Like looking for bright red combs, yellowish legs (white means they may not be laying), shiny feathers, clear eyes, no unusual clucking sounds, normal behaviour (that means always scratching and eating). And the best advice? She says, "just keep them happy." And it's very easy to recognize happy chickens.

So for you backyard folks. If you get a chicken or five, you'll never have compost again. Chickens will eat just about everything, including meat, fat - you name it. They scratch our coffee grounds all over; old lettuce is gone in a flash and bread too (although they sometimes leave the crusts, just like kids). Watching chickens is really quite relaxing since they're such an animated animal. And once they trust you, they'll sit on your arm, peck your feet and pant-legs, and eat all your flowers (if you let them).

The best part of the book? It is penned by hand by Minnie's friend as she dictated it to her. Charming!

CAFOS And Your Place Of Work

2011-06-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the day I needed space - and sound. It was time to drive - somewhere. You know that need to get away and do some thinking? It still arises from time to time. Coincidentally, Stephan needed his auger returned, so it was the perfect excuse to take a drive up the Chilliwack Lake road, into that magical geographical area known as "Ryder Lake." Think Swiss alps and you have the idea.

The road to Stephan's is a gentle, meandering ribbon of blacktop, built alongside the river. We had another rare day of warmth and blue sky, and the shadows along the road and with Bach's well-intentioned Well-Tempered Klavier on the iPhone, well, it was a time-transcendent moment. Bach is what I listen to when I have the need to believe that there is some organization, predictability, some inevitable sense of return to an orderliness that seems to circumvent most of day to day life.

Before I left, I spoke with a friend who informed me that an administrator of an organization had finally been "released" - a wonderfully vague metaphor, right up there with "so-and-so has felt called to move on to other opportunities..." This is contemporary double-speak of the highest order, right up there with "collateral damage", "smart bombs", "patriot missiles" or "daisy cutters." Isn't it interesting how instruments of destruction and fractured human relationships both assiduously avoid what needs to be said. Hey, it's an ancient practice! The Romans, when sentencing someone to die from crucifixion, invented an elaborate ritual that replaced the saying of the specific word crux.

I thought of my friend's spouse, and how those two years of conflict, before the eventual resignation, caused so much grief and anguish in their lives. Why is it that we allow others this power and why is it we are so powerless to stop it in the workplace? And then my mind began to wander... Are some workplaces like CAFO's?

A CAFO is a commercial animal factory operation. CAFO's are places where animals are treated like commodities; they have no power; their needs are not considered; ultimately their stay ends in death (and a journey to your plate - not quite the heavenly bliss many humans hope for...). Cows, chickens, or pigs that find themselves resigned to this fate, live in cramp and crowded conditions, their bedding tends to be fecal matter, they have to eat stuff they don't normally eat or can't even process and because of this become susceptible to all sorts of pathogens. This puts incredible stress upon the animal (this is why, I believe, beef is aged for so long because when an animal is slaughtered under stress, the taste and tenderness of the meat is compromised). Enter a regime of antibiotics to keep them alive long enough to reach slaughter weight.

My friend's workplace did have some correlation to my observations: poorly run (and finally, someone has to take responsibility, don't they?) the business had to cut money, which immediately translates into laying off people. People become commodities to hire, fire, use for an apportioned time and then dispose of. Too harsh? Forgive me. Working conditions degenerate when power structures fail and the workplace becomes a place of metaphorical fecal matter. And depending on your immune system, you too become susceptible to pathogens like stress. Stress opens you up to all sorts of illnesses. Stress - one syllable, one lonely vowel, and just as powerful as an IED.

When animals aren't commodities you treat them quite differently. Your modus operandi is coloured by the knowledge that your animals' health is your primary concern. You treat your animals as you would hope to be treated. Anthropomorphize? No. You minimize danger from predators and self-inflicted injuries; you feed them well and insure clean sources of water. When I yell "Pigs!!" big fat faces look up and pink floppy ears bounce like small wobbly birds as they come running for their slops. My chickens follow me as soon as I enter the pasture. You already know about the cows and the sheep. Do they follow me because I'm deliberately cruel and delight in their misery!?

Perhaps those people who exercise power in the workplace would do well to work on a farm for a while - the kind of farm where decisions of husbandry have immediate and lasting consequences. Should my friend's boss have exhibited these basic human qualities and not the shaky quest for power and the elusive grandeur therein, there wouldn't have been an exodus of very talented employees. My, I would go to the grave for that kind of person.

These thoughts and others accompanied me on my mid-morning drive, my silent companion who still tries to understand the factors that led to my arrival here.

The Cyclical Nature Of Mistakes

2011-06-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

There's an unusual sound in the air: not the song of birds nor the ever-present sound of the lawnmower. It's the "chick chick chick" whirlybird sound of the sprinkler. Slap me sideways and call me a monkey: it's dry enough to water the garden. This is more of a miracle than Harold Camp's missed appointment with "Judgement Day". Or should I say, a more welcome event in the days of our lives. It has truly been the wettest spring on record.

As I sit outside (another first this year) and sip the golden elixir known as Grolsch, a lone robin is calling for dusk, the pullets are serpentining around sleeping pigs running back to their roosts and I marvel at how much green stands out against the pale and fading sky. This is also the first day where blue sky has spanned uninterrupted in all directions.

Walt and Janet have moved onto the farm. We're now really Six Masters in one location. The name still bamboozles neighbors. I met Kelly a few days ago. She lives close by and works in town. Hers is a small house nestled behind fully mature trees. How, after three years did we finally meet? That's a story that involves lots of running. Can you guess?

We've been working full tilt here, doing some major renos on barns 5-8. In fact I've been working like a, dare I say 30 year old, dismantling, destroying, disassembling and assembling all manner of dunnage. This cost me dearly as about two weeks ago I bent over to hammer some nails and I felt this lightening-bolt enter my lower back. SHAZAM!! I had to pull myself off the floor with a rope hanging from the ceiling. It was as though my legs had lost their link to the brain. "Hello brain. This is your legs calling. What the hell just happened and do you think this is funny?" My reward for such foolhardiness was two days R&R on the living room floor.

So on the particular eve in question, I went outside to move birds. Yes, I'm being proactive and always considering the health of my flock. After the successful move I must have gone comatose because I neglected to close the gate that leads to the pasture. And of course, wouldn't you know it that this was the eve I took the front gate off the driveway in order to prepare for a new post, all cemented and secure so Janet can drive in and open the gate without Herculean effort. Cut to next morning.

Next morning, Walt's first here at the farm if I recall, I hear a knock on my door. Walt is standing there with his usual grin: yes I left the gate open and yes we have to go and collect our cattle. All synonyms for defecation and even perhaps procreation came to mind. I could tell you all about that day, but let's just cut to the chase and confess we spent the next five hours trying to get our two cows home. Our big brown guy is normally placid and a follower - of us that is. But we got this retard of a heifer at the auction who took the lead and led us all around Greendale, through backyards, on roads, into creeks, ditches and the occasional field. It was in a word, hell. Neither Walt nor I are runners and at age 54 and 50 respectively, running for 5 hours without training is - we thought - a recipe for disaster, or at the very least a cardiac event. And it was a disaster for both us and the cows. My back, nearly healed, began talking to me in one syllable words, mostly expletive in nature. A hamstring that I'd never made the acquaintance of, quickly introduced itself and began threatening me with permanent injury. This was, in a word, madness.

Somewhere along the line, big brown and Retard got separated. No lie, even after 5 hours Retard could still run like a deer. Big brown, not so much. At 1400 pounds, his lactic acid finally showed up and he began to slow. He was lathered, panting, huge bucketfuls of gob dribbling down his muzzle, his backside all green with crap and his eyes lolling in his head as if to say "I'm sorry. What do you expect? We're herd animals after all. I know, I should have convinced Retard to return. Am I destined for the BBQ?"

Walt has driven all through the area and there is no sign of Retard. He must be halfway to 100 Mile House by now.

I regaled this story to my chiropractor, Dr. Mike, who while cracking and realigning my spine couldn't stop laughing. I asked for a discount since he said I made his day.

Electric Pig Orchestra

2011-05-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

"The horror. The horror..." Two words, immortalized by Colonel Kurtz as he lay bloodied and dying, in Apocalypse Now.

"The pigs. The pigs..." Two words, immortalized by Funk as he stood at dusk, frustrated and muttering various choice expletives in his back field, at Six Masters' Farm.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways...

Pigs - while in France have the nose to find the blessed truffle, should not be trifled with.

Pigs - snorting pink packages of solid muscle.

Pigs - find fences' feebleness fast and furrow furiously.

Pigs - which causes Funk to shout "Feck! Fornicators! Pesky porcine pukes!"

So like the good farmers we are trying to be (and because our Organic Certification inspection is coming up...) we're trying to get the pigs on the pasture. Truth is, they love it and whomever gets to eat these pigs will find the taste spectacular. In fact there is so much food out there in the fields that by the time they get back to their pen in the eve, they're not really interested in their slops.

But for all that future tastiness turning on the BBQ spit, you need to know that pigs, like goats, are animal escape artists. When God made them he let out a cosmic laugh because he knew just what these rotters were capable of. Maybe they were created after the fall?... A new thesis for my friend Szuk. I digress... Let me draw a comparison between goats and pigs. You may recall that somewhere among these electronic pages of ramblings, I wrote an "Ode to Nod" on the eve we BBQ'd his sorry little butt. Nod, was an escape artist of the highest order. Goats have stealth technology. You're positive all the fences are good. But upon entering the barn, who would be looking at you all the while devouring a pail of feed? The goats. When goats are in the act of escaping, they're quiet. It brings to mind the picture of short little Frenchman from the Resistance, ca. WWII. Short, but lethal with stiletto in hand. Quiet and all business.

Pigs on the other hand. Pigs use battering rams and have the subtlety of Archie Bunker in a heated debate with his son-in-law Meathead. Stephan came by a few days ago and saw what we were doing and gave me "the look." "The look" is a special signal that farmers have. It's a fleeting glance - eye to eye - silent communication that you have to be on the ball to catch. "The look" allows you to walk away without looking like a fool in front of others. And if you're fast enough, you can catch the intended message. "The look" that day said "you're in for some big trouble here since your fences are a joke." Yup. He was right. See, pigs (like teenage boys) are always testing the boundaries - or in this case fences. They root through the ground and push forward. Hey. If a fence moves, so be it. Nature's bulldozer has arrived. But once pigs have discovered a way to exit the pasture, they'll always take it. Not so dumb after all? So yesterday, I finished my electric perimeter fencing - about 1 foot off the ground. It's the perfect height because when they go to shovel dirt near the fence their snout comes up and the music of the spheres erupts: BIFF #@&!! BAM ?!$@* John Cage, move over. OMG says the pig as the electricity cracks the air "WTF was that!" Enter maniacal laugh from your truly. I left it off for a while so they'd get used to touching it...

Yes, I had thought the problem was solved especially upon hearing the electric SNAP and SQUEAL!! carry through the air, but Hogan and his pals left me once again. Off to the woodpile I went. Find a few 12 foot 2x6 planks, get the five inch spikes. With supplies in hand, I now had to sit and wait until the pigs returned because what I have learned is that once they have a place of egress, they automatically choose that as a place of access. But today, the electric fence was up. You need to realize that right next to this spot is a gate that I opened up so they could choose, perhaps, the way of ease. But like my students of yesteryear, that was not to be. Why take the easy way?

The pigs returned at dusk, and one by one they shoved their snouts under the wire, snorted very loudly, muscles contracting, squeals piercing the air and causing flying geese to lose their formations. Three of the four made it with just a shock or two. They are the smaller ones. The big guy? Not so smart. He'd get his head under and BAM - shock, squeal, pig swears. This must have happened three or four times at which point he got P.O.'d and powered through both fences, enduring a five second prolonged dance with his electric partner. You should have heard the noise. It rivaled anything in WhoVille.

I don't know what's in store for me today, but I don't think I'll let them out until I return from the Grill. Not to worry, they have a bucket of egg yolks to munch away on. Organic, too, just in case the inspector asks...

My Pigs And The End Of The World

2011-05-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

So apparently the world was supposed to end today. Well. I only found out about this a few days ago. Thus, no time to get anxious. Are you kidding? Millennialists, doom-and-gloom soothsayers, Y2K - someone is making money out there, capitalizing on people's fears. Marlene and I woke up today and wondered, OK, if it's supposed to end today, whose time zone gets the nod and what about the International Date Line and the fact that today is tomorrow in Australia? We turned over and decided to sleep some more. The day is now over and it looks like I'll still have to pay my mortgage next week. Damn. But today, we did have a rapture of sorts, a what I thought was 'the taking of the faithful', or in this case, the pigs.

Roy and Paula came to visit today. They're from California and Roy is my second cuz. He and I, although we are about 15 years apart in age, have a lot in common. We're both choral musicians and survivors of institutional employment, although Roy made it to 65 and is now Professor Emeritus. I sort of fizzled out and faded into the green fields of Greendale. We rarely see each other, due to the fact that he lives a mere 20 hours south. But when we get together, it is a riotous time of 'man hugs', shooting the choral music breeze (of which my sails are filling with less and less air...), catching up on the different repertoire we do and rehearsing just how we are related. Let's see...if I remember correctly, his grandmother Margaret was my grandfather's sister. My dad's aunt, in other words. When dad's family came to North America from Russia some of my granddad's siblings went south. Roy and I are the last connection to that part of our family history.

Well, they were duly impressed with the farm. I could tell that Roy was surprised at my adaptation to farm life and my acceptance of the gradual decline of music in my life (that being said, the day to day life of a teacher and performer). I gave him a pair of galoshes and we went for a wander, he in pressed chinos and dress shirt, me in shitty pants and ripped dress shirt. As we walked through the farm and I explained this and that, part of my brain began to send me messages. For all you parents out there, do you remember when you began to realize that "hey it's quiet upstairs... I wonder what the kids are up to...?" This was my thought with the pigs. They weren't in their pen, but that's not such a surprise as they have become free-range pigs. Truly. They have the run of the pasture - or should I say, a part thereof. But as we turned corners to this and that area, there were no pigs to be seen grazing, sleeping or rooting around. In fact, the pigs were gone. I couldn't understand the reason for their departure, because we have lush fields and they've been grazing like sheep. Is there some "wanderlust" deeply ingrained in the pig psyche?

It appeared that Harold Camping, con-man extraordinaire, had it partly right. Only the pigs were taken. This could cause some problems with Messianic Jews... Yes. The pigs were gone. This was not a good thing, for pigs are nature's answer to the Rototiller. They are the D9 Cat of the four-legged kind. Their hooves aren't really a problem, because cattle leave some deep impressions where ever they roam. But pigs? If they smell something delectable they'll shove their nose into the earth and use it like a spatula.

There was nothing we could do, so we went inside.

After returning from dinner, we prepared to say our goodbyes. We entered the living room and I looked south out the big picture window. There, far, far away, were four pink backs serpentining through the tall pasture. They looked like pink submarines partially submerged, all sailing in a row. Alas, Camping was wrong and the pigs - while they did enter "glory" today (somebody's field...) and have a fantastic walkabout, returned right on time, around 6 p.m. in fact - just when the world was supposed to end. Is there some irony here?

The pigs are back in their pen. I've locked them in. I've also made an electric fence around the perimeter of their field. Machine gun nests come tomorrow. And coincidentally, a few friends have called requesting pork sides.

Couldn't have happened at a better time.

Why My Cows Love Me

2011-05-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

My friend Evan, the gourmand, scholar, bottom bass singer and all-around great guy, gave me some wonderful cookbooks a few days ago. We sold him some veal - don't worry folks, very ethically raised (Walt and I bottle fed it a few times every day and boy! could that calf do laps around the field) - and it got him all fired up about cooking, so he went to a bookstore in Vancouver and sent some our way as well. Thank you Evan! I believe he and Janice have nearly eaten half of what they got two weeks ago...

I've been reading through the books and believe me, there are some fine recipes. This is the good part. But a few of the books have extended introductions where the authors describe - in rich detail I might add - what the differences are between organic meats, grass-fed, and commercially grown. So with glass of wine in hand, I began reading about beef production. Much of it I was already familiar with, especially the health benefits of grass-fed over commercial. You see, when a beef cow eats grass, its gut functions very well and thus inhibits the production of the e-coli that manifests itself in commercial meat. There's also the added Omega-3 and 6 fatty acids which abound (not nearly as much as salmon but you don't have to worry about mercury levels in our beef...) as well as linoleic acid, a necessary fatty acid needed for good health. After spending some quality time tonight with our big steer and calves, feeding them bread (even the little holstein has started hoovering bread like there's no tomorrow - after his bucket of milk, of course) and scratching big heads and small furry ears, I was thankful that I can eat the meat I grow.

The description of commercially raised feed-lot beef was especially disturbing. Yes, I have seen the latest films, the exposés of corporate North American food production. But the films, while graphic in their portrayal of livestock conditions, slaughter facilities and corporate monopolies, didn't necessarily go into detail about "life on your average feedlot." This is where the cookbook notes became disturbing. Cattle, you see, are ruminants, and Mother Nature didn't design them to consume corn. Their stomachs are custom-made grass-to-energy burners. But the corn lobby in the US of A is very powerful and ergo, corn is overproduced and subsidized. What to do? Part of the solution is: Feed it to cows. So these cattle live in the very cramped conditions, are fed a steady died of corn as well as protein pellets made partially of chicken shit. Yes, you read correctly. Chicken manure has protein in it, so hey! why not feed it to an animal? And then the best part. Wait for it. Because there is no roughage in this diet, cattle are fed plastic pellets - a kind of Metamusil-meets-Frankenstein. And to top it off, they live in a fecal pond and are thus feed an continuous dosage of antibiotics, just to keep them alive until slaughter.

I thought of this in the evening air, dusk slowly descending amidst the chorus of evening birds, our second straight day with no rain. To my left, the last of the hardiest foraging chickens began their ascent into the coop. All around me wafted the heady aroma of cattle's breath, a sweet musky-with-milk perfume, actually quite pleasant. And of course, the sound of chewing bread, the occasional belch coming from way down deep and the sharp blowing of air through the nostrils, almost a sigh of contentment.

After reading this section of the cookbook, I could more readily understand why folk become vegetarians, especially those who chose to do so as a way of protest. I considered it as well - if only for a few seconds - because not all that glitters is gold. Or put another way, those organic greens you buy at Costco grown by that giant corporation? It rhymes with girth-hound charms. A little research will show you that they're just as hard on the land as commercial feedlots are to animals.

There are no simple answers. My students of yesteryear always wanted those. Theology would be so much simpler with a big check mark next to belief-system questions. And, we're almost out of our own beef and I can't really stomach the thought of eating store-bought meat. Dilemma. Maybe I should eat the mash we get for our chickens. It's from an organic mill in town and no word of a lie, it smells so good I want to add milk and have it for breakfast. Thankfully, a pig is ready for slaughter. He's enjoyed greens, bread, milk and grains. And there's a sheep or two that have grown plump on spring grass. All is not lost. My incisors will still get exercise.

If we're ever going to leave the comfort of the supermarket and engender the change that is needed, then all you folk out there in cyberland will need to support your local farmer. This is a self-seeking phrase of course, but the lessons out of the Middle East this past year - especially in Egypt - show that if you want change, you have to go out into the streets to get it.

I mean really, do you want to eat beef that's been fed chicken crap?

If My Animals Could Vote

2011-05-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Monday morning. At the Grill. Very slow. Rain lightly falling, school buses driving by, little faces facing the future, peering out the window thinking childhood is never going to end. Uhuh. Right.

It's a big day in Canada - vote day. I'm very interested in the outcome, meaning will voters punish the Liberals for playing politics and trying the big grab for power? No kenosis there, that's for sure. Big kids in the sandbox, that's what our politicians seem like at times. But, I should dispence with political discourse since that's something I'm certainly not qualified to pass judgement on. Opinion - sure, but then the discussion becomes like many of the others I endured at that place, where certainty of conviction trumps reason. I'm digressing....

No more Osama. Is the world a better place? This is what the news people wanted me to believe as they analyzed the event ad nauseum while rolling the same stock footage of Osama. Curiously they left out his photos from his time in the States. An interesting omission.

And so with the heavy events of the world quickly analyzed and (almost) solved, I think back to the farm. If I don't write about the weather, what comes to mind... Running a farm has been likened to directing an orchestra (so says Joel Saliton), but on our farm some days seem like a three-ring circus and I'm Mr.Barnum standing in the middle ring.

The chickens have settled into their new life as the 'house majority.' What they say, happens. More like when they say it. They have language for: we need feed, follow the human for bread, (when it's dark) put me in the pen oh so gently, why are you taking our eggs and of course, when I holler "good morning chickens" they answer in unison with "yeeees". I may not have Finnish under my belt but I can speak the language of Poultry.

The minority party on the farm would be the pigs, followed by the calves. The two ducks don't have a hope in Gehenna to ever have their voice heard. Basically, the loudest voice on the farm gets the most attention. Sometimes Walter's hunting hounds try to holler for attention (most of the time, actually) but as there's only two, they get ignored alot. Hey, this is starting to sound like our political system! Is parliament modeled on the family farm? Orwell's Animal Farm would lead us to believe a farm can be an allegory of totalitarian regimes. Maybe of slightly disfunctional democratic ones, as well.

I wonder how my animals would vote if I was a candidate for leading the farm. The calves would definitely not vote for me as I have demonstrated my ignorance with them too often. While they're healthy now, that's not always been the case. The pigs? Hmm... their first question at the all-candidates' meeting would be "where's the boar who mysteriously disappeared last month? Is there a rendition program on this farm?" The sheep, would all vote for me, I know for sure, as I give them oats every night, lots of hay and sometimes textured calf feed (with all that good molasses). None of them have disappeared, yet. The chickens would be the toughest sell. On the one hand, they get the best organic feed available and they have the run of at least an acre of dirt, worms and bugs. But, I do rob their nests everyday. The pigeons? Their too dumb to vote: they just coo, eat, hump and coo, eat and hump. They might vote for the Marajuana Party, if it existed at the national level.

The rabbits don't even know there's a vote today because they can't get out of bed. Too busy.

Today, I'm thankful I can vote. We've all seen the media shots of folks around the world rebelling against their Animal Farm leaders and hoping against hope for a change. As Rick Mercer says, "Get out and do what young people around the world are dieing for - vote." Will much change for any of us tomorrow? Not likely. But instead of waking up to small arms fire, destruction or pilage, I'll be able to return to my animals, nurutre them, repair stuff, and go to sleep without fearing for my life. Not a bad deal.

The Power Of Guiding Lights And Voices

2011-04-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm at the Grill today. Writing on my blog. It's dead. Sun is streaming through the windows and only the Montag Morgen Mennonitische Maedchen are here. Serious conversation today, about a friend with cancer. Talking about dying on a beautiful sunny day.

So I'm writing at work. Does this mean I'm being paid to write? Am I now a professional writer? Write...

My animals are so animated when the sun comes out. They're no longer impressed with rain or snow. During the last torrential rain, a few chickens sat outside, remaining stoic in the onslaught. I thought I'd find them dead in the morning, but no, they finally climbed the ladder back into their shed. I had a few interesting experiences these last days. Two nights ago I went to call the sheep. They weren't interested in coming in. Totally ignored me. I walked out the Back 40 and kept calling. No movement. Eventually I came right up to them and was greeted with sniffs and gang rubbing. I began to push them towards the barn, my flashlight blazing at my side. At one point, I shone the beam ahead and the lead sheep stopped and turned away from the spot. Hey, I thought, an electronic staff. A light sabre for sheep. I swept it to the other side - same result. Normally, it is a royal pain bringing the sheep in at night. But tonight, I kept flashing left, right, etc, and basically led them right into the barn, all with a beam of light. Hmmm....sounds like a theology lesson in the making.

Yesterday afternoon I called the sheep in the late afternoon. They were way far away. But that classical voice training paid off. If you can get one sheep to raise its head, another one will until all follow. Then, if one begins walking they all join in. And you know what, they actually came. I was probably 400-500 yards away from them. I turned back into the barn to begin filling feed troughs and looked out the door. And then the calves began running as well! From out of nowhere, the calves came galloping - literally - butts flying in the air, tails looking like giant wobbling antenae and heads wagging. What a sight. In less than 5 minutes I had all my charges together. Dr. Doolittle, move over.

This morning I walked quiety into the barn to have a look. There were the sheep and the calves, all nestled together, quietly chewing cud, and perhaps dreaming of another sunny day... Our new brown Jersey calf is finally getting stronger. He has big eyes - looks like a doe. His competition is a black and white Holstein, who can drink an entire 2 litre bottle in about 80 seconds. Now that's a vacuum.

More Mennonitische Maedchens have arrived. Time to brush up the German and bring some laughter to their conversation.

Do The Funky Chicken

2011-04-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

This is what is meant by 'free range'.
Notice the rooster's entourage (just behind the wire roost, upper left)

Life continues to evolve in ways unheard of or never contemplated.
Number 1: I borrowed Stephan's auger and have drilled holes for a fence. This may sound like nothing, but the possibilities for screw-ups is monumental, that is, if you're anal about having a straight fence. The auger and I were not friends this morning, what with trying to figure out PTO speeds, when to disengage, when to lift or drop the auger, fine-tuning the angle - all stuff I learned in music school, you know? By late this afternoon the auger and I were like a figure-skating duo. Perfectly in tune and timing. These holes are so straight, my goodness, it's like I had a 50 foot straight-edge.

Number 2: I am the official farm chicken whisperer. Did you know chickens can fly over a 4 foot fence? They have no distance, but they can hop up. Too bad most are too stupid to hop back up when they're done foraging on the other side. When dusk comes, a magic thing occurs: the field gradually empties, the constant buzz of chicken-speak subsides and the call of the robin takes over. And just like that, all the chickens are back in the barn. How do they know?

Mind you, the really dumb ones don't go back into the barn, but will sit outside on feed barrels, on the walkways, even on the ground. By late dusk, their ability to see is just about gone, so I walk up to them and very quietly do my chicken mantra: "Hello chicken." Say 'hello' like as in "Hello Dolly" and pretend you're Frank Sinatra. Grab the 'll' and throw it into the 'o'. Start high and end low. Float through the 'o' and say 'chicken' without the vowel, making sure the latter part of the word is a wide vowel. You following me? Well, this is what I say to the chickens every day, morning, noon and night. I figure they're beginning to recognize my voice because many of them, and I mean many no longer run away when I walk up to them. In fact, I can pick them up without much ado. I usually get a little cluck ("Yoh Funk, good to see you again"), I rub their head and plop them into the barn. They usually land on their breast instead of their feed because by now they're totally night-blind.

You may wonder why I would spend the better part of my after supper hour picking up errant chickens. Look at it this way: each chicken costs $7.00 in feed to get it too maturity. If each chicken can lay nearly 300 eggs in its lifetime, that represents a revenue stream of well over $100. So I figure that I'm making money by ensuring that they live long a fertile lives and not becoming dinner for some local miscreant predator. Peanut, we have discovered, is a good watch dog, but not so much a guard dog. She's too busy eating - all the time.

By Monday, the sheep could be grazing the front field. No more mowing, no more lawnmower, no more gas costs, no more noise. Just the pleasant and peaceful bleat of 18 full and happy faces.

The Nourishment Of Sun And Sound Are Sure Things

2011-04-10T21:59:00.000-07:00

Two days of sun. And who says miracles don't happen anymore? If you live on the west coast, the warmth of the sun has been nothing short of a giant rip in the cosmos... The weather has been wacko. A few days ago, we had rain, hail, new snow in the hills, wind, clouds, hot sun. My, you should have seen the chickens when the hail started. They had absolutely no idea what to do. Now mind you, when they see a hawk eating a renegade pigeon, they run into the barn faster than you can deal with Montezuma's Revenge while in Mexico. Yes, there was silence in the field today as a hawk made literal mincemeat out of his lunch. The calves have been so very grateful for the sunshine. In fact, some of them were laying so still I thought they were dead. I sidled up to one and grunted "hey". I got an open eye and a raised neck in response, but that was about it. They were, I believe, drunk on sunshine. Our new pups were also sacked out with a few hours of heat. Playtime ceased and they lay outside the pump-house in a jumble of legs, tails and floppy ears.

The arrival of spring is a momentous time on a farm. We live in hope that the rain will actually stop and that soon we'll begin complaining about the heat. With the coming of spring, the slumbering creation begins to cast off the cloak of winter and the emergence of dandelions and daffodils heralds the return of warmth and fertility. I wish I could wax eloquently about this relationship, but the bald fact is that unless we get some serious fertility happening it will become more and more difficult to sustain this operation. Not impossible. But difficult.

But thankfully, every day isn't spent working one's hands into a permanent state of disrepair as you try to get everything done (and more) to alleviate the pressure of the coming days. Today I was able to enjoy the luxury of making music with my choir and my dear friend Nelson. We performed our concert this afternoon, a time of beautiful music from Broadway. Nelson and his trio added a degree of class that brought smiles, toe tapping and head bobbing joy. When I was a student (undergrad...) I had such a misguided sense of aesthetics. It was de rigeur to mock the students who participated in the production of musicals because we were studying 'serious' music. Man, a whole education passed me by because I was too stupid to make my own decisions. It was truly a herd thing. Dumb. Like sheep.

The songs we brought our breath to are timeless stories, no less serious than Schubert or Brahms. "My funny valentine" is one such piece. First, you have a melody that sears deep into your soul. And then, this is not a text that extols one's exquisite perfection, but a figure that is less than Greek, a mouth a little weak and hey, when you open it to speak, are you smart? Ah, but it matters not, 'cuz if you really care about me, you won't change a hair on your head will you, my sweet comic valentine? Talk about the truth of what real love looks like.

I was really grumpy this morning. Jet lag still working through? I didn't want to get up. In fact, I slept over 12 hours and finally got the espresso gurgling around 9:30 a.m. I knew my animals would not be impressed. But, as I could procrastinate no longer, I went outside and began my tasks. First feed, for the pigs. Holy cow! What a welcome. Talk about joy at the trough. Then, milk for the calves. More holy cow! Talk about motivation to suck back milk. I found my mood slowly changing - I started calling the calves 'buddy' and began the usual ear scratching and fur grooming (and shaking litres of gob off my hands). I then packed feed for the chickens and began my conversation with them which usually goes "Hello chickens!" To which they reply with a short beat of silence and then a unison ascending sound that could only be described as 'buuuuuuuuuuuuuck.' Then proceeding the gathering of the fruits of their labours. I have discovered that chickens are quite amenable to petting and conversation. Mind you, the conversation tends to be one sided.

And so I left my animals somewhat changed. Nourished perhaps? I'm not sure but I think so. But I do know that those who came to our concert today were given all the nourishment needed to strengthen and feed their souls. From the plaintiff longing of "Somewhere over the rainbow" to the gurgling optimism of "Blue skies" we plumbed the depths of emotions.

And so I left my choir completely changed. Nourished perhaps? Completely. Bravo people, bravo.

Perhaps The Ark Will Remain At Bay

2011-04-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Holy smoke have we had a lot of rain. Unbelievable. Just yesterday an old guy with a beard came by and asked me if I knew what a cubit was...

The sun dared to shine through the clouds today. It was glorious. Almost like taking a skin off and soaking in the sun. It was kind of like shedding a skin like snakes do. We had everything today: torrential rain, hail, tons of snow in the hills, blue sky, hot sun... Welcome to the Fraser Valley.

When the sun comes out, everyone gets happy. We have 13 new sheep - they are gorgeous. And of course, will taste great, too. Since we're moving towards organic certification, they will be eating organic oats from In Season Farms. The pigs are very happy in their new digs, especially when they get to play football with Walt. Walt loves the Seattle Seahawks. This is probably the closest he'll ever come to being a quarterback. Notice the skillful handoff to the sow.

And of course, the chickens. I made a door in Barn 1 and today was the day. It was almost like opening a tomb - maybe the tomb. Certainly no literal resurrection but my did the chickens exhibit new behaviours when they got outside. Running, flying, scratching, eating. Can you imagine how good the eggs will be? The organic mash we have smells so good I want to add milk and eat it myself. No kidding.

Come on over and I'll make you a bowl.

Spring is here.

The Puppies Can't Keep Up

2011-03-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

Marlene leaves for Canada tomorrow. It's been a wonderful two-week hiatus from the world of farming and school administration. The boys have had a good time as well - right now their kibitzing on the couch, fighting for Facebook time. How thoroughly post-post modern, the fact that one can post a few sentences of something essentially trivial and in a few minutes - or even seconds - someone a few thousand miles away on another continent will comment about it. I've yet to figure out why this is so fascinating for so many people. I must confess I don't know why I've been lured into it either. There. Confession over with.

Marlene and I have learned that we have more travel resilience than the boys. Today we took the metro and went to the national museum of art, a most glorious place. Everything from the 1100's up until modern Spanish painting and sculpture - including their Catalan hero, Picasso. We wandered most of the day, taking in alter pieces from the 1200's, the first photographs of the modernistic period in Spain, great painters, sculptors all from this country. What a rich heritage these people have. But the boys were done. Even though they enjoyed the exhibit, they hit the wall. Ethan became very silent and his face took on the characteristics of Beethoven's death-mask; Noel walked along like an automaton, weaving along the halls like a pinball bouncing off invisible walls. Marlene and I kind of giggled. Here we were, me 50 and she almost, and we had more resilience that the two laddies. Now why would that be?

It's all about the pacing. They're like mini-volcanoes, exited and bubbling up with great energy and like shooting stars, they flash out in great fanfare. Perhaps they're short distance sprinters, flying off the blocks and giving it all for 10.8 seconds. If I were to continue with the analogy, I would have to say that Marlene and I are expert travel marathoners. I must admit, I could have gone much further afield today as the lure of this city and what it has to offer is very compelling. Abbotsford fails in every aspect in this regard and Greendale, well as a small farming hamlet, really isn't in the running.

Our last place of residence is in what we have come to call 'real Barcelona.' We are definitely out of the tourist zone, judging by the cost of groceries. Even though the Euro is at about 1.4 to the Canadian dollar, the value for the Canadian buck is very good. I bought a bottle of wine for 1.8 Euros. Yes, you read correctly. And, it was a 2006. Of course, its pedigree was motley and it would never win a prestigious award but it was completely drinkable and would easily rank among anything we pay $10 to $15 for at home. A bottle of gin was about $10. That would equal a lot of G&T's at our place in summer. In fact, it might become a breakfast tradition, just like the coffee and brandy thing is here.

We walked among the promenade this evening, among the Spanish folk. Lots of couples, arm in arm on a clear, warm beautiful evening. Dogs were leading their masters all over the place, meeting other dogs and doing the things dogs do, like smelling arsholes, peeing on special trees, pulling leashes and generally being quite direct about their intentions. The benches on either side (this street probably stretches a good 3 kilometers) were filling up with older folks, gathering in groups to chat the evening away. The fish market was still bustling with customers, and the heavy odor of fish and all things from the sea hadn't lessened since this morning.

After seeing all the different cheeses, wines, fish, fresh vegetables (from Spain, not Mexico or California or Chile) and meats (these people have a love affair with meat, that is for sure) we lamented that in Canada, we have such a limited diet as prescribed by Jimmy P or Safeway or what have you. There is a richness, and a depth of cuisine that comes from, I guess, a year-long growing season as well as a few millennia of past civilizations and their influence, like Roman, Carolingian, Catalan, and I really can't even begin to remember all the past influences upon this country that we saw at the museum.

I plan on running the boys ragged for the next two days. Gotta make the most of it! If I let them have their way, they'll sit and stare at the screen, flipping between some silly app or some other social media forum. I must sound positively modern with this kind of language, but I am still of the opinion that engaging in physical reality will have a more lasting effect than the ethereal zeros and ones that hold their attention so beguilingly. After all, in 2000 years, we won't be able to visit Facebook and marvel at all the postings sent from Barcelona. Better to put those memories in your head and pass them on to another generation. It's the richness of experiences, after all, that contribute to who we are and who we become.

Good Bye Ibiza

2011-03-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

The rain is coming down in near Iona proportions - even sideways as the wind pushes it effortlessly through our street. The wind is batting the cactus on our little patio - it looks like a kid outside in -20 without a jacket on. I'd go outside and have a look but I think my face would get whipped off in the wind. The apartments across the street are maybe twenty feet away and a local is staring out his window too, hands thrust deep into pockets. What's on his mind this morning, I wonder? Probably wind-feeling-like-sandpaper in Spanish.

I had more college teaching dreams last night. Not quite nightmares, but not pleasant either. Something about Walter and chickens entered into it as well. A stranger mix than an unknown cocktail. You'd think that by flying half-way around the world you could leave that all behind, but it just goes to show that you can change the geography you enter, but the geography that comprises who you are remains constant. I imagine that all sorts of people come to this island for a variety of reasons, but I suspect that the giant raves that happen here, the clubs and the free flow of controlled substances, the anonymous exchanges of bodily fluids (as judged by the advertisements) would indicate that for some, this place is an attempted place of escape.

We chose to escape to Ibiza Town today, the centre of all the action, that is in the summer time. Today the place was near-deathly still. A dearth of hippies. Not a rave in sight or sound. It was grand. We walked all over the walled city (a UNESCO world heritage site) the only walled city in Europe that is populated by locals. The walk was fabulous - it was as if we were all transported back 500 years. And, I could not escape my animal charm, for we had a stray cat follow us relentlessly, hoping for some morsel. He even performed the standard cat serpentine through the legs, purred, meowed and head-butted. To no avail. We walked on.

Travelling with the boys has been a good experience as we attempt to make the transition from parent-authority to parent-friend. They are so very different but they do have a great affinity and love for each other. Ethan is all agog at every store he sees and is determined (now) to learn Spanish, eat like the Spanish, be like the Spanish and move to Ibiza as soon as possible. Noel on the other hand, just wanted to find a watch and a jacket. Well. He found a watch yesterday with Marlene. When he met up with Ethan and me he was almost shaking with joy. In fact, he confessed to being 'giddy' about his good fortune and remained giddy the entire day. This was about as rare as the alchemist's gold. Ethan immediately needed a watch.

This evening they boys and I went for a walk on the promenade. The sun had already set and the waves pounded the far-off breaches, an unseen call. The luminescent waves rolled on towards the shore and we stood and breathed in the clear salt air. Waves always give the opportunity for gaining perspective as we talked and realized that this water has flowed since long before the Phoenicians came to these islands. How quickly our footprint is washed from the sand. But we walked and talked amiably, laughing, taking pictures, talking about the future. It was, one might say, a 'first' among what I hope will be many more.

I had hoped to see more farming and evidence of agriculture on the island. The most I have seen are a few flocks of sheep and many, many orange and lemon trees. Of course, there are olive trees, almond, cherry and many others. But there was no evidence of cows - probably they don't get enough rain and the rocky, volcanic soil may not produce enough grass. Talk about rocks. All the fences are rock fences - from the most ancient to the newest. Come to think about it, I saw no evidence of any commercial farming - no large chicken barns or turkey barns, no massive pig operations and certainly no feed lots. I did see many small plots - gardening and chickens, the odd pig here and there. And of course, lots of gardens since these folks have a year-long growing season.

I suspect that many of these small farms are a kind of survival operation, since the importation of food is very costly: it all arrives by ferry boat. I wonder how long it will take for us in Canada to start using all the land the lies fallow. I am always fascinated by different cultures and their use of land. I wonder what these islanders would think of our (dis) use of the pastures around my place.

Tomorrow it's back to the giant metropolis of Barcelona. We will miss this paradise, a small jewel in the Balearic crown. But rest assured we'll return.

The Long Day Closes

2011-03-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

We've been here for nearly a week and it seems like the island has been our home for much longer. Has my epigenetic material retained some former memory of some ancient ancestor's life by the sea? Madame Jablonka, please stand up and clarify this for me, if you'd please....

Another glorious day greeted us this morning. The sun was so bright through the curtains I muttered to anyone who might be awake "who left the lights on all night?" Marlene laughed beside me. After the obligatory ablutions we gathered for breakfast, a sumptuous feast of fresh baguettes, Nutella, more jam from France and of course, UHT milk. Oh, and eggs, which only tasted a little bit like fishmeal.

The weather is changing slowly (and it's raining now) so we got into the car and hightailed it to where ever our Seat Ibiza (car - brand name) would take us. We followed winding roads past abandoned orchards, fields of sheep, and paddock upon paddock rimmed by old and crumbling rock walls. The soil here is very rocky, so rocky that all the fences are made with stones. The ancients here had it down perfectly and very few walls are in disrepair. We even managed to see a few men building new ones. It's quite the process, not unlike Lego, but this needs to keep all manner of animals in and predators out.

If you're trying to imagine what kinds of roads we drove, dive deep into your imagination and create rocky cliffs, narrow roads, no shoulder (Marlene's mother channeling through her....), pine trees, olive stumps all gnarled and grey, red soil, and a sea so blue I don't have any way of describing it. It was hypnotic, not unlike when one is faced with beauty so rare they are left speechless. So it is with the Mediterranean.

The amount of development that has (and is) taking place on the island is alarming. If a house can be built on any piece of rocky ledge, it is. The vast majority of the homes in the hills are holiday mansions, sitting empty except for a few months in summer when the population explodes and the island wonders if all these extra humans can be cared for. We drove up and over, around and through, and saw small palaces - perhaps the home of a modern day Al Capone or some oil sheik. Ethan asked how one could own such a place. My response was "most likely crime, old money (most likely some kind of crime involved), or banking (what a crime that the Royal Bank of Canada posted a record breaking 23% increase in profits that equals 1 and a butt-load odd billion dollars profit in their first quarter this year). We had a good laugh.

Most of the island is deserted of tourist traffic. We rarely passed or had a car pass us the entire day. This is a big contrast to summer time when, as told to us by Juan, it can take him 15 minutes to cross the highway to get to his shop. Fifteen minutes to cross the road. That's a lot of cars. And speaking of driving, we've noticed that Spanish road signs are not always clear - and this isn't because we don't read Spanish. Like today, we followed a brown sign with a camera printed upon it - clearly a tourist view stop - and kept driving and driving. The pavement gave way to gravel, the gravel became badly washed out (flash storms, I guess), the road became more of a track reminiscent of BC logging roads, Marlene began to hyperventilate again (groans from her sons and silence from me) when suddenly we came to an opening in the forest and deep below us lay a cove and an abandoned resort complex.

The resort wasn't nearly finished, but all the walls were up, the pool was in, it was huge. And it was crumbling, a graffiti artist's paradise, and most likely home to transients in the summer. Far away at the bottom of the cover were fishermen's sheds, their boats locked behind closed doors. Ethan and I wandered all over it (much to a mother's chagrin), Noel was circumspect (as per usual) and choice judiciously which parts he'd wander through. The view from the pool deck was nearly Edenic in its beauty. This resort was completely isolated with nothing else nearby. We wondered what the story was - graft, corruption, bankrupt partners or maybe even some sort of death.

We returned via backroads (more groaning from Marlene and more of the same from her sons) to St. Gertrudius, a pleasant area not fare from St. Eullalia, where our apartment is located. We stopped here because we had dinner with Juan, Melanie and their friend Gordon, last night. It was one of those typical Spanish meals, starting around 8:45 and lasting till well after midnight. The length of time could be discerned from the number of wine bottles on the table. The food was, once again, simple in construction and tantalizing in taste. Four of us had roasted calamari, the boys had bocadillos which translated means sandwich, but in actual fact means so much more. When we hear 'sandwich' we might quite incorrectly think bologna and Wonder Bread. You need to steer your taste buds and culinary memory towards ancient grains, thickly sliced (by hand) fresh baked bread, hard crust with allioli and roasted meats. Add to that groans of appreciation unheard of since Marlene made Christmas Stollen, and you begin to get the idea.

We are learning a few things about Spaniards. One, they love to eat. In fact, they live to eat, hence meals taking hours to complete. We were given a few rebukes about the North American predilection of eating to live. We accepted the chastisement on behalf of all North Americans. Two, they love to laugh. And they like to play tricks on their friends. Take ordering from a menu as an example. I can sort of fake my way through pronouncing what I'd like to order. In fact, I can order breakfast without consulting my phrase book: "Dos caffe con leche, dos croissants, et dos agua con gas". Pretty swell, eh? But Marlene, now that's another question. Her tongue just doesn't want to roll its way around these new sounds. So last night, she was trying to order chicken and potatoes. Apparently she was trying to say "pollo con patatas". That double "ll" is pronounced like a "y." She was stumbling all over it so Juan quickly interjected and explained that it was pronounced like "polio." Pronounce the "l" like a "y" and you've got the word. So she dutifully followed at which point all the Spaniards laughed uproariously. Now how the waiter maintained his professional composure, I really don't know because Marlene had just ordered, I was informed later, "penis and potatoes." Yes, there's just a short road from your chicken becoming, well, something that you really didn't want to order.

Marlene and I went for a walk this eve. There are deep, rolling clouds overhead and a strong wind. The waves are rolling with serious intent. I said a small prayer of thanks that they weren't from a tsunami. We returned home to our apartment for a humble meal of pasta and wine.

Ibiza On My Mind

2011-03-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

Hola!

Life on the sunny Mediterranean, could it be better? This morning Marlene drove to Ibiza Town with Melanie and the boys. She's looking for spices and things to bring to the Grill - more secret ingredients to lure the patrons into a further love affair with her cooking. She is not unlike Babette from Babette's Feast or Vianne in Chocolate. The boys? Well, they can't shake the North American need to go shopping. Horror. This must be the feminine side of their well-honed manly-man DNA poking through. Marlene? Most likely enraptured, eyes agog at all the beautiful things one can see, from flowers and fences to market squares and ancient churches.

There is a pace to life here in their winter cum spring which is absolutely delightful. They take time during the day for siesta - two to three hours closed shops in the afternoon. Sidewalk cafés are everywhere and are filled with folk of all ages talking, enjoying coffee, gesticulating animato. Even the subways cars are filled with conversations. This is in stark contrast to the metro in New York where no one looks up, sunglasses are everywhere, and nearly no one speaks. My, in Barcelona we had buskers everytime we entered a car. Portable stereo, violin and accordian. Nearly all these guys played the same songs (did we get the same guys each time, perhaps?) and there were locals who gave a few coins here and there (as did we). It took all my repressed extroversion not to start singing along - that and looks of death from Marlene and the "Oh my dad is such an embarassement" from the boys.

I'm at Juan and Melanie's in St. Eullaria. Juan is pressure washing the exterior - one more task completed before they leave. So I'm inside, sitting like a bloated python, typing away. Bloated because... What I didn't know about Juan is that he can eat - more than Ethan. This is like a world record for someone my age. To set up the stage for you... Before we arrived this morning, Marlene and I walked to the local bakery and discovered that we could communicate better in German than in English. It was quite the surprise. We returned to our appartment with Broetchen, fresh pastries and Bon Mama pear confiture. Needless to say we were quite satiated before we arrived. But upon our arrival, Juan informed me we (he and I) were leaving for a real Spanish coffee, and to pick up some bread. Off we drove.

We arrived at his local bar - a place you'd never think to stop at - on the side of the road. Nondescript. Unassuming. Not so inviting. In we walk. A flurry of Spanish. Obviously, he's known around here. People ask him where he's been. Canada. Looks of uncomprehension. So my 'real coffee' is espresso, milk and brandy. I get to pour the brandy into the coffee because Juan has purchase here. I pour a dab. Juan looks at me like I'm an embarassment. OK, I get it. Glug, glug, glug, glug. Looks of approval. Taste. I give him looks of approval. Coffee and brandy at 10 a.m. Welcome to Spain.

We stopped at a, well, I'm not sure you could call it a grocery store in the sense that we have grocery stores. This was a building on the side of the highway, again very nondescript, with no real indication of what lay inside. And inside was a big food store. Now, don't think Safeway, think more like Keremeos only add a dash of Mexico. And my, how much cheaper things were. Chocolate was almost 1 € less. This really caught my eye.

We arrived back at their modest hacienda. We walked over the fence (first through the gate) to Juan's mother's place, and said hello. She was in her chicken-house manuring out. I was suddenly back home... (her rooster is calling as I write). Juan and she engaged in more speech presto animato I managed to get an hola! in and off we went to her kitchen. I had to duck through all the doors (by the way, we'll never lose Ethan and Noel here because [a] they are whiter than everyone and [b] they are six to eight inces taller than everyone). Juan led me to the cellar and there hung "the sausages." Rural Ibizans have been making their own sausages for centuries and Juan's mother and her siblings and friends still do it the old way. We cut some samples and returned to his place.

This was the great test, I came to learn, to see whether I liked these sausages or not. You see, Juan and I are going to try to replicate these fine meats when we're back home. First, he lit the outdoor stove - wood by the way. Then the sausage was placed directly onto the wood at the appointed time. Then out came the wine. Wine I said? Much laughter from my Mediterranean friend. Together we enjoyed an hour of "oohs" and "oh mys" and pretty much the entire bottle of Rioja. I must say my heart has never felt better...

We spoke a lot about local food traditions and customs. The sausage we enjoyed comes from a pig which has eaten all the house greens, field greens, special rations, etc. Pigs are kept because of the fat (necessary for preserving things) and also the varieties of sausages one can make from them. Some folk here have very large gardens. Juan's mother (at age mid 70's) has a garden the size of a city lot and she works it all. She grows everything she eats and buys very little. These properties have so many different kinds of trees: cherry, apples, apricot, almond, orange, lemon, carob and then let's not forget what grows wild, like asparagas, various herbs and spices. This is a land that has a 12 month growing season. Imagine the possibilities. It's also a land than has culinary traditions, based on a memory of land and that soil's rich offerings.

This is something we don't have in Canada as a whole. We are by and large a land of little memory due to the relatively short time European settlement has had to leave its imprint as well as a very diverse geography coupled with an equally challenging climate. Add into this our ethos of multi-culturalism and you'll quickly realize that our memory of food and land is restricted to pockets of citizens who are relatively new immigrants, whose communities are still bound by language, family ties, and foods (and whose foods are by and large imported from their homeland). You may want to challenge me on my assumptions here, but in three years of farming I can't actually say that we have met folk who have a memory of land and a particular kind of food. By and large, we have met folk who have a memory of cheap prices (ala Costco) and let us know our prices are too high or those for whom price is no issue or finally, folk who are health conscious and are moving away from commercial sources of food. The fact that we are becoming organic grabs a lot of attention. What I am implying is, our relationship with food is often defined by our monetary status or a reaction against the industrial food machine.

This has created, I believe, the problem we find ourselves in today, namely our food sources being slowly, quietly and unfortunately amassed by multinational corporations. Orwellian, when one actually starts to read about it. Nearly too fantastic to believe it to be true. Our lack of memory of food being tied to local land and festival, customs or rites of passage ("Hey Eli! You made 20 kills in World of Warcraft. Time to kill the fatted calf...) has created a kind of somnolence whereby we complacently watch the anonymous profiteers waltz home with profit at the expense of our health and the land's well-being. The more I think of this, the more ludicrous it seems. But this is the story we find ourselves in...

Rhetoric you say? Paul at the Areopagus, doing his best to change your worldview? Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir once more. Nevertheless. As I write this today, my moustache smells of the sausage I had this morning - wood smoke and juices combined. Perhaps not the greatest should Marlene want a kiss this afternoon, but a definite reminder to me of a celebration of local fare. Eating sausage has a new memory for me now: Ibiza in the late morning, sun streaming through the clouds, mist burning away, a new day of blue and contrasts of green.

I've watched Melanie cooking for the last few months. She's doing way more than putting stuff in a pot or reheating microwavable food. Is she on a mission? She is perhaps a very quiet evangelist for food. She is, like Vianne or Babette, trying to create a memory of food tied to one's well-being. When our patrons try allioli (pronounced ah-ee-OH-lee) or Spanish omelette they often enter a state of rapture, where their tongues can no longer form the words needed to express what their tasting. You think I jest! This experience is the antithesis with culture's obsession with fast-food.

Both Vianne and Babette lived among people who had forgotten the power of food and its ability to unite a community (Chocolate) or provide a venue for reconciliation (Babette's Feast). I would hazard to guess that many folk within my circle of influence have rarely considered a meal as the canvas for these kinds of events. But regardless of the venue, when food taps into these kinds of archetypical memory banks, magical things happen. Melanie - ala all those who love food - in her desire to bring a new taste to the Grill, a taste informed by this land's traditions, may innocently unleash some of this magic, where the innocent seduction of one's tastebuds can lead to all kinds of renewal both within themselves and the people around them.

And This Is Love

2011-03-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

Farm animals are as unpredictable as teenage sons. Contemporary mythology has led us all to believe that dogs chase cats. Well, that's what happened on the Sylvester & Tweety Show, right? I came in this early afternoon to make a sandwich and then head back out. Lots going on here, what with chicks growing, hens about three weeks away from organic eggs, calves dancing in the sunshine and a new pigpen that I'm building. As I wolfed down my peanut butter and jam, I happened to glance at the back patio and there they were, Peanut and Little Kitty, one of the barn cats. The were actually lying prone and when I called Peanut through the glass, she lifted her head and the cat sat up.

And who says we can't get along...

Zealots At The Gate

2011-03-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

I have a group of little old Mennonite ladies who come to the Grill every Monday for coffee. I call them the "Montag Morgen Mennonitische Mächen" (Monday morning Mennonite girls). They laughed at that. They sit around table seven and talk the morning away. One pot of tea, half cups of coffee and lots of hot water, if you please. Coffee - just the way my mom drank it. I can see cutting single malt with water, but coffee? These women spend lots of time laughing.

But yesterday, I learned that not all that glitters is gold. Or should we say, there are wolves in sheep's clothing? Or how about, there are rabid vegetarians (now that's an oxymoron...) dressed as mild mannered women? OK. Let's try one more: there are evangelists everywhere trying to do their best to convert you to their understanding of what it means 'to be.'

Long ago, when the evangelical church in Canada held a (fading but) prominent place in society, an evangelistic campaign arose (love that word - denotes all sort of militarism) called the "I Found It" campaign. I can't remember which organization thought it up, but it was one of those "command performances" where everyone who attended church was obliged to take part in. I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. I wasn't so discerning at that time of life - you know, mom and dad would drop you off at youth group and you just went along with what everyone did. I can remember sitting through hours of training, because this was a slick campaign that would send us door to door proclaiming the good news of the gospel. Billboards sprang up all over Canada with the words "I Found It"; bumper stickers were printed, handbills, TV advertisements, you name it. This was serious stuff, or so we were led to believe. OK, even as a kid I thought this was weird. Why would I go to a stranger's home and try to foist my beliefs upon them? I remained silent - which is (I now realize) part of the Funk DNA.

Yesterday I came face-to-face with another kind of zealot - the Vegetarian Kind. She was kind of like a (you may insert your religious example, or any example you find fitting) fundamentalist, with a blazing countenance, the firmness of her convictions set in narrow eyes and firmly placed lips. While this wasn't a door-to-door experience, it was a She's-at-the-till-how-long-will-this-last experience. I listened politely and attempted to interject when appropriate but it suddenly became very clear that this person was, in the confidence of her assertions, speaking to me about Capital T truth. You know, the kind of truth that at the end of one's life results in perdition or glory. And as such, I might as well keep quiet because when you meet a zealot, you are in the presence of someone who is incapable of understanding another point of view.

I was being evangelized. More like, I was being told in a round about way, that as a meat-eater I was in the wrong and in order to be delivered from, what - from the clutches of carnivores? - I would see the error of my ways. In essence I believe I was being told I was murdering mammals for as we are mammals, all mammals should be accorded the right to live as we have been (I don't know if this included non-mammalian species as well). I was too taken aback to even begin formulating a half-intelligent response. Thank heavens another customer arrived who wanted to pay. The conversation ended, or should I say the metaphorical door was closed and she went on to her next house. This conversation took me back all those years to my youth, and I began to think about the "I Found It" campaign. We were, in a sense, very similar to Madam Vegetarian.

As I drove home yesterday, I turned on CBC radio and listened to the accompanying drive-home banter. The radio host had interviewed two advocates for autism, one who wanted to spend $20 million on infrastructure, and one who wanted that money designated for families. After the talk ended the host asked the listeners to call in and address the issue. "Which option do you think is the right one?" he queried. Driving along Keith Wilson road, Mt. Cheam out there in the distance, I asked myself "why does it always have to be a dialectic, an either/or argument?" By now, we should realize that these polarities never come together.

I came home and walked up to my cow. I gave him some bread and scratched the powerful muscles along his jawline. He will end up in someone's freezer a few months from now. And hopefully those who receive nourishment from this animal will pause and give thanks for the sacrifice which is sustaining them in this life.

On The Objectification Of Animals And The Putrefaction Of The Human Soul

2011-02-28T11:01:00.000-08:00

Years ago, when Marlene and I were first married, we drove to Seattle to visit Karl and Pam. Karl was a buddy I met while skiing in Austria. We hit it off - two peas in a pod. And when we both got married, our wives liked each other. Bonus! During this particular visit, we went to a Pentecostal church on Sunday. They were rumoured to have some of the best choirs in the city, so me being a choral fanatic thought this would be too good to miss. And my, was it worth it.

This was one of those mega-churches. As we entered the foyer, we realized that we were about to enjoy a cross-cultural experience too, since we were the only four caucasians in the entire place. Some ushers walked up to us, and deftly and with great flair, showed us to some seats. The ushers all wore white gloves and I say 'great flair' because it was like a ritualistic usher-dance (later, during the announcements we learned that the ushers were going to a National Usher's conference somewhere in the Lower 49).

When the choirs started singing, the congregation lit up (not cigarettes - energy). Kid's choir, youth choir, adult choir, Hammond organ. The kid's choir could probably sing better than my home church choir. There was a six year-old who did a scat solo and I thought OMG (well, I actually thought the words as the acronym and internetspeak had yet to be invented). Ella Fitzgerald, look out. This went on for four hours. Shouting, screamin' from the pews, call and response, people fallin' all over the place, running to the front and jumping up and down. About three hours in, we realized why they had registered nurses waiting at the back of the church: some of the folk fainted, smacked heads - you name it. We left after four hours and there was no sign that the service was about to end. Man, this was belief and commitment to a cause.

Where am I going with this? Well, I just finished watching "Food, Inc" and my commitment to raise food ethically has been reaffirmed. Those African-Americans demonstrated real commitment to their beliefs. Really. Four hours for a service and there was no one who got up to leave - except us four. Watching "Food, Inc" was like watching footage from concentration camps in WWII - the sadness of those stories emboldens one to treat their fellow human with justice, with the hope that such terrible treatment of humans will never happen again.

I have never been so disgusted at the end of a film. Repulsed. Saddened. Fearful. People, we need to start a movement. This is your call from the small farm evangelist. Gather the believers and spread the word. Corporate control of food is one of the most dangerous aspects of our current cultural scene. If you haven't seen this film, you must. There are no fear tactics, no apocalyptic warnings and no "Sign up now and for $35.95 we'll send you a week's supply of vegetarian supplements." The message of the film is actually quite simple: our food supply is becoming a commodity, the property of multinationals who are being given power by lawmakers to patent seeds/foods and prosecute farmers who don't comply. They don't care a whit about your health. All they care about is profit. It was Orwellian to watch; it is almost like National Socialism is taking over the agricultural world. Case in point: multinationals have teams of private investigators who literally spy on farmers, a kind of secret police who will bankrupt you if you don't play by their rules. Perhaps there's a Lubyanka out there in the hinterlands of Ohio filled with files detailing the lives of recalcitrant farmers who want nothing more than to simply live without fear and provide food for people.

Of the many sad and disheartening aspects of this film, the most poignant for me was the footage secretly taken inside CAFO's and slaughter plants. I say 'secret' because these companies will not allow any photography or reporters within their walls. The animals are treated without any modicum of respect, compassion or consideration: they are simply inputs to be killed, cut up, packaged and trucked to your store. In my short time on the farm here, I have begun to understand and recognize when animals display what we might call 'fear' or panic. This was plainly evident in the film, especially in the footage of the cow killing plant.

Cattle are benign, shy, almost like big dogs. We've got one here that has a real personality. When he first arrived, he flew out of the cattle trailer like a demon on fire. Russ, our hauler, was not a happy camper. He said that he'd never seen a beast so wild and dangerous. "Oh great" I thought. All we need is another wild crazy animal on our farm. It took a few weeks for this fellow to begin to trust us. Gradually he began to follow the other cattle when Walt or I called them to "break bread" together. He was always a back bencher (sounds like me these days...), one of those who are not sure about this particular ritual, but he would (reluctantly) take bread when it flew his way.

A few months have past. He's the only mature cattle left on the farm. The calves love this guy. They crowd around him and do the nuzzle thing. I think he's embarassed. But. A few days ago, I called him to eat and he lumbered over. Usually, he's waiting by the gate, just like a big dog. So on this day, I began talking low and slow, softly. I started scratching his head - he wasn't too happy about this public display of affection, but the lure of tasty bread was too strong and he didn't back away. I started rubbing his ears and under his eyes. He stayed stock still. Yeah, his head swayed slowly, but even after I'd stopped feeding him he took the scratching and rubbing. I was amazed. This guy is well over 1000 pounds, and there he stood, glorious musky breath perfuming the air - was he purring?

My thoughts returned to Food, Inc., and the deplorable conditions that humans create for animals. What does this say about us? I'm preaching to the choir, so I might as well cease.

A few days ago, a feed driver came to drop off corn. He said that our farm was unusual. "How so" we asked? He said that, in contrast to other farms, our animals walk towards us, and don't run away from us. "Hmm...." I thought to myself. Could it be because our animals don't have any reason to fear us? After work today, I'm going to go scratch my cow's ears. Feed him some bread, too. And give thanks for the few farmers out there who are still practicing husbandry, that beautiful archaic word the implies respect, care and well-being for our creatures.

Mid February Ramblings...

2011-02-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

There's very little humidity in the air: my hands are sandpaper once again, wrinkled prunes, more like my dad's than mine? It's interesting how every detail of your hand and fingerprints stand out in sharp relief. My skin is saying "Please fix this. We don't like it."

Yes, it is darn cold again. But, schlepping water on days like today means the sun is out. Sure, the wind might bite your nose off, but at least you'll see the sun when your cartilage cracks. I had to drive to the PetroCan today - about a 15 minute tractor ride. We don't have a diesel tank on the farm, so each time I need diesel, I drive to the station. Today it was like sticking my head in a freezer, just because I could... Even though I have what looks like a WWII airman's fur hat, my chin and neck took the brunt. What little heat of the sun that found its way through the atmosphere couldn't compete with the arctic outflow we're experiencing.

There were nine eagles in the back poplar today. Yes, nine. They're hungry. There's no more salmon in the rivers, so it's back to mooching from the farmers. The farm is spotless now - that is, there are no dead bits of anything, anywhere. The eagles are like great feathered vacuums, circling, diving, grabbing and eating. I threw a few dead chickens on the dirt pile out back. Nothing left but a few feathers. There's one particular juvenile that lands on the manure barn gate. He sits and looks. I think that maybe he's eaten one of the black cats. I've only seen two and they're hanging pretty close to me these days.

Jake came by today. He's our Paraguayan friend. He is a fount of practical knowledge and do-it-yourself horse-sense. He always brings his maté which means it's time to sit, talk and enjoy some tea. He took one look at our brooding area and said, in his broken English mixed with low-German "You're birds are going to all die tonight. I'll be right back." Gadzooks! Nostradamus? Sure enough, twenty minutes later he returned with 1x2 strapping and more heat lamps. Within a half-hour we enclosed the entire area in plastic and even built a door. Of course, it was all so simple. I had already devised a plan to do this before Jake arrived, but I'm so glad he showed up because what I had envisioned was much more complicated. It would have been more like St. Peter's basilica in Rome...

Matt is coming for a visit today. Matt was a student of mine a lifetime ago. We went to Europe together on choir tours (me the leader, he the follower), I taught him in innumerable classes, we probably drank a few hundred gallons of coffee together at Starbucks but most importantly, we have been (since graduation) more like brothers. We both have a pile of defecation to work through - I'm ahead of him because I'm 25 years older (and that means I have less time to work through it because statistically speaking, I should die before him - but he smokes like a chimney so the odds could be in my camp).

There are folk in this world who become a soul friend, and it's rarely a planned arrangement. Gerry would be one of those. I haven't seen him in four, nearly five years, but when I see him at his wedding on Iona this July, the passage of time won't have mattered. I'm sure we'll walk on one of the ancient paths, place ourselves among the raiment of souls who have walked before us, and delve into a topic of mutual interest (it usually has to do with saving the world). Matt is another such person. He is, in a word, transparent. In fact, so transparent you might even see right through him (which would be quite the feat if you knew his girth...).

Do you have folk with whom this is no need for pretense and in whom there is no guile? Friends like that are an oasis to be treasured, especially when you have walked through a parched and barren landscape yourself.

Coffee's done; oatmeal bowl empty. There's no more delaying. Time to schlepp water. But as I discovered yesterday, the help of a Massey Ferguson 1534 has made the task so much easier. In fact, I was so thankful yesterday, I said a small prayer of thanks for Mr. Massey, that genius who figured out how to make an 'iron horse'. No, that's a train. 'Iron cow'? I don't know. But you know what I mean.

Thanks Mr. Massey, and all your progeny out there.

It's Official: I'm A Half-Century Old

2011-02-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

Marlene must really love me a lot...

Today is the day. On February 17, 1961 the the cosmos was irreversibly shattered as the time-space continuum (my mother's womb) was ripped open and my screaming voice was heard, for the first time, at the MSA Hospital. 1961. That sounds like a few years ago. It's like when I was a kid and people would say they were born in 1930 and you'd go "whoa... you are one old dude." I am now that dude. Fifty years young. The benchmark. The big one. Whatever. How do I put this into perspective. When my dad was 50, I was six. Hmm... I'm 50 and my boys are 21, 17 and 17. When my brother Bob turned 50, I was 36 and naively thought 50 was a looooong way away. I gave him 50 pounds of oatmeal to keep him regular until retirement. Everyone was moved by my kindness...

I don't know if turning 50 was a big deal when my parents turned this corner. I don't think so. Our society has made birthday's a big deal - not altogether an altruistic move, most likely related to gift giving and economics. Hey, I'm not complaining. Marlene gave me a 16 year old bottle of Lagavulin. It's a beautiful single malt. It sort of tastes like a burning tire. It's the perfect malt on a cold winter's eve. Thanks babe.

For sure there's some significance in marking another decade. Of course, one could say that a decade was marked yesterday as well, but the point of a birthday is that the decade marked is related to you. You're that special someone. Turning 50 was very different from turning 40. When I turned 40, I had just returned to teaching after the most glorious sabbatical at UBC. It was the year my political fire lit the fuse of depression (just think of the beginning of Mission Impossible and you've got the idea). I can remember coming home after work, seeing all the cars on the street and thinking "man, someone is having a party around here". It never occurred to me that the party was at our place. It was balm to a damaged soul, to see so many good friends and family altogether in one place. Marlene truly surprised me. There were lots of good wishes, loud conversation - man, you could feel the love.

The kids were, well, they were children. Eli was 11 and Ethan and Noel were 7. Such a different stage of life. This eve, we went for a sushi celebration and I looked at my boys, now young men. Eli is madly in love with a young darling fellow thespian, Noel finds computers more attractive and Ethan, well, Ethan is ready to take the world head on - at anything. Marlene is a VP. Mom has died. Dad's gone from an active 84 year-old to a very tired old man. Great-grandchildren have arrived, my siblings are all grandparents and I am on a farm.

My day was like most other days, I guess. Up at 7:00 a.m. (to surprise toast in bed from Ethan) and off to the barns to do some early morning chores, then drive to the Grill for a five hour shift. Melanie, Laurie and Olivia were working today (I always get to work with the most beautiful women of Yarrow...) and these three new friends were so welcoming and all smiles and laughter and Olivia (the world's most capable 18 year-old) made me what had to be the world's most scrumptious gooey chocolate chip cookie (too many superlatives, sorry). Half-way through the day Walt showed up, all smiles as well, to announce that our chicks were arriving tomorrow - three weeks earlier than anticipated. So much for a lazy afternoon...

So I came home and fed birds and calves and chickens and lambs. I had some tractor therapy time in the late afternoon sun, scraping tons of pigeon-crap-now-topsoil away from the barns (I'm tired of slogging through mud every time I need to feed). My thoughts were drawn to this time ten years ago. Could I ever have envisioned such a different future? From desk to Massey Ferguson? Never. There I sat on my Massey, all smelly and dirty, slogging through muck and mud, four-wheels spinning, hydraulics pumping, me bouncing up and down on the seat, Peanut lying on the grass snoozing, the lone Hereford waiting patiently for corn. New snow in the hills, too. What will the next ten bring? There's no use in forecasting, 'cause as I've learned out here you never really know what the weather will do until it arrives.

Lots of miracles have kept us going this long. Daily, those small serendipitous moments that bring life continue to arrive unannounced, like Lumen jumping on your lap when you're half asleep. Like tonight. I went to the cashier to pay for dinner and Eli jumped the queue and PAID FOR DINNER. I almost never use all-caps, but this warrants it. Now that was a gift (and a small miracle, too), because I know what his bank account looks like.

Man, I'm a fortunate fifty.

Who Finishes Last, And Why?

2011-02-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

John Wayne was a man's man. But thanks to the internet's fount of knowledge named "Google" the mystique around this movie idol is quickly dispelled when you learn his real name: Marion Morrison. Go figure.

When I was a kid, John Wayne movies were all the rage, especially the Saturday afternoon western. Wayne invariably wore the white hat - my first lesson in semiotics, whose adversary wore the black hat - my second lesson in semiotics. There you have it: ancient archetypes right alongside of Adam, Eve and the serpent. As the good guy, Wayne always won - even if he was mortally wounded. You just knew that the bad guy would get his comeuppance, if not now then in the future. Wayne was immortal, immutable, eternal (all the qualities of a good deity, by the way) thanks to the miracle of 35mm film.

Wayne was a magician with a six-shooter and he never missed. Justice always prevailed at the end of his revolver. Even when he got shot (not mortally), he never faded. He just got up and kept going. Heroically. Majestically. This has become known as "taking a Wayne" (according to an episode of CSI: Las Vegas), albeit purely fictitious as any kind of gunshot would leaves the recipient incapable of moving, no matter what we thought when we watched Wayne in "The Sands of Iwo Jima." While it was good propaganda for the US war machine, it really doesn't play reality very well. I know this because today I had to put down a calf. This has to be one of the most wretched experiences of my life. No amount of university education could prepare me for this.

We've got (or we had) four calves who came from a local auction house. Three black and one blond. Blond was not destined to live long. He drank well the first few days, but gradually succumbed to illness, even with the aid of antibiotics and TLC. I put up heat lamps, put a thick rubber mat on the floor, changed the shavings, kept him dry but after three days he could no longer stand up. This morning his breathing was laboured. His head hung low. Behind him was a lake of stool. He was clearly dying. Buying animals at the auction is risky business because there are unscrupulous people out there who, instead of giving a calf a few days of colostrum - basically an elixir of life at the start of their lives - they'll sell them straightaway to get a few more bucks and well, what's the rush anyways? Maybe there's a black market for colostrum at some back alley farmer's market in east Van. I cursed the seller who gave this fellow no chance.

Carrying the rifle to the back of the barn, I felt like an executioner about to deliver the final blow. I was the executioner. How could one human do this to another, I wondered. In my imagination swirled the many images read and seen (in movies) of people who've died at the hand of others. How deceptively sterile those images are. I don't know why this death was so hard to deliver. Every week I have to kill pigeons that are wounded, sick beyond recovery, or who have been pecked to near death. Is it a matter of mass? Is it because the calf was a mammal who sucked milk from a bottle and when waiting for his turn would gnaw on my thumb?

Blond's death was nothing like the cinematic fabrication that Wayne repeated hundreds of times. It was sad and needless.

Blond and the Three Blacks (Blaze, Big Flash, Little Flash). Are some people destined to finish last? Or not at all? The day they arrived, Blond had very little drive to fight for the bottle. It was, and still is Blaze who drives for the nipple as aggressively as a shark to meat. Next comes Little Flash who fights Big Flash but always wins out. And patiently at the back stood blond, waiting, unable (for some reason) to fight, to push ahead, to literally step on others to survive. The Three Blacks excel at the latter.

I think there are humans like Blond.

Where Everybody (Might Just Learn) Your Name...

2011-01-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Since leaving my regalia of polyester robes and university 8x10 statements of achievements behind (my, I don't even know where my UBC degree papers are...) I have been privileged to make the acquaintance of folk I would ordinarily never meet. Take the five or six old farts that meet at the Grill every morning to play cards. There's a couple old farmers, a salesman or two (one of them cusses like a sailor - even makes me blush), a local pastor (a Cribbage card-shark, I might add), and a builder. This is the core. Every morning, I take out 'Silver Tea' (hot water - too cheap to buy coffee for a buck - must be the German...), Green Tea (pastor), half decaffeinated/half hot water, toast (Gerry the diabetic who never has jam anymore with his toast because Laurie has blasted him about sugar quite a few times), coffee (an old guy who sits hunched over the paper and never plays cards) and then a few more coffees (one for he who hurls expletives expertly and another guy who is always smiling - definitely a rare breed at this table). That's table 12.

Ev owns a beautiful B&B. Winters are slow, so she often comes in and reads the paper. She likes table 4 so she can look out at the mountains and all the folk walking on the street. She is a decaf lady, so she always gets a fresh pot (decaf is coffee from Reza - the secret is out). She is quiet, elegant, genuine and graceful. This, I have come to observe, is a reflection of here B&B. She kind of embodies the qualities of her home.

At table 8, Jim comes every morning with Rob. Jim's a kind of caregiver. Rob has a degenerative disease - it sort of looks like Hodgkin's. Every morning, Rob has a Coke while Jim sips his decaff (no cream). Rob is almost non-verbal, but his brain I'm told, is all there. It's the kind of disease where one day you're normal and the next day you're not. Rob is the foil to the grumpy old men, who with their faculties complete, have a hard time showing the courtesy Rob has mustered up every morning. A few days ago Rob came in with another ``caregiver`` (I use the term loosely). This guy had a board up his rear end. He sat at the opposite end of the table, reading the paper. I brought Rob his Coke, which was promptly spilled. I was in the kitchen getting other stuff, when I looked up to see Rob, in his contorted posture, getting the words "sorry", "spilled", and "napkin" to come out. I came out and there was Caregiver 2, just sitting a reading. OK!!! Wrath of Moses thundering down from Mt. Sinai here we come. Muffle from mouth to brain, please work. Invective, sarcasm, some scathing comments bubbled up to the surface, like a belch, ready to explode, and thankfully all that came out was "are you here to sit and read the paper?" This little fart took umbrage and with his sullen sulky face managed to form the words "And what's that supposed to mean?" Dude. Do you really want to get into a war of words with me? Never get involved with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Remember that quote? Well, never get involved with an academic when words are on the line. This past week his behavioral choices have changed...

Gilbert usually sits at table 1. He recognized me from high school. My goodness, do I look that similar to my age 17 Doppelgänger? And Gil was a year behind me, so that made it even more perplexing. But when he put the pieces of the puzzle together the first time he came in and greeted me (my puzzler got sore when he said ``Hey Tony``) my facial recognition software gradually put the name to his face. He comes in often, with friends or his wife Marianne. Gil can drink more coffee than a camel can water. I've mentioned to Laurie that perhaps we should set up an intravenous line for some of these guys. Gil is soft-spoken, just like I remember him and occasionally I hear him talking with folks whom I gather, he and his wife are helping - more than just financially.

Then there`s this guy who who has the grace (and face) of a grizzly bear, who brings along friends whose language echoes through the cafe - spicy enough to blow heat through the walls. No inside voice on these guys. Yesterday, his friend (first timer) said ``This is the best breakfast I`ve ever had and I`m not blowing any smoke up your ass.`` End of quote. Not usually one to be taken aback by anyone`s description of our food, I stood gobsmacked and rummaged around mentally for some sort of rejoinder, but none arrived. I was mute. Mom would have been proud.

But the real joy is a couple of later middle-aged women who come in, always at table 6, and they always order the same food. Yesterday it was a clubhouse (multigrain) with a salad - and then they shared a pot of Earl Grey. They sit for hours and talk non-stop. Unlike Grizzly No-Tipper and his Foul-Mouthed Friend, these two have perfected the art of hushed, quiet, non-intrusive conversation. They are always smiling, are incredibly polite and seem very thankful. Yesterday, they came in at 11 a.m. and stayed until closing. I remarked to them about the luxury of lazy lunches and conversation and they smiled, remarking that retirement does have its privileges.

Ah, retirement. For Marlene it`s only eight years away. Now me, I`m a farmer - without quota. We`ll probably be here until the Man with the Scythe shows up. You can come and visit my plot. I was going to put on my gravestone ``Boring: Never Left Home.`` But since I`ve moved 15 minutes east of my birthplace I`ll have to rethink that. My dad has the best of all: ``We knew this would happen.`` I could always use mom`s favorite saying: ``It could always be worse.``

Anyways, I digress once more. The Grill is a becoming a community of sorts, a place where people can come and for a few hours, work through difficulties with friends, or engage in soul-satisfying conversation. Am I the priest? I've not taken any confessions lately but some people will open up to you if you give them some time. Hmmm...a kind of culinary ecclesia complete with real food that is good for the soul.

And you know, there was a certain Galilean carpenter who, a few thousand years ago, discovered that when people eat together, all sorts of miraculous things can happen.

On the Purging Of Mice And The Efficacy Of The Feline Predator

2011-01-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

One of the plagues that Moses forgot to mention was the plague of mice. Forget water to blood, flies, boils - mice trumps them all. Mice are the scourge of any farm for they're worse than rats. Worse in the sense that they can hide almost anywhere. Give them 1/2 inch of space and they can have a party. They tunnel just as good as moles so if there's more than 1 inch of shit on the floor, they can create the NYC subway system in no time flat. And for mice, the pièce de résistance are those parts of the barn that the previous builders created: those big open spaces underneath the bottom row of nests, a veritable Shangri-La of feathers, dust, feathers and dust. Its like 1000 count sheets. And this is where the little bastards have been breeding like rabbits. Actually, in comparison to mice, rabbits are quite lackadaisical. Its hard to imagine rabbits being slackers in this departments.

This past week I've been Conan the Destroyer in barn 1. I'm tired of the mice. Sometimes, when you open a feeder they'll be so many they'll pop up at you like a Jack-In-The-Box. It's unnerving - even if you are 6'2" and 220 pounds. I now know why elephants get the bad rap. It must be an inverse weight ratio problem: the lighter the vermin the more extreme reaction from the heavier observer. With the amount of pie I've been eating at the Grill I'm well on my way to pachyderm proportionality.

Since we're trying to be environmentally responsible (sure, one box of poison kept off our farm will make a big difference, right?) we've basically abandoned poisons. Yeah, I've seen some three-headed mice and a few that even genuflected when I opened the feeder (early religious development? A question for anthropologists...) but poison is ineffective. It would be like trying to hold back a flood with a beach bucket. Hence the time of destruction. Mice are more adaptable than Shape Shifters on Star Trek.

You may recall that a few months back Laurie dropped off three black cats. These were the first group of cats since the previous generation was, ahem, removed from the farm for capital crimes against pigeons. The new crop of kittens have acclimatized to humans fabulously: they follow us around, doing figure-eighths through my legs, begging for food, cream and anything else they might be able to eat. In fact, I might just trip over one soon and 'pull a Walter'. "Hey Walt! Broke my arm! Tripped on a cat!!"

These cats have also demonstrated why they have survived a millennia or two while other species haven't: they are very adaptable. Probably why they lived through Moses' plagues... They have very quickly figured out that when the humans go to the barns, mice come flying through doorways. Its a kind of "groceries to your door" program. They've become very good at waiting patiently. Yes, cats can sit very still. Imagine a lion on the Serengeti and you're the mouse...

A few weeks ago, one of the black beauties decided to come into a pigeon pen with me. My first reaction was 'SHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT - he's gonna eat the squab!' I bent over and gently threw him out. No sooner had I turned around and the little guy ran back through my legs, into the pen and then sat very still next to an empty nest box. OK Tony, use that hermeneutical method you learned at Regent College so long ago: observe, interpret, apply. Observation: the cat is not interested in pigeons. Hmm... I thought cats loved to eat birds. Interpretation: cats eat that which they become accustomed to. I've been chucking mice to cats ergo cats want more mice. ("Not a problem", I'm thinking to myself) Application: bring cats inside pens when feeding and manuring out.

Back to Conan. In my zeal to destroy mouse habitat, I brought the cats with me inside the pens. It was amazing. All three, dashing hither and yon, an embarrassment of riches - a veritable movable feast - lay before their beady green eyes. It was an amusing diversion to the monotony of shite removal. And yes, they quickly demonstrated a prowess handed down over their many years of evolutionary development. These three (I can't hold it back...) mouseketeers have become honorary knights of the table-saw, granted free access to the realm and all mice therein.

After about 1/2 hour of this madness their reaction time slowed and it became a kind of drunken-stumbling "Hey Porthos! There's another one...!" with a swipe of the claw, a miss, a tumble and a cat laugh. Yes, they were stuffed. When I picked one up to take out of the pen, his stomach was firm, round, and should I say wiggling?

The Christmas Kiss

2011-01-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

Inside of every grown man there is a little boy. As sure as I'm sitting here, that boy is there. That boy is irrevocably linked to his father - whether you like it or not. Sure, the little boy may be disenfranchised or alienated from his father, or separated by thousands of miles and maybe even the father has long died. But the tie is there. The tie goes way beyond shared DNA or experiences under the same roof. It is something primal, wild, unknowable yet very intimate. Kind of like Aslan.

My father came from a different time and place. In fact, he might as well have come from another planet when one considers the trajectory of our lives. Birthed onto a dirt floor, dad's life in Russia was pretty much like his dad's and his grandfather's: horse-drawn farm implements, a well for water, not much by way of medicine, no electricity. I know something about his physical life, but his emotional life remains a mystery.

Dad has always been a quiet person - or so he was during my years of childhood. My sister Irm (a mere 17 years older than me) has a different story and the father she grew up with and the father I grew up with were seemingly two different people (sort of like a well aged single malt compared with Bell's - the former mellow and well-aged, the latter more like fire-water, edgy....well, you get the idea). If I think of my dad as a 25 year-old Highland Park, I would say the metaphor really works: he was smooth (no edges - a greater amount of patience in his later middle years), a beautiful color (his years of experiences were such that he was content and happy), and the taste, incomparable (he was generous, kind and has always thought of others, first).

Dr. J introduced me to single malt during my sabbatical in 2000. I had gone decades without even knowing aquavitae was available. I can remember my first taste: it was love at first sip. The complexity (of the individual fragrances) and the simplicity (a liquid Gestalt of perfection) were what attracted me, I think. A duality not in competition - how unlike western society and the underlying notion of dialectical antagonism. Imagine, perfect unity found in a drink... I might even be able to develop a theology of the Trinity if given enough time...

Back to dad. Now there's a mixture of complexity and simplicity. There is so much of his mind and memory that I've never been able to access. I remember trying to get him to talk about life in Russia, but he'd always circumnavigate the conversation. It's like either there were painful memories or he was just not interested. But to a boy whose father came from another country there was (and still is) unfulfilled curiosity. There were the odd and infrequent times when he would talk about life in his village (eating strawberries with his grandfather - my great-grandfather - a merry and gentle soul he remembered) or his ill-fated foray into chewing tobacco (and swallowing, not spitting) and the consequential volcanus eruptus. Now that was a story he liked to tell.

Even as a child I could sense that dad had a closed side that would never be accessed. I may not have had the words for it and I surely couldn't have expressed it in a cogent or articulate fashion. With some people there are doors to their imaginations which just can't be opened. I have a couple of friends like that - I see them often, we talk, we laugh, but who are they really? The doors are tightly guarded and sealed against any potential breech.

When I was still a child (chronologically....) and we lived on the farm, there was one particular Christmas eve where after opening a gift I had the inner compulsion to give my dad a kiss. I can't remember what the gift was: it wasn't a motor bike, rifle, Meccano set or a barrel of Lego. Whatever it was has long since evaporated into the dark recesses of my mind (somewhere between Gesualdo and Walter auf der Vogelweide...). But I'll never forget getting up off the floor and walking towards dad and putting my arms around his broad shoulders. And in the silence of the moment I leaned towards him and expressed my love as only a child can, with only that which I had - myself.

I've always been drawn to this picture. It has become, I believe, a portal to former times, like a document that one takes out of a safety deposit box decades after it was first put away. At its time of deposit, its meaning was understood on a basic level. But with the passing of time, that symbol of affection has grown just as I have. Looking back now, I think the kiss was a child's way of acknowledging a parent's frailties, insecurities, or even inabilities to open up one's life in a fuller, less translucent way. Unlike Judas' kiss of betrayal my kiss was one of acceptance or of understanding. Dad, after all, is just a guy like me, a guy who tried to give life to his kids as best as he could, with what he had.

Merry Christmas dad. And thanks for the memories.

When Marking Territory Is A Good Thing

2010-12-28T23:20:00.000-08:00

Seventeen years ago today, my life changed forever.
Twenty-six years ago tomorrow, my life changed forever.

I find it interesting how humans have created markers to remember certain events in their lives. Its the significance of passing from one time to another. In the ancient near east, travelers would often pass an effigy of that country's monarch as they moved between borders. We create mental markers - equal to the physical ones - and sometimes refer to different stages as 'seasons'. These remind us that we are not immortal but like the grass of the field, will one day wither and fade away. Morbidity aside, who would we be without such events - these reliquaries within our minds - but aimless wanderers, nomads without any sense of place, belonging or home.

I've come to observe that we have these cycles on the farm, too. Cycles of birth, death, reproduction. Speaking of reproduction... allow me to digress. Lumen/Visa Card - our newest indoor money-sucking ball of fur - decided last week that, at the age of seven months - it was time to 'go into heat.' Or should we say, nature decided that it was time for the clock to strike. Oh heavens. What an ordeal. As you may remember, we have a neutered male in the house - a cat that is - whose name is Cap'n Pants. For the entire week we were treated to an elaborate ritual of seduction and confusion. This dance far exceeded my experience with Thigh Master (you may recall the attempted seduction of yours truly blogged about months ago...). In fact, we should contact School District 34 and ask them if they'd like to use Lumen for their sex-ed curriculum.

It was as if Lumen was possessed of a spirit, the spirit of 'must reproduce.' This possession transformed a cute little kitty into a raging monster - the spirit of Delilah channeling through her. Only her Samson - our Cap'n - was unable to reciprocate. She followed Pants around the house, a relentless pursuit of yowling, chirping, meowing, purring, falling on the floor. Let me paint the scenario: Lumen is on the floor, rear end flying high in the air, tail pulled to one side (did you know that cats have an opposable tail?) her entire rear apparatus a heat-seeking missile with a permanent lock on Cap'n Pants. He on the other hand, had no idea what was going on and would walk the opposite direction with a kind of 'what do you want from me' look, complete innocence and confusion due to his lack of batteries. Lumen was unceasing in her attempt to get him to perform but his befuddlement and bewilderment would not abate. He would often seek refuge on top of my music cabinets in the garage. We put Lumen in the garage for the rest of the week. And Pants in the house. Thankfully, her season of reproductive madness is over - permanently - thanks to Dr. Mark and his team of veterinary assistants.

Speaking of other cycles, this time of disease on the farm is beginning to taper off but I fear the damage may be something we can't reverse. Animals are remarkably resilient (almost as much as the enlightened despots of 17th century France...) but when the drive to reproduce ceases and they go into 'let's just eat today Velma and forget the rest' one enters a period of 'cash-flow crap-shoot.' Perhaps Walt could roll some snake-eyes tomorrow.

We've come and gone through solstice - another marker of the natural order - and everything within the old brain is shouting 'Yes! The days are getting longer.' So what if its only a minute or two a day. The fact is is that winter is slowly losing its grasp.

But today - seventeen years ago - our lives were forever changed as two bundles of screaming joy found their place on planet earth. Ethan and Noel were born. And then, let's not forget, that tomorrow is the day Marlene and I were married - twenty-six complete revolutions of the earth around the sun. The day we were married was cold and snowy. Marlene wore yellow gum-boots to the church. Sexy. We were young, starry-eyed, ignorant and broke - the perfect conditions for a good marriage. And now - at this moment in time - I can look back and place myself within a long chain of circuitous events that have somehow led me/us to this place.

When I think of all the people who have played a role in this trek (dare I say odyssey?) I see people who have functioned as light-houses (brother Dave who, in his infinite wisdom, finally broke through my fog and convinced me of my impending death should I remain teaching....), others as pieces of a puzzle that led me to unseen vistas (like Dr. J at UBC who in his dogged determination created a program for me), more who were steps that guided my feet (my youth leader Al) and some who were doors, doors that would open up opportunities (like Communitas and the West Coast Mennonite Chamber Choir) or close with wisdom I could not conjure (I almost became a youth pastor in a previous life - my, but that would have been a disaster of epic proportions...).

Today I celebrate the birth of children; tomorrow the birth of a union. These relationships are the soil of my life, you might say. My life is acted out upon real soil with folk whose physical essence is of the same origin. We're just a bunch of dirt-bags... (Sorry - couldn't resist). Just like working on a farm and trying to make it a fertile place, these relationships echo the rhythms of nature and nature itself: kids can be pretty hard soil to crack, that's for sure. But given love and care, they become lush fields, healthy and (hopefully) ready to give back and nurture others (some day). We're still waiting for that Christmas miracle to happen.

During those sleepless nights with our twins and as a consequence those zombie-like days (I can remember Noel sleeping on my chest at six months and thinking 'Only twelve more months of sleepless nights...') Marlene and I endured a dry and parched time where our first significant conversation occurred when the twins were nine months old. I can remember sitting outside, all three boys in the sandbox, Marlene next to me, and we looked at each other and began to stumble towards conversation (without a diaper in one hand and a bottle in the other).

The farm is showing me that this is the way things are. Sometimes your birds die, despite your best intentions. And other times, things flourish in spite of what you may or may not have done. There is no straight line to the right answer and the perfect solution. There is no linear progression because things don't consistently get better any more than our grass is always growing greener and stronger. Things change, morph, evolve, digress, regress and then the cycle happens again. I'm not looking for 'better' anymore. I think I'm looking for a gleam of sun during the rainy season, or perhaps a cessation of disease - or learning to live with disease. You know, there's always disease in the barns - healthy animals are those who have learned to live with or through illness. I believe that could be a lesson for me, too.

And tonight, those infants are with their friends, yakking in the room across the hall, laughing, playing together - thinking that life is an endless stream of Sunday afternoons. And that's OK. I think you bank those memories in order to pull them out in the future. Call them 'memory cash.' And tomorrow, Marlene and I will look at each other, wonder where the time has gone, hold each other and contemplate another miracle of a year together.

In optimism that some would say is uncharacteristic of me, let me say, spring is coming.

What More Could Be Said About Christmas, You Might Ask?

2010-12-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of competition out there today. December 24th: the Golden Day for retail, that day where shopkeepers hope that our drive to accumulate stuff makes us do the unthinkable and keep that plastic swiping; the Big Day for churches the world over, the day when all sorts of strange sights pop up on church lawns and in sanctuaries, from sheep walking frantically down centre isles, to live creches with someone's baby enduring damp weather and a host of people in dressing gowns attempting to look middle-eastern; the Night Before for kids whose eyes have been bedazzled by the Sears catalogue with its glossy displays, a kind of toy-porn meant to hook kids into harassing their parents until they relinquish and buy them that newest plastic crap from China (just a wee testimony from my childhood....); the Whatever Day for the many folk who find this syncretistic blend of consumerism and religion just too much to bear (a beautiful example would be my statue of Santa bowing down to baby Jesus) and who hide out in their caves until its safe to go to the grocery store once more; the Holiday Greetings day for those who bow to the power of the Political Correctness machine, because we shouldn't say Christmas anymore... Well, a very large 'Bah Humbug!' to that.

Rod came to the Grill yesterday. In his pajamas. Well, pajama bottoms and conventional clothes up top. He's a regular. His daughter washes dishes on the weekend - she's a thirteen-year-old powerhouse who drinks coffee! Rod is a small business owner who runs a pizza place. He's having a tough time because his franchise, so he told me, is using marketing tactics that imply high quality pizza, but when you taste it you know its medium-low. But the price is gourmet. His sales are hurting and he's basically powerless to do anything because the Big Kahuna at Head Office controls those marketing kinds of decisions. When he left, I cleaned up his dishes and went on my merry way. About an hour later, he returned, looking all sheepish. I asked him "what's up?" He explained he forgot to leave a tip. "Big deal Rod!" was my response. I don't look for regular tips from regulars, or anyone for that matter. I like to serve regulars because they are folk you can easily chat with. In response he hauled out a twenty and said "Merry Christmas, Tony." I was a tad taken aback. He had, after all, eaten a $10 breakfast. "Rod," I said "that's just a tad excessive." Without missing a beat, he looked me straight in the eye and said "That's what Christmas is about." And with that, he touched his nose and rose up the chimney...

Now, I know Rod isn't a materialistic freak, so what did he mean? It took about 5 seconds to figure out: giving, sharing, helping others - its a gift. Giving always comes with a price for whether its of your time, somethings you've made, help you've given to others - whatever - it has demanded something of you, the giver. I don't know if Rod is loaded or struggling to make ends meet. I don't think that matters. What was significant about our encounter was his genuine enjoyment of giving something to someone else. This got me thinking...

We have a freezer full of meat: pork roast, pork chops, pork steaks, bacon, ham and then there's the beef complete with T-bones, sirloin, roasts, hamburger and let's not forget the chickens and the ducks. There's no way our family and Walt's family will ever be able to eat all this meat. So today, I loaded up my sleigh (a recent acquisition from my brother Bob - his 1999 Dodge pick-up), fired up my V8 full of reindeer and drove to different friends who I wanted to share this wealth with. Allow me to share a few highlights. My first stop was at Laurie's place. Laurie gives and gives and gives. Her heart is in her restaurant, she loves the place and what it means to her and her customers. I also know that her family is nuts about bacon. I have enough bacon to feed all of Greendale. I drove to her place to present her with some home-grown bacon, but she and Franklin were out shopping. Instead of visiting them, I had the pleasure of meeting Tom and Liz, Franklin's parents. We had coffee and talked about farming, the restaurant, life, Christmases past. In the background music was playing and Haley was busily trimming the first tree (another would soon be arriving). When I left, I came to realize that when you come to someone's home with a gift and you expect nothing in return, the hospitality meter goes way up.

I later drove to Abbotsford where I met my good friends Donovan and Christa, who have just had their fourth child. I had a big cooler full of all sorts of meat and the response when the door was opened was worth more than anything I could have ever sold those cuts for. Could we say "unbridled joy?" Even little Axton got in on the excitement and he began rambling on about "Hey Farmer Tony are you a pig?" He always calls me Farmer Tony. And he's barely four, I think. So, I made grunting and snorting sounds, and tickled his belly and there was laughter and joy. Donovan and I sat for a spell, enjoyed a glass of wine together and I listened carefully while he waxed eloquently about food as sustenance and not merely a consumptive act. He is after all, a real chef - not ersatz like me.

I spent most of the day driving around, playing Santa Meat. In retrospect, it felt very right giving people a gift that I had raised, fed, looked after; a gift that was pure and wholesome and had no nitrites, preservatives, chemicals or some other such crap within it. When I spoke with Liz about the meat, I unintentionally broke into a narrative about its past life - you know, when it had four legs and said 'oink'. "It enjoyed gallons of cream, and vegetables, garbanzo beans, lentils and clover and organic bread." Through the laughter I remembered another funny story about the pigs that I had to share. One summer morning I walked past barn five and looked out at the pigs. The sun was just over the southern hills and was already warming the air. Flies were slowly stirring wiping the sleep from their hundreds of eyes, to sleepy to avoid the early morning summer birds who were beginning their harvest of those same somnolent flies (!). But the most wonderful sight to see were the pigs, all lying together in their mud bath, half body in and half body out, all facing the eastern rising sun, eyes closed and were they grinning in contentment? This drew more laughter.

The festival that some call Christmas finds itself placed within a confusing arena of assumptions, expectations, excesses and disappointments. There's no need to begin a diatribe about our culture's interpretation of that story and where we find ourselves today. Let's leave that for others to write about. While some pooh-pooh the secularization of the Christmas story, it still can be found if you know where to listen for it. You'll often find it retold in still, tiny voices that rarely rise above the din that surrounds it. Like in A Charlie Brown Christmas, where the great underdog character Charlie Brown finally understands that Christmas doesn't have to be a day ruled by big eastern corporations. Then there's Theodore Geisel - a.k.a. Dr. Suess - who got it right and wrote as close a gospel paraphrase as one could when he told the story of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Do you remember that small miracle when, on Christmas morning, the Grinch - who after he stole every present in WhoVille - began to realize that Christmas perhaps didn't come from a store, but Christmas perhaps, means a little bit more. His heart did grow three sizes that day...

As Dr. Suess so rightly understood, Christmas is a story about selfless giving. Regardless of ones' religious or non-religious beliefs or their view of the world and their place in it, the Christmas story, at its barest - without any hint of proselytizing - is a story of sacrifice. Not the bloody 'let's kill a goat' kind of sacrifice but the 'how about giving of one's self without any thought of reciprocation' kind of sacrifice. To use that rare ancient Greek word once more, it's about kenosis - that uncommon kind of emptying of oneself for others (without any thought of reciprocation) with the paradoxical result that finds the giver being filled up.

And so we're back to Rod, my regular. Rod, the Grinch, and Charlie Brown. An unlikely Trinity of characters who reminded me that this is what this season (and hopefully our regular, daily lives) is about.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I Came So Far For Beauty

2010-12-17T22:04:00.000-08:00

LEONARD COHEN

"I Came So Far For Beauty"

I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
I thought I'd be rewarded
For such a lonely choice
And surely she would answer
To such a very hopeless voice
I practiced all my sainthood
I gave to one and all
But the rumours of my virtue
They moved her not at all...

This morning I drove the merry stretches of Highway 7, my eyes absorbed with the mountains dazzling in new fallen snow with the sky shyly emerging from its gray sleep. I was alone with my thoughts. Does grieving ever end, I wondered? Four years, I thought, its been four years since this transitional time in my life began, first with work-induced depression, then career atrophy, third a brush with Mr. Meningitis complete with his scythe and finally the move to farming. These changes have come with a cost that I'm now beginning to grasp. These are, I have discovered, primarily changes in the mind.

The mind is plastic, Marlene tells me, and it supposed to be able to heal itself (to a certain degree). To paraphrase a moniker from the Galilean carpenter, "Musician, heal thyself!" If it were only so simple. A friend and I were talking yesterday about Club Effexor and the benefits of membership. It was her opinion that I should wean myself off of these things. In my imagination, my mouth dropped open and I stared at her agog. Would a diabetic stop taking insulin, I thought to myself? Even the nurse practitioner who filled my prescription yesterday thought I should begin the weaning "when the sun starts shining." Suddenly everyone's an expert on mental illness? Say that like a New York Jew and you've got it just right.

My brain hurts. All the time. What kind of hurt? You'll know if you've ever been to the Club. Its not pain in the "pinch under your arm" sense. Its not like a headache just above the eye, stuck way back in the socket. A sprained ankle is painful, but not like this. What's it like? Its sort of like a cloud that hangs in suspension, blurring the vision just enough so that thinking through things is like peeking through a translucent window. And you can only look at the window with just a small part of your eyes, or make that one eye. The hurt is, in a sense, the inability to think as one was able to. Like today.

Every week I deliver milk and every week I manage to commit errors that in the past I normally wouldn't have. Like count, like think ahead, like remember to pick up the commercial invoices, or check the fax. Today I dumped the entire skid over on one side because I didn't negotiate the dock properly. I've loaded the truck hundreds of times. Why today? Then, there are dozens of number codes and I can only remember a handful - and those just barely. My mind is a number sieve. I'll read a number and in 5 seconds it is gone, evaporated, finito. When I came back to the farm after meningitis I could not remember which barn was #4 and #1. I know, scary. This "disability gift" from Mr. Meningitis drives me to madness and language that could curdle all the milk I'm delivering. It is enough to unhinge oneself.

So what exactly is wrong with my brain? Singing used to be an organic unity of will, intention and emotion. There was no mental wandering (unless singing for Butterball... another story yet to be told...), hesitation or inaccuracy. There was precision, direction and accuracy. But while singing Monteverdi this past summer I zoned in and out during a pivotal moment and actually lost my place. This has never happened to me before and believe you me, I was prepared.

This coming-to-terms-with-less-brain-than-you-once-had doesn't occur in isolation. It always surfaces in the here and now with the memories of life that once was. As I drove along deserted stretches of highway, I began to think about Leonard Cohen's song "I came so far for beauty." I hadn't heard this piece until I picked up Jennifer Warren's Famous Blue Raincoat. I was once a devoted student to Beauty. In fact, I have spent most of my life learning to unlock her secrets. Of course, we have many examples of those who have come before us who also sought her out: Michelangelo discovered her in stone and paint; Bach in the spun gold of music that emerged from his hands. I found glimpses of her in the artistry of words and sounds. These were fleeting glances, incomplete shapes discovered when "looking through a glass dimly." Sort of when you look into the eye of someone and the revelation seen there makes you turn away lest you be consumed within their depths. This is the way of Beauty. You can't catch her, hold her, or force her to do your bidding. All you can do is serve her.

Come to think of it, all I ever wanted to do was serve Beauty. In the days before the inertia of entropy began to take its toll through physical and mental disease, I thought I would always sit at her feet. It was a love-affair of purity and inevitability for as I became more aware of the gifts she had given me to find her, the more I committed myself in her service. Bach, in his St. Matthew passion, wrote in the bass aria Mache dich mein Herze rein (Lord, make my heart pure), "Ich will Jesus selbst begraben". Translated this means "I will bury myself in Jesus." This is an ancient idea Bach taps into, that the completeness of being is found in the service of something much larger than oneself.

These incarnations I now find myself a part of - farmer, waiter, milkman - have not yet provided a clarity of thinking to address the loss that I experienced, both in mental facility and my hand-in-hand relationship with Beauty. I know that you aren't what you do - you aren't defined by what your occupation is. I also know that these occupations are in and of themselves all service related. And, I also know that the discovery and pursuit of Beauty is not limited to music. But knowing with the head and knowing with the gut are two different things. Just ask your ancient near-eastern Hebrew - they knew all about that.

But the pursuit of Beauty, in the western world, comes at a cost, since the economies of power and certainty which hold Damocles sword over her head, are wielded by others. In another of Cohen's songs The Singer Must Die, he writes

And I thank you, I thank you for doing your duty,

you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty.

Your vision is right, my vision is wrong,

I'm sorry for smudging the air with my song.

There are many days I wake up and wish I could just move on from all of these questions. Perhaps, Marlene, you could wrap up all these questions and put them under the Christmas tree. I'll leave the box unopened and every year we can put the same present back under the tree - a Pandora's Box of Inquiry best left shuttered. Maybe the symbol of questions is enough to leave them unanswered.

Now there's an idea.

You Can Take The Actor Out Of The Classroom

2010-12-09T21:42:00.000-08:00

I've returned to my first love: acting. Don't anyone tell my son Eli! My stage is no longer a classroom, where waxing eloquently on weighty matters of theology, artistic creation and beauty, I would bedazzle and befuddle students with elocution, an international array of accents and my staggeringly original content. No. My stage is now a restaurant floor, my audience is the paying public and my character is a shape-shifter, capable of adapting to any patron at any time. Take today for example. One fellow couldn't believe I was wearing a Bowler hat and insisted I speak to him in an English accent. Whatever. Out came Geeves of "Geeves and Wooster".

Later that day...

A pretty young twenty-something came in with her friend. By pretty I don't mean "OMG why am I 50 and married 26 years." She was able to distinguish herself from others by the appropriate placement of make-up, the hair was well kept, and she clearly knew how to dress for her figure. So yes, pretty, pleasant - a Burrowing Owl, not a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. A few minutes later her boyfriend arrived (I can only guess this as evidenced by all sorts of non-verbal genuflection, deferral and the starry-eyed countenance) and I approached the table.

Well manicured hands held the menu open and the big eyes, accentuated by a tad too much eye shadow, looked up and fluttered a few times as her index finger pointed to "French Toast". "I'm sorry," I replied, "for it's 12 noon and the kitchen closed the breakfast menu at 11 a.m. As it says on the top of the menu." I began talking like Geeves again. A little moue formed upon her painted lips, the eyes batted a little faster, and she said "Would you ask the chef?" Riiiiiiiiiiight, now I realize I'm being played. "Oh I'm so sorry, but I can answer that question for you already. No." A third attempt - and a third strike I might add - and the moue turned into a pout (not quite French, but close), her head bowed in abject defeat and the non-verbal signal was "take the next person's order."

I believe her boyfriend was so beguiled by her appearance he missed the entire conversation. His first question was "I'd like pancakes." I politely pointed to the menu at the words "Breakfast served until 11 a.m." Not 12 p.m. Do I look that naive? I went through the same conversation with the lad, and he tried the same spiel. Come on! Ken and Barbie? He finally settled on bacon, hash browns and eggs.

The third customer also wanted breakfast. I replied, "Well, if you can answer a skill-testing question I might consider asking the chef." She was on. And so I said, "What is the wind velocity of an African sparrow?" This question was met with a complete blank face, glassy eyes and the response "you lost me at the word 'velocity'." I said that the half-wrap was really good. She took it. Monty-Python is not part of her movie oeuvre, I guess.

Back to Mademoiselle Moue. She eventually settled, with a little puffing, on a sandwich.

Now I ask you. Why try this on a guy who's nearly fifty? I'm way too old for you, you're not that good looking, and you probably won't tip me anyways.

The latter proved true.

All the world is a stage. Its good to be back on one and for 7.5 hours forget about the pressing needs of my avian charges.

A Season Of Hope (For The Naive?)

2010-12-05T14:09:00.000-08:00

I'm still walking in stanza three of Journey of the Magi. Still waiting. Perhaps this is most appropriate since in the Christian liturgical calendar, we are now in the season of Advent. Waiting. There is a lot of waiting happening both internally within me and externally on the farm.

We've been waiting for months for our birds to kick an infection known as canker. We've done what we can to help, but it hasn't seemed to work. Every morning I stroll through the barns and pick up the evening's casualties. I am in that regard not unlike military medics who comb empty fields of battle, looking for corpses in order that relatives back home could be notified of the loss of a loved one. As I bury my dead, their names surface within me: Cash Flow. Each dead adult represents a loss of revenue as well as a setback in breeding stock.

On the farm, it's not unlike the time of the Israelite's incarceration in Egypt for well over 400 years. We've got a plague striking not just the first born, but anything that happens to be in its way. Plagues were usually a sign of a deity's displeasure with its subjects and the massive death toll alluded to in the biblical story was good for the Israelites (side of the righteous, this time) and bad for the Egyptians (guys with the black hats, to be sure). Should Walt and I get concerned about this? Perhaps some of you armchair theologians out there could assuage our consciences. Thankfully, its too cold for flies...

And then there's the hundreds of dead birds (edible, this time) sitting in cold storage, longing for a home in a nearby freezer, to the feel the warmth of the oven as it bakes them, and the sheer joy of sliding down one's gullet into the stomach, who gives thanks to the nose, which has been anticipating this meal for hours. We're told that people want sustainably produced food, food that is free from chemicals and pesticides, that has been raised ethically and wholesomely. We can sat a hearty "yes" to all these criteria. Is there a massive run on our freezers, not unlike a run on the banks on October 31, 1929? No Black Friday has occurred here on any scale.

After watching "Food, Inc.," I can't understand how we could continue to eat anything that is produced on a CAFO (commercial agricultural factory operation). I met a guy who lives in a small town in Idaho. The main employer in town is a cheese factory, heavily subsidized by their government. Their milk comes from a farm that has 10,000 cows. Yes, you read correctly. He intimated the conditions are questionable. Can you imagine the quality of life for each one of those 10,000 cows? Living factory inputs. And we think that this has no effect on the food we eat.

Walt, Janet, Marlene and I had a long talk yesterday about the future of the farm. We would like to believe that the future will get better, but I know that is the western myth of linear progression that we have a been led to believe will always come true ("The sun will come out, tomorrow!"). As my dearly departed mom would say, "It could always be worse!" Thanks mom. Back to the meeting. Our western democratic system of free enterprise makes it very difficult for family farms to be competitive. Especially when this system has a vestige of socialism within where folk within the guild who grow certain commodities are rewarded handsomely (e.g. "moo" or "cluck, cluck") and those who aren't live outside the city gates, hoping for scraps and crumbs to fall their way.

Allow me to share a few conversations that have come my way: "Oh, you sell rabbits? I love rabbit! $9.00 a pound? You've got to be kidding" or "$6.35 a pound for sheep? I can get it cheaper at Jimmy P's...." I smile and reply, "if you want food grown locally, you have to pay people to live where its being grown." This isn't China whose record on the care for its citizens is no secret. We're not a CAFO with 400,000 chickens, and because of our economic clout can get grain for half the cost, or easy-to-come-by loans from the bank (because you have a guaranteed income) - just a few of the many benefits that come your way. A few days ago I was told that lambs from that Lord of the Rings island by that other BIG BIG island on the other side of the world are packed onto ships and then raised in transit as the ships make their way to North American markets. Imagine the living conditions for those sheep. And you wonder why it tastes rank and smells a wee bit like fecal matter?

To borrow another image from the Judeo-Christian archive of archetypes, it's a "David and Goliath" life. Competition is OK when the playing field is level but there you have it - my naivety spilling forth once again. And so the four of us spent the morning throwing ideas back and forth on how does one manage to make a living within the conditions we find ourselves in? As Marlene and I drove home, I began to understand why most of the small acreages around us lie fallow, where the biggest feature is a monster home plunked in the middle of it: you can't make a living on the land (a) without huge amounts of equity (b) if you're not part of the guild.

This season of waiting is often characterized on greeting cards and mall windows and displays with the Three Wise Men and their camels, looking so Hallmarkishly at a spiky star. Those Wise Men were actually astrologers, men who would divine meaning from the constellations. Imagine their surprise to be following a star that was leading them to an unknown place. I am in a similar situation but I have no secret knowledge or powers of divination. I am simply waiting, waiting for that which I'll know when I've found it.

Last Goat Standing

2010-12-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

Some days farm life is just plain shitty. And I don't mean defecation.
This business about animals feeding others, well sometimes its just a little hard to deal with. Our friend Karl pointed some Rastafarian friends of his our way who, due to their religious beliefs decided they wanted to eat goat. (Their beliefs also include the smoking of cannabis by the way - could that be like a kirpan? Less bloody and it just gives you the munchies). They wanted to eat my last goat. Winken. The one that I bottle fed, the one who ran to me each morning and nibbled on my right ear. Never the left, only the right. And as the almighty dollar rules when the almighty dollar is in short supply, Walt did the deed this morning.
I walked into the barn and there was his head, his mouth still full of hay. Apparently, said Walt, Winken was merrily chewing a mouthful of hay, and through these dry grasses bleated a "Good morning" when poof - off he went to goat eternity. Truthfully, this was a comic-looking sight.
Now, you may or may not know that Walt tripped over Winken last week and being bound to the law of gravity, its inexorable pull and inviolate truthfulness, fell like an oak tree onto the frozen ground, breaking his elbow. Walt is now known as "Dances With Goats." Not nearly as illustrious as Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves." Wolves. Goats. A huge difference in the food chain and their respective symbology.
Need I say more?

My Life As A Marsupial

2010-11-24T08:41:00.000-08:00

Years ago, I carried children with me in the mornings, helping Marlene get ready for work, helping get fresh nappies on the twins and direct Eli towards another day of school (which, I believe I'll be doing today... he left his Skype program open and it appears he talked to a special someone from 10:50 pm until 5 am... Ah yes, just like his father and mother did so long ago - except we were face to face, and vertical I might add). Back in those baby years, you always had something in your hand: either a toy, a clean diaper, a dirty diaper, a bottle, a book, dirty dishes - the point is the hands were always occupied. All my hands carry these days are all the @#$^&!*? cuts blistering in the cold. That is, until a certain 'little kitty' found our back porch.

A certain friend, who shall remain nameless - BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!! - dropped off a few cats on the farm a while back. Now, this works if the cats aren't acclimatized to humans' habitats, or if they're old enough for the primal survival gene to kick in ("A mouse! Flesh! Must eat!"). But there's that adolescent state where they're too stupid to eat a mouse, too stupid to find shelter, and too stupid to get the hint. Does this sound remarkably similar to human adolescents?

Well, this kitten would spend its days and nights circumnavigating the house, which by the way, drove Cap'n Pants absolutely bonkers. He would skim the surface of the floors, not unlike a torpedo underwater homing in on its target with the perfect vector programmed in and like a torpedo would explode - into the pane of glass between the kitten and himself. This sounds like a Darwin Award for felines. Day in and day out, this would be the regimen. Little Kitty meowing outside, big Cap'n Pants growling inside. We stopped vacuuming for a few weeks because his tail did all the work for us. Back and forth, back and forth. Talk about a reliable duster.

In the evenings, I'd open the back porch to leave scraps for the barn cats. Now they're the smart ones: they get fresh meat in the barns and left overs at our place. This kitten? At the sight of the three black kittens she would high tail it to who knows where, only to return later to no food which resulted in a new round of howling.

As you know, I profess to be in the ministry of animal husbandry. Yes, I finally gave in. We brought the kitty inside. Suddenly, The Cap'n's tail grew three sizes that day! And so did his body. Poof. Threatening posture assumed. Unfortunately small cat was not to be intimidated and in fact has begun telling him to back off when the food is placed in the bowls.

Ah, how easily the tactics of intimidation reveal a paucity of character, a weak spirit, and a certain inability to carry through when the gauntlet has been thrown. Little Kitty, now named "Lumen" by the boys (in honor of Dexter's sidekick) and "Amelia" by Marlene and "Hey you money sucking beast" by me, has settled into a routine of love and peace. Cap'n chases her during the day but I'm not sure if this is aggression or if this is some conflicting display of love that he can't quite understand (or consummate) as a certain package on his backside is empty of its contents. On the odd day, we find them lying quite close together, staring outside, thanking their deities no doubt that they have three squares, a warm bed, and no competition.

And in the mornings, Lumen/Amelia/VISA Card comes to the bedroom and begins this pathetic squall of sounds which invariably can be translated as "pick me up." Order received. And this is how we must spend my time making coffee and breakfast. After the ritual is done, she exits and finds a place to curl up. With the eunuch? Rest assured, they'll be no little ones following that cuddle.

It's still frozen out there and I can no longer delay. Its time to gird up the loins (wrap them tightly in something warm, too) and say hello to minus 9. May your domicile be warmer.

There Must Be An Easier Way To Pay The Mortgage

2010-11-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

It was so loud last night outside: wind tearing through trees, whipping the skin off your chinny-chin-chin. The goats and sheep wouldn't even budge. They'd hunkered down under a barn and weren't leaving, even with the enticement of oats. Just to make things even more interesting, the power went out last night and after numerous frantic calls some very brave friends arrived with a generator, heat lamps and propane heaters. Without these, we'd have had a lot of dead animals - frozen solid by morning. Squabsicles...

This weather is ridiculous. Wind chill of minus 20C? Record breaking winds yesterday. Trees down everywhere. Help! If I wanted weather like this I'd live in Montreal or St. John's or Halifax. I'm on the west coast for heaven's sake. Of course, the rest of Canada is getting this most every day, and its a good guess that those real Canadians who endure 8 months of winter and 4 months of bad snow sledding think we're complete and utter wimps. I admit this is true - at least for myself. I can just hear the testimonials coming from across the country..."its minus 40 out here in Saskatchewan"..."ever lived with five feet of snow" coming from Quebec. OK! Its all true. But cold weather is a female dog whose had pups, no matter what you're acclimatized to.

Yes, I don't really know what living in a true winter climate is like, and no I've never lived in Winnipeg longer than a week in January (but yes, I have crossed Portage and Main in minus #^&#*! temperatures). But this I have figured is true: I may not know what living in perpetual cold is like, but I do know what cold weather does to you. I never had experiences like this when I was a suit drawing a salary. Oh sure, cold seats in the car on the drive over to the office (Ah! A quick readjustment of the left cheek...), muttering about the defroster not working well, and OMG jumping over snow so the dress shoes don't fill up. Those days are over.

When I think of cold and freezing weather now, I think "only 140 pens to schlepp water to". This equals about 1500 pounds of water. And yes, Walter and I carry it all. To each and every pen. Twice a day. OK, so you have the sheer weight of water, but then you have 15-20% humidity, which means that water is being sucked from your body all day long. And then the wind which, by the end of the day, feels like 100 grit sand paper. Every little cut on your hands feels like it needs stitches; the skin peels back and your blood cells have a good laugh at your expense because the platelets are all running around saying "we can't coagulate, we can't coagulate!" Which means your skin won't heal.

Today, as I was on pound about 1000 I had to think of T.S. Elliot's Journey of the Magi, first stanza:
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Such truth from such beautiful poetry. The frozen ground is relentless and unforgiving. Step sloppily and your ankle turns over. Hmm... do I have any regrets? Come to think of it, I've never had a silken girl bring me sherbet, but I have had good conversations at Starbucks with students, who while not necessarily silken in complexion radiated an inner beauty that was a privilege to be near.

I may not be a camel man, but oh yes there has been cussing on the farm these past few days. Today I had back spasms, my tennis elbow reared its ugly head and began clenching in vise-like precision, and of course my hands balked at each and every grasp of the next 40 pound bucket of water. So when the water would splash from the shit-soaked water tray (in the pen) into my mouth, and seeing as we are approaching the season of Advent and its inevitable march to Christmas, the first thought that came to me was not "Oh my how meek and mild must have been the virgin Mary." Quem pastores and all that. O Magnum Mysterium! I'll bet all the animals at the manger were also thinking it was really cold and let's get this birth finished already.

"This was all folly." I have asked myself that a few times. For all the work Walt and I do, we could both get jobs and pay the mortgage just fine. Why farm anyways? Just capitulate and be the Costco Kind Of Guy corporate food world wants you to be. In a few short hours, I get to lug 1500 pounds of water again.

When the cold weather is done, I'll look at Elliot's other stanzas. I think there might be some optimism found there. But right now, its dead time in the bed time. My sore hands, sore elbow and sore frame bid you a warm and safe good night.

Your Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Your Parts

2010-11-17T08:56:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am a photographic undertaker.
Defining moments: Whose daughter was this? What hopes died with her? What was her last day like? Was her death due to an accident or illness? What happened to her parents? How did this death redefine who they were and what they became?

I've spent the last few days with this picture. I have carefully attended to the details of it: the young girl's dress, the lace around the coffin, different points of lighting. I am in a way, an undertaker of this historical photograph, paying respect to the dead so she is remembered in life. I've asked myself many questions about this young child and the circumstances that led to this photo. In an age when photos were rare and expensive it seems that the need to remember this child in death was very important to her next of kin. It had to be a defining moment in her parent's lives.

Defining moments. I've been thinking about this for a little while. They lie jumbled about inside my brain, so I'll attempt to organize them. Here are a few of mine:

1. Youngest child of six siblings
2. Child of immigrant parents
3. Religious subculture: Mennonite/small "e" evangelical
4. Rural upbringing
5. Drug and alcohol-free peer group (how unusual that must read...)
6. Lousy at sports as a child - hockey injury in grade 7 ends drive to the NHL...
7. Good at music as a child - could actually play piano right hand over left hand... genetic flaw in right pinky ends dreams of career as concert pianist...
8. Kicked out of choir in grade 12 for behaviour choices that contradicted the director's mandate...
9. Failed at swimming and hate water to this day
10. Always sang in some sort of choir
11. Joined a community choir at age 19
12. Sat next to a guy who convinced me to go to UBC for music. Abandoned thoughts of the monastic life...
13. Got accepted at UBC, met this teacher called "Fank" and flourished in completely unexpected ways
14. Graduated with first-class honours and departed for Austria to study singing
15. Married Marlene (!)
16. Applied to Teacher's College and began taking steps to completion (which meant taking 100 level courses like Geography with 200 other students - found it incredibly uninteresting...)
17. Quit Teacher's College and went to Regent College (theological college)
18. Accept college teaching post at that place
19. Sing in Vancouver Cantata Singers for 16 years
20. Record 14 albums for charity over 15 years
21. Got a masters' in music from UBC
22. Develop a raging case of mental illness (major personality discovery: I have no political DNA)
23. Enter a decade-long period of disillusionment
24. Mom dies
25. Get meningitis
26. Quit college teaching
27. Buy a farm
28. Become the milk delivery guy
29. Resurrect "the waiter"
30. Try to reconcile points one through twenty-nine by writing thoughts out on a blog

Defining moments.
When I look to the dictionary for a definition of "define" this is what I get:

define |diˈfīn|verb [ trans. ]1 state or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of : the contract will seek to define the client's obligations.• give the meaning of (a word or phrase), esp. in a dictionary.• make up or establish the character of : for some, the football team definestheir identity.2 mark out the boundary or limits of : [as adj. ] ( defined) clearly defined boundaries.• make clear the outline of; delineate : she defined her eyes by applying eyeshadow.

These definitions would seem to imply that the events outlined above have played a role in establishing the kind of identity that could be described as "me." When you were a kid and jumped in the snow and made a snow-angel, the shape was defined by your body shape. Well, I jumped into life kicking and screaming through blood and water - my first defining moment and the rest has followed along as inevitably as geese and goslings. When I look at these points, I see events that I chose (go to UBC), others that were chosen for me (born into a Mennonite subculture), and others I may have had little part in deciding (getting meningitis).

Now, I didn't preplan to write 30 points. I just simply wrote what arose and travelled down my fingers to the keyboard. And because I'm always thinking about architecture, what does this list reveal? Like the phrases of music, the flux and flow of a music line this list is leading to an architectural peak. What's the "golden mean" of my defining moments? It would appear that recording music for charity finds itself at the 66.6% mark of my list, the "architectural summit" or "golden mean". If you don't believe me, just listen to Mozart, for example, and at the 66.6% mark of just about all of his pieces you'll hear a key change or modulation, unusual rhythmic figure, perhaps a cadenza, or a return to a previous idea. Its more reliable than modern weather predictions. Bartok is even more predictable in this way.

The boys are reading Eli Wiesel's Night for English Lit. That is heavy stuff that I'm not altogether sure they completely grasp, since their childhoods have been relatively pain free, free of any kind of abuse and loved by extended family and grandparents. Wiesel, in contrast, spent his childhood in Auschwitz and miraculously lived through all the mental, spiritual and physical anguish of that place. I try to conjure in my mind's eye the battles he's had and I fall miserably short. I imagine his books are a purging of sorts, a way to deal with the memories of horror so they don't define who he is becoming. Romeo DeLaire, the Canadian general who served with the UN in Rwanda, who witnessed the Rwandan genocide and was powerless to stop it, is still haunted by those images. His writing and speaking engagements, he once wrote, are a way for him to halt the forces from these events to shape who he is.

A wise person once said that the terrible events one encounters don't have to define who you are or who you become. Intellectually this is true, but what are the steps needed to bring this into the realm of the everyday? Well, you become a milkman and a waiter. And a farmer. You begin to realize that what you used to say to your students in the halcyon days of stress-free lecturing "you aren't what you do, you do what you are" is a "Capital T" truth if there ever was one. It is amazing when one thinks about how much energy is sucked from one's life when the defining moments are pain-riddled. And the lives of others. I have a dim memory of life before I quit teaching and I think M and the boys endured a lot in spite of me. But looking at my list has made me realize that those regenerative events that shaped both me and the lives of others were incredibly life giving, even if they were born out of pain or dissonance.

It was the fall of 2001. I had just returned to teaching after a life-giving sabbatical at UBC. A few months prior I had just completed and recorded my masters' dissertation while at UBC, my favorite 19th century music from our shared wellspring of experiences both heavenly and mundane. That morning, while rifling through my mailbox, I noticed a letter from a man in Manitoba. I looked at the name on the return address and found it unfamiliar. Upon opening it, I read that this person's wife was dying of cancer. The day's were long and the walk with this unforgiving disease was arduous. It seemed as if her disease would engulf her before too long. The one thing that got them both through each day, he wrote, was listening to my recording "When Evening Shadows Fall," the one I had just completed. In fact, he had played it at her funeral. I stood in silence, humbled, quiet of heart, thankful that I had been welcomed into the sacred space of their shared suffering. This gift of life to me, written by an anonymous soul, is how I began my year. But ironically, this would also be the year that began my final and unwavering decent into mental illness.

The yin and yang of defining moments; two heads of the same coin - you choose your figure of speech.

The greatest difficulty with defining moments is leaving them behind, that is, the ones you are no longer physically part of. Leaving the memory behind, or putting the memory to rest, or perhaps giving it no more power to continue to define you in demeaning ways. I remember with great fondness my Cantata Singers years, the first time I ever heard the choir at the Orpheum, the dream of singing in such a group and who was that fiery small conductor way down there anyways. That dream became reality and has defined, shaped, molded much of who I am today. These are (mostly) great memories (..."Betty! We're going to be late...." Believe me, you never wanted to arrive late to a rehearsal).

Perhaps the secret to life is the active will required to keep stock of defining moments and monitor the inertia with which they push and pull. Until I left teaching, the tidal action of detrimental and destructive moments pulled me further and further from the shore of health and family well-being. It was only after I left that I was able to (forgive the further use of the metaphor) able to swim back to the safety net of Marlene, the boys and my extended family. While having coffee the other day with my other employer, Laurie, we began talking about life before Yarrow and our place of meeting, the Grill. I tried to explain that I am nothing like I used to be, for my memory of who I was is clouded. But as I think back to that conversation, I think I was remiss. What I meant to say is, I am no longer defined by those experiences which led to my illness and departure. I choose to be defined or known by those experiences which are life-giving and define me that way.

As I gaze upon the closed eyes of this young girl in the photograph, I ask myself if she is still known by any relatives still alive. Is she forgotten? Has her memory helped shape or define those who went on after her? Isn't it amazing, how the stillness of death in an old forgotten photograph can still help one understand their place on this soil.

The Everyday Life Of The Superhero

2010-11-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

You've heard me talk about hats before, how Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd once fell prey to their symbolic power of personality change. A kind of "disguise on the fly" if you will. Today, men of North America have very few choices for hats, except the ubiquitous baseball hat. But, as a disguise the baseball hat fails miserably since it is rarely if at all associated with baseball. Put it on backwards and you're fair game for all sorts of Alabama-kin jokes; put it on, dare I say, the correct way and no one even thinks you play baseball. You're a walking advertisement for some company. Alas, I must confess that I own one baseball hat, it a walking advertisement for Massey-Ferguson tractors. You see, when you spend close to 30 grand, you get to wear clothing that says "buy more."

In my new life as a waiter at the Grill (I will not neuter myself with the politically correct term server), I have decided to wear all of my hats (one at a time...) when I serve, except the baseball one... It's a very symbolic move on my part of which my patrons remain unaware. Like Bugs and Elmer, I need a disguise lest my true self become revealed to my patrons. Have you ever been served a burger by someone who has directed the National Youth Choir of Australia not once, but twice? You'll never know... Yes, so I wear my Fedora, a New Yorker, the Bowler (which a patron last night kept asking if she could buy the hat from me), my Parisian beret, my Scottish farmer's hat and last but not least, the Austrian hiking hat. The last hat in the list drew lots of comments last weekend, especially by an old gentleman who was from Vienna. Of course, we then spoke a little German - he very complimentary on my pronunciation ("you have nearly no accent!") - me very thankful that the conversation allowed me to access all the grammatically correct sentences in my very small oeuvre of conversational German.

It would seem that my Multi-Generational Hat and its cadre of head coverings have returned, lamentably not as an indication of wealth, status and position in the community, but as a kind of Romulanesque cloaking devise. Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Tony Funk: do you see the pattern? Yes, I am a superhero disguised as a waiter, milkman (who ever heard of a milkperson?) and farmer. There, the secret is out. As evidenced by the picture above, you can see that my life as a superhero began long ago and that my fascination with disguises began when I was a kid. There's my sister Charlotte on my left and my cousin Carolyn, whom I haven't seen in over 40 years. I think she lives in Manitoba.

I don't leap tall buildings in a simple bound because I'm an alien, I don't have a Bat Cave full of gadgetry due to my infinite wealth: no my true superhero self - the real me - can be seen when I don my uniform known as "the tuxedo". When the silken fibers cover me, the power of Grey Skull - no no, that would be Fankhauser - begin to channel through me and no piece of music nor singer can withstand my power. Like dueling cobras my hands weave a spell of interpretive magic through the choir and the audience begins to involuntarily sway to the beat as they too are helplessly drawn into the sound. Voila! I have the entire hall under my command. And when I'm done, everyone leaves wondering what's happened: they feel different, life and all its incumbent demands have relinquished their stranglehold for a while, and in fact, there is this little know thing call joy written upon their heads. Time in fact seems to have travelled faster than all were aware.

This is an awesome power I hold. Not everyone is worthy to wield it. In fact, if you try to use it for your own gain, it will consume you. The poison is called arrogance - a deadly mixture of self-satisfaction and pride. Worse than iocane powder... If you can survive the arrogance, sooner or later the final and most perilous evil power, that of megalomania, will eventually consume you and relentlessly hold you within its clutches. And you think I jest! Here's a story for you...

A few years ago, I was in Penticton visiting my buddy Chad. Callum and his father were also visiting - Callum's dad had recently flown to Penticton from London England. We all had dinner together one eve. Callum's dad was once a world-class cellist, who has played with literally all the great conductors of the 20th century. While Callum would politely roll his eyes when his father told stories, I on the other hand, was completely taken in. My favorite story - pertaining to megalomania and conductors - began thus and so: The London Symphony Orchestra had recently hired a German conductor by the name of, well, let's call him Burbert von Harakan to avoid libel suits by extended family. This is in the early 1950s with the memory of WWII still fresh in everyone's minds. Burbert worked the orchestra tirelessly, like a man consumed by the Muse. His desire for perfection was exasperating. The day of the concert came and went. The orchestra rose to the occasion. The audience called for an encore, demanding the return of the conductor to the stage. Well, young Burbert wasn't happy at all with how the orchestra played and refused to return for another bow. Well! The next day at rehearsal, Burbert began his usual tirade when the first violinist stopped playing and put down his bow. Everyone did the same. Burbert was gobsmacked. You see, this was in the age when conductors acted like capricious deities and you never contradicted the man with the stick. And then the violinist piped up, "Hey Burbert, in England, when the crowd calls for an encore, you walk back onto the stage. You think you're too good for us? Well listen to this: I shot down better men than you when I was a pilot." Burbert left the rehearsal stage for good and, ahem, never returned. Conducting vacancy!

Burbert had it all wrong. He was trying to grasp at power. The superpower of conducting comes very close to what a certain Carpenter of Galilee once called servanthood, a selfless act of giving (kenosis for all you theologs out there) to something greater than yourself. And in that act, the community around you is strengthened.

And so I wear "the hats." A reminder that none of us are all we seem to be. Who knows, some of my customers could be superheros as well.

You probably know a few yourself. Are you one?

As The Summer Sun Retreats Again

2010-11-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

The first of winter's snow arrived in the mountains today. Low, heavy clouds - you know, those translucent gun-metal gray ones that linger near the peaks - rolled and tumbled, bringing more snow and cold weather. OK, not cold for the rest of Canada. In fact, what we call winter in the lower mainland here is a joke for the rest of Canada. Heck, people can golf all year round in Victoria, and unless we've had bucket loads of rain or a few days of snow, my good friend Dr. J can golf until his VISA card says "no more." Or, until his wife looks at his monthly statement...

We always have a few weeks of lingering warm weather, you know, like that cat that hangs outside your back door waiting for scraps. Slinks in and around. Makes you think its staying because it fools you by rubbing your legs. Here a few days and then poof - gone. Last week was such a week, with gloriously warm temperatures, crystalline blue skies providing the perfect canvas for golden trees and green grass. Yes - and sorry all you prairie folk - our grass is still green and still growing. In fact, I ate raspberries from my bush last week.

All of this talk of golden sky with hues unimaginable leads me to recall an interesting sight that caught my eye. As I remember it, I was walking down the isle of barn 12, checking upon my charges ("Martha! Look like you're sitting on eggs or we're both headed for the Big House!!) when I happened to notice broad shafts of sunlight on the western field. I opened the door at the end of the barn, expecting to see my 100 or so ducks but what I saw was nothing. "Oh crap" was my first thought (maybe take that up a notch). Perhaps the entire lot was eaten by coyotes or skunks or whatever it was that ate one of our geese. I whipped my head left - no ducks. Right - no ducks. Left again - and this time complete with a double take.

There, lying down in a long line right up against the fence line (with the geese in the front - as per usual) were all of the ducks, all facing east, all soaking up the remaining warmth of the sun. Even the wild mallards were hunkered down (who all look like dwarf ducks as our Rouen have become the Godzilla of the duck world). Perhaps the fence was their own personal Wailing Wall; is there some intuitive gene that tells them to fly south young man! but alas they're so plump they can walk and that's about it? Perhaps the inclusion of the wild ones has confused them even more. I suspect the wild mallards have discovered a new truth: why fly all that way when there is tons of corn in a field and big friends all over the place to provide protection. My ducks are the Crips and the coyotes are the Bloods. Its West Side Story in my back yard!

Sunsets last week were filled with the sounds of wings cutting through still evening air. You know how the sky looks at dusk - that sort of silvery-blue tone? Each evening 50 or 60 ducks would circle the field - round and round - and then finally alight. Who decided when I have no idea. But gradually, our flock would double and the quacking and waddling and swimming and preening would intensify until finally darkness came. And this always heralds calls by the geese, perhaps the watchmen of the flock. Which makes me wonder how some critter managed to eat one of them.

This end of summer time has, I imagine, become deeply ensconced in our collective memory as a time of departure. Even our time with the sun and its warmth, without whose light we would die, lessens each day. And, it's not only the geese and the ducks who fly away: is it any wonder that Canadians who every year abdicate their responsibility to toughen out those eastern winters for the silly above freezing temperatures in Florida are called Snow Geese (hopefully its not because they leave their shit everywhere....). In 18th-century England, for example, the aristocracy would leave their summer palaces and return to their country manors. Something way back in my memory is saying "winter pastures..." But of course, these cues all come from nature, whose beauty has departed (retreated?) for another season, like the shy and beautiful woman in the folk song Barbara Allen who we are told "made every youth cry well-a-day, her name was Barbara Allen." Perhaps the most recognizable collective memory we have are the words, "The summer's gone and all the flowers are dying, 'tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide" sings the ancient Irish bard in Londonderry Aire.

And on Sunday, my choir will offer glimpses of sunlight and warmth, which will linger a while, until silence and memory remain.

It's All About The Birds

2010-11-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

This has to be my favorite yet. Alas, its not my genius. It's from a singer in my choir. Is she a long lost cousin, another genetic mutineer whose sense of humour finds release in the culinarily macabre? She's taken the idea up a few notches: the chicken overlay is particularly effective. Notice the complete indifference on the chicken's part. Its as if to say "eat me or I'll eat you." Hitchcock alludes to the correct answer on the left sidebar. Of course, the genesis of these fighting fowl come from yours truly and the star, Atilla the Hen is the coup de gras on her part. The supporting actors, Buffy the Worm Slayer sounds like a butch "stay out of my face" hen. Could this be the antagonist? But Tippi Dumpling takes the cake. This name is reminiscent of those Bond Girl names, you know the ones - Xinia Onatop, Plenty O'Toole, and Holly Goodhead. Alas, the most famous of this genre will probably get me banned from blogging, so you'll have to dredge the recesses of your memory. But Tippi Dumpling!!?? Well, look at her (lower right). You have to notice this broiler's most prominent features. The breasts.

Well done! Keeping the tradition alive.

We share a similar story and could probably co-author the same book. I could take the ecclesiastical chapters and she the civil. All joking aside, what I particularly appreciate about this person is her absolute love for singing and the joy taken in it. You see, this is the thing. So many people say, "I don't have time to sing, I'm too busy, my kids are too young...." Blah blah blah. People look at singing as though it is something secondary to life, health, survival even. OK, you're saying, "that's going a bit too far." Not so, I respond. Did you know that there are religious traditions out there that forbid people to sing? Or, can you imagine Latvia today without having undergone their "singing revolution?" They'd still be kowtowing to the Soviets. Singing is life. Singing is breath. Singing integrates all that we are and allows us to function through all the defecation and abuse that comes our way. Slings and arrows stuff. Singing is the closest and only thing that will ever allow some of us to rise above the daily grind or the wounds from our past.

Without the song, there is nothing. Grasshopper.

Earth to Tony. Feed animals.

OK. I'm back. Rant over. But I ask you, do you know anyone else who sings Schubert to his chickens?

Back To The Future

2010-11-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

Sharks...cutthroat...dog-eat-dog...fierce competition. Are these words you word normally associate with a meek man of the land, an exclusive member of Club Effexor - he-who-practices-husbandry-with-animals? I would prefer the words bohemian, pastoral, bucolic or invitational. Yes, much more like it. Alas, I am continuing to learn that my interior, idyllic world of green grass, rolling hills, contented animals - somewhat akin the pastel-engorged landscapes of Thomas Kincaid - really doesn't exist. While I would love to believe that my latter adjectives describe farm life (and to a certain extent it contains a kernel of truth), but the former is constantly competing - you know, like folks who fudge queues.

It seems the our American friends are up to it again. Last week we received information from our processor that our price per pound for our squab was to be immediately reduced by 10%. Allegedly (such a legally kind and gentle word....) squab are being dumped into Canada via California as one of the growers west of Greendale "doesn't feel the love" for us country bumpkins out here. The ultimate goal of such machinations? Drive the small guys out. Now I ask you. Why did I spend two years getting a masters in theology and another two getting a masters in music? Would the time have been better spent studying Sun Tsu's Art of War and perhaps as well The Prince by Machiavelli? The meekness associated with the Shepherd of Nazareth seems quickly trumped by modern day Herods.

Well, no use crying about it, philosophizing about it, or even trying to analyze it. The fact is, the business world (somewhat akin to the the theological word...depending on which side of the fence you find yourself on) is a place of harsh realities. Adapt or die could be an apt description. Thus, the chameleon-like, shape-shifting side of me continues to grow, and I find myself doing what it takes to keep the farm afloat. So let me ask you: what does a guy do who has two masters degrees, 18 years of college teaching experience, professional singing and conducting credentials and a whack of recordings to his name? These skills, while they do set me apart from 99% of the population, don't necessarily make me highly employable. So I ask you again, what does he do?

He becomes a waiter. Again. Like I was in 1986 when Marlene and I were engaged.

For the next six months or so - to keep some cash flowing - I'm heading to the Grill to wait on tables. And advertise the glorious meats that come from our pastoral fields, where the sun always shines, where the animals exist in a non-competitive harmonious balance, where they never really die (but magically appear on your plate) - in fact a place where the shit never smells! Yes, agricultural utopia! "The sun will come out, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar its tomorrow."

Heck, I'm at the Grill all the time as a customer so I thought "might as well get on the payroll." Its a great little place to meet good people, eat real food, and enjoy a good atmosphere. I began asking myself a few weeks ago, what is the draw to this place? When the answer came I wasn't surprised: community. I guess the part of the classroom I miss the most is interaction with other people. If I come to think of it, I used to be around people all the time. I would have an hour here or there in my office, but there was always the sound of folk heard through the door. Here on the farm? I can go for hours without seeing Walt or saying a word. I guess that part of my personality - the "gotta be around people part" - finally pecked through the shell of my silence and announced that it needed some nurture.

The other part of the equation is Laurie - owner of the Grill - has something special happening. And she could use some stable help. Did I refer to myself as stable? With the amount of staff turnover it would seem that the revolving door world of the restaurant industry doesn't encourage longevity. I could see the frustration building in her because it must be hard to create momentum when you don't know who'll be with you week to week. Like I said, its a good place, and her success guarantees a beautiful spot to come and meet in the village of Yarrow. And besides, now I can help fix the place up.

Yes, you read correctly.

Yesterday I showed up after closing with tools in hand, hardware recently purchased, 20 foot piece of steel piping recently liberated from a junk pile (whose location will remain anonymous) with all the confidence of Leonardo (daVinci - no DaCaprio) that I could easily and with due haste mount a sliding pot rack for the chefs. What was I thinking? Do I think that just because Bob is my brother that somehow I can now do construction things? Well, the chicken coop is looking pretty grand (cedar siding thank you very much) so why not?

Finding floor joists in a 90 year old building is a challenge. Judging by the amount of holes I drilled into the ceiling, you could surmise that my stud-finder came up studless. I finally realized that the kitchen had a floating ceiling - but unlike today's ceiling made out of tile, this was plywood with gypsum board overtop of it. My stud-finder thought the whole ceiling was studs. Very confusing. Well, after a fair number of holes, sticking heads down closet holes on the second floor to get a look at the ceiling, Laurie and I managed to find one floor joist that happened to wide enough so I could get the hooks drilled into it. By 8 p.m. - and that's having a cabbage roll dinner with her brother - we were done.

You know, what is community and where does it start? I think it starts by not considering every act of kindness or generosity a potential point of sale or an opportunity to make money. The thanks one receives after offering to help is the greatest form of currency. And there ain't no company out there that can claw back 10% of that.

Around The World In 360 Days

2010-10-24T22:30:00.001-07:00

Its been just over a year since I began this literary jaunt. Its genesis was that of "past-employment-exorcism-exercise" but I think it turned into much more. At the start, I decided I needed to write through that which was causing me grief and I chose a public forum mainly as an anonymous referee to prevent my gift of hyperbole from boiling over. It was a way of being held accountable, albeit in an anonymous way, of what I wrote. Interesting that I even think there are people reading this who might actually take offense or even care about what I might have to say.

When I think back to what life was like a year ago, I have a hard time recognizing who that was who wrote those words. When I think of life four years ago, I shudder to think what would have happened if (a) I wouldn't have contracted meningitis [huge wake-up call] and (b) my brother Dave wouldn't have uttered the words "if you don't leave the place will kill you." Truer words were never spoken.

I have come to realize that what makes me (may I say?) an accomplished artist is that which also makes me a pitifully poor politician. I am and will always be, unable to negotiate the complex machinations that comprise the politics of existence, be they civil or religious. I am too friggin' trusting. I believe that people are of the best intentions. I take people at face value. I want to believe I'm being told the truth. Does this sound like some sort of relational utopia? I wonder why I am the way I am...

Today is an important day in my life. Mom would be 93. And its been four years since I took control of my life. How fortuitous and perhaps even serendipitous that my day of "Liberation and Liberty" would occur on the day of my mom's birth. Perhaps the symbolism is far too significant to ignore. It was the day I found the strength to say "no more". It was the most difficult phrase I've had to utter. That and the expletives that accompanied it. Expletives have since become a regular part of my lexicon. Very cathartic.

I spent the day creating. The cats (now six in total) and Peanut spent the afternoon in various states of interest and disinterest, watching me either garden (I keep one of the little black kittens in my vest - its a great way to stay warm and the kitten never objects) or build the coop. Yes, today I finally finished my chicken house. This little shack is more than it appears. Obviously, its a home for chickens, but for me this little edifice has as much significance as the Chrysler Building in New York. It says very loudly (to me): I did it. I actually built something! Peanut stayed the entire time. Maybe she needed time away from sheep. She either lay on the lawn or would flop down in the garden (freshly tilled) and sleep soundly in the dirt. At times I'd come down the ladder and she'd be there, waiting patiently for a scratch and a tickle. Have you tried wrestling with a 75 pound dog? I do - that is whenever she's not covered in shit. I'll lie on the ground, grab her, and the fight commences. She's a very good sport, considering that with one small snap she could tear my hands apart. A tail the size of hers makes a lot of noise when it hits the ground and if you're not careful, it swipes your glasses off your nose like windshield wipers and rain. A spontaneous dog wrestle is about the best blood pressure reducer there is. And considering all the wrestling that's gone on this summer, I'm surprised I have any blood pressure at all.

This evening, I went rummaging through my files looking for music for my community choir. I found my box of music that I taught my college choir. "One box," I thought. One small banker's box contains the sum total of my teaching over 18 years. Eighteen years of files, one per year. About 400 pieces of music. That's it. I walked through the files. Images of students and places began to cycle through my imagination: Germany - three trips in total - me causing the choir to break down laughing during a piece because of my choice of gestures (thanks Fank for all the inspiration over the years!); music for tours to the prairies - singing in Swift Current to fewer people than the total of the choir (and shaking the dust from my sandals...); concerts with Nelson's jazz trio - ah...the students catching the synergy between the divine and the mundane; Australia - Dr. Bob Boughen pulling out the stops while a choir of 250 in St. Stephan's cathedral watched me smile larger than humanly possible; Berlin - Mendelssohn's For he shall give his angels charge over thee sung in the cathedral, the very acoustic he wrote it for, the students barely able to contain their emotion of delight and wonder. All this in a box.

So on this day, the day I stormed the mental and emotional beaches of Normandy and actually ran through the machine-gun nests of trauma and destruction, I found the purr of a cat, or the contended grunts of my pigs to be the most beautiful music one could hear. As I shoveled and nailed, I wondered what shape I would be in had I remained where I was. It's a picture I don't want to contemplate.
The day ended with a beautiful meal at Reza and Lisa's. Iranian food, conversation filtered through the squeals of their three young boys, the smell of the master's coffee - I had to smile. How utterly and completely different is my life now. So different that things like music are receding gracefully in order to give way to thoughts of farming and building or new friends from very different places - culturally and ontologically - expanding my perspectives in ways similar to that first sailor who dared sail beyond the horizon (the world is not flat!!).

The world is not flat (much to the chagrin of the flat-earth folk whose postal code is similar to mine). Thinking back, I think my world had become flat, demarcated and delineated. I could no longer see anything beyond my limited horizon. Life is so different now. Imagine! Gardening with a kitten inside your vest; shoveling fermented apples and corn to the pigs and watching them give you that "dude...this is good shit" look as they stumble semi-inebriated towards the trough for another go-around; shoving bread into your cattle's mouths and of course, wrestling your dog.

Happy birthday mom. Happy re-birth, Tony.

Age Is Only Relevant If You're Wine Or Cheese

2010-10-22T21:12:00.001-07:00

One of the great pleasures of finding oneself staring at the upper side of 50 is that you get to spend more time with "young people" once again. Ah yes, the old goat is now fraternizing with 20-somethings who have new babies, are juggling childcare schedules and living with sleep deprivation (Matt [from the commune nicknamed "The Morremune"...] ---- you looked a little spacey at our duck dinner with Tommi & Cary....). On the one hand I can inwardly smile since I've long past that stage of life, but deep within there is also a bittersweet understanding in knowing that 'time is fleeting and youth's a feather' and in my case, have 'age and wisdom gone together?' There's the $64,000 question - a question, by the way, which also dates me....

Yesterday I rode shotgun for Kim, a new friend in Vancouver who owns and runs what is basically an organic vegetable store on wheels. She has a big KIMO truck (and she drives it expertly - more like a Porsche and in downtown Vancouver, that's a feat of skill) piled to the gunnels with produce from around B.C. - all locally grown, all organic, and all reflecting the real cost of food. That is, if you want to eat real food and not melamine-laced food from our friends across the big pond (not the European pond...) or food controlled by CAFOs and big business. Speaking of big business, Kim and I were making a delivery at the Vancouver Club (lots of botox walked out the door during my five minutes there....) and who should walk in wearing a rumpled, looked-like-polyester-brown-suit, but the Grocery King of BC himself, HRH Jimmy P. I genuflected to the antithesis of local food. He responded graciously with a smile, unaware of who this peasant in a beret really was.

We spent the day driving to many of Vancouver's best restaurants (which I guess means that if you have the dough to eat there, you'll get really good organic food.... hmmm.... problem there I guess....) meeting chefs and their minions. It was like watching Babette in "Babette's Feast". You know the scene where she's on the beach and picking out all the produce and fruit from the fisherman's boat? Exactly. These guys (I saw only two gals) would hop on the truck and begin to act like what could only be described as kids under the Christmas tree. One chef exclaimed "I love to spend my boss's money!" But the point is they all looked like my kids - or maybe just a little older. Seriously. Does this mean I look like an old fart to them? Could "age ambiguity sight syndrome" (AASS). This is a new disease I've just invented. Can I be the chairman of AASS? Marlene has already voted me in.

The reminders of time passing are all around me. My twin boys are in grade 12 and have the optimism that is from the purity of youth; my oldest is a budding thespian, resigned to a life of pasta and bacon fat and loving it (we hope he moves out some day....); the trees outside my window have all turned colour again and the grass is golden and red and green and brown from falling leaves. Its been four years since mom died and tomorrow marks Liberté et Liberation, that day when I finally took control of my life and said Adieu (and and not Abientot) to, well, you know - that place. Four years.

There's an artist who's managed to keep a youthful agility to his voice, even in his golden years. I love the honesty of James Taylor's instrument, especially in a song like The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. His message is so simple - every day, every minute is a gift. I know, I know, so overused. But the passage of time is an incontrovertible truth and no amount of Hollywood-endorsed botox and age-defying bedtime cream is going to stop it. Prolong it? Maybe. Empty your wallet? For sure. This is my second autumn on the land, and the watching passage of time has become part of my daily rhythm, whether it be watching an animal grow, or the leaves die. And that see-saw motion won't ever stop. There you have it: a perpetual motion machine.

I hope to have many more dinners at the Morremune. There's nothing like young children to reverse the affects of aging.

The Agricultural Apocalypse Is At Hand

2010-10-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

In my zeal to spread the gospel of real food, no movie is safe from my advertising exploitation. As Marshall McLuhan said, "The medium is the message." Thus, my poultrygeist is warning us all of a coming culinary apocalypse when the CAFO experiment of the 20th century will come crashing down around us. KFC, McD, A&W, BK and all other fast food joints will be consumed in the coming fire. In the ensuing madness, people will actually have no choice but to eat real food. Cholesterol levels will plummet; excess fat will melt away; families will have to wait for their food to cook and then eat together; petrol companies and their profiteering ways will be rent asunder as the freighters will no longer carry food across the oceans, nor shall the mighty Iron Horse carry corn across the country for cows to consume at feedlots the size of small countries, nor shall Malwart (Where you can get your plastic crap for less!) be able to continue their ruse as a purveyor of organic foods. And lo, the local farmer will once again have a place in peoples' lives. And the approval of the people shall shine about them, and no one shall be sore afraid for they shall know where their food lives.

Thus endeth today's prophecy. And no, I haven't been drinking.

The Grassed Menagerie

2010-10-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Mother Nature is lulling me to regard her as a benevolent force, as the lazy days of summer continue well into autumn. Once again, the day was blue beyond the horizon, the weather more than agreeable, the bees buzzingly drunken in joy, and the new barn cats scampering hither and yon. Is this Mother Nature's Thanksgiving gift before the east winds begin their low moan? Regardless of the reason for these warm autumn days, I gave a silent thanks, especially for the deep crimson and plump raspberries still ripening on the bushes. Now that was a treat. When was the last time you filled your hand full of berries and then crammed them into your mouth? The result is a long and slow smile, perhaps a moan of disbelief, that something so small and so red could result in such an exotic flavour. It was grand.

We're a hive of activity here. Bob the Builder (my brother - carpenterius excellentus) arrived and finished building some new doors in the barn. Now we can de-shit the hayloft and the cow barn area without wasting a ton of energy. The first time we cleaned out the hayloft we took the crap down in five gallon buckets. I know - we're masochists. Call me Marquee de Masoch. Now thanks to Stephan (have I mentioned how generous this guy is?) we can park the SS Biela directly under the hayloft doors, shovel the shite directly down into the loader, and Bob's Your Uncle (or in my case, my brother) said turd is ready for spreading on the fields.

I had the chance to meet M this afternoon - a brief interlude of Pepsi and chips. It felt like being a newly-wed once again. No kids. Middle of the day. Heck, all we needed was a hotel room, but alas, she had to return to work for the usual pantheon of meetings. As I drove back to the farm, my thoughts travelled back to the circumstances which brought us here. I wondered if I would ever be completely free of the memories and experiences which brought so much pain. And I decided that "no", I don't think that could happen. Memories and experiences: I could just as easily have said "wounds." The thing about wounds is that (as John O'Donohue once said) for a time, your flesh is exposed to the sun. Flesh typically is not split open and exists in the dark. For a brief time, flesh becomes vulnerable to sunlight - all that darkness cannot resist the light. Do we have a healing metaphor here? I think so. In a sense, I guess that in time all things will be well.

When I was two years old, I fell onto the corner of the piano bench at my Opa and Oma's place. It became legendary in the family: my first musical experience. I'm 49 and I can still see it in the mirror. I have no memory of the event - only the aural memory from countless reminders by my mom. While the skin on my head is healed that scar is a little reminder of my brush with blindness. My scars from my time at that place which shall not be named have mostly healed, I guess. But the reminders are there. Its hard to figure out what they are. Its much easier to look at my forehead and say "Yup, piano bench scar" than it is to think about my conscious life, my emotional and mental state and say "Yup, there's the scar from that encounter."

When I returned home, I hopped on the tractor. Nothing like Tractor-Therapy to calm the mind. I drove to the hazelnut trees and raked a loader full of nuts for the pigs. I then mowed the lawn and filled the remainder of the bucket with grass. Oh my, were the pigs joyful. For the next hour, our four well-rounded pigs did nothing but chomp and crunch and grunt. It was very serious business. There's something about hazelnuts which makes them content. And, I also noticed that there was no competition for food. I wonder if a trough with boundaries becomes a territorial zone, whereas when food is thrown randomly there is no competition. For you see, they were as content as a satiated uncle who ate too much turkey at Thanksgiving.

I worked well into dusk this eve. All the while, the aroma of duck on the BBQ spit filled the back yard. Heaven. The sky was so clear. A sliver of moon silken and silver. You wonder if this was the kind of night sky that made explorers giddy with optimism. It had its effect upon me. After nailing a few more 2x4s onto my chicken hut (not quite finished....) I went to the BBQ and took the duck off the spit. Zig Zag (one of the new barn kittens) and Peanut were suddenly at my side - best friends when the smell of something grilled and fatty wafts across the yard. I took the duck off the spit, turned my head for literally 3 seconds and before you could blink twice Peanut had grabbed the duck and was trying to look very small and very thin and camouflaged and whatever else a dog does when it knows its going to be caught. A very loud and well supported "HEY! Drop that!!" produced the desired result. The duck dropped and Zig Zag ran and started licking it (a prelude to ripping and tearing, I'm sure). So, I grabbed the duck during which Zig Zag ran up the back steps. Having left the screen door open, Cap'n Pants literally jumped outside and landed on all fours no more than 1 foot from Zig Zag. All manner of moans and cat aggression and bugger off you're too close to my territory ensued. But little Zig Zag didn't back off. I'm not sure - a death wish? Ignorant to the consequences, I picked up the little guy and gently placed him away from the duck, which is now lying in a tent of Grand Marnier. It will be eaten cold, tomorrow.

Peanut is curled up by the back door, perhaps doing penitence or waiting to give confession. Cap'n Pants is running back and forth between windows as Zig Zag has figured out that he can really give the old Tomcat ulcers by sitting near windows. Me, I'm enjoying cold chicken, grown on my pasture. Could I call my chickens the "Grassed Menagerie?"

I think I'll curl up with a wee dram of McCallan (15 year old...). How about you?

Le coq?

2010-10-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

Savoir faire.

Very few people have it. That uncanny ability to know what to do when required in social situations.

A joie de vivre, peut-être? A comme ci comme ça approach to life's little intrusions? It all adds up to a very classy individual. Savoir faire - a combination of environment and breeding...

Part of our secret? GIVE THE CHICKEN WHAT IT WANTS. Could be le coq. More than likely, its ample sunshine, lots of grass, dirt, bugs and all manner of creepy-crawlies.

What's holding you back? The best chicken on the planet is a mere phone call away...

Chicken - A Bird For All Seasons

2010-10-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm not sure if this one is inspired or not...perhaps its too obvious. Nevertheless, this is where my mad and chaotic brain went this morning.

This afternoon I drove to Hammer's Welding (beautiful irony there) to pick up some parts. I had to pinch myself: driving a beautiful new tractor, warm air on the face, birds singing like crazy. Oh the joy of feeling alive.

The Sound Of Turkey

2010-09-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I don't know where these ideas come from. Have I ingested too much pooh? Has the delirium of fresh air short-circuited an already mad imagination? You be the judge.

I have dared to toy with that which is, for many millions, their favorite movie. Judge me not by my words, but for the intention behind them...

When The Turkey Calls

2010-09-28T21:28:00.000-07:00

Today was just another beautiful day. The rains abated and the sun came out and the ducks started honking and a flock of wild mallards joined them and before you knew it we had our Rouen cohabiting with wild mallards in the fields. What would Darwin say about that?

And today was a very exciting day. THE NEW TRACTOR CAME. Yes, we are the proud owners of a brand spanking new Massey Ferguson 1533. OMG. We actually have a reliable piece of machinery. I got so excited, I hitched up the manure spreader (christened the SS Biela ["sailing shit"] in honor of Stephan who has lent it to us - thanks bro), backed it up to barn 12 and began the thankless task of shoveling tons of crap.

I finished two pens and was done. Not good. But! I hopped on the tractor, turned the key and voila! it started and off I drove with my first load of crap. You may be asking yourself, why the joy? Well, up until now, manuring out the pens was a very labour intensive job. We used to shovel it into wheelbarrows and then dump it in the manure barn. Really, you'd think it was the middle ages here. When I first arrived, there was nearly as much crap outside the manure barn as there was inside. The smell was world class. And, we had to wheel the crap on a 2x12 over the hills of crap in an attempt to get it in the back of the manure barn. Ah, but today a new horizon appeared; a new day dawned. The Industrial Revolution finally made it to this part of Greendale. I spread my first load of pooh on the fields as soon as I shoveled it. What a blessed event.

In celebration, Walt and I went to The Grill. Laurie joined us - looking a little worse for wear. Seems some sort of flu bug has been visiting her domicile. We invited her to the farm for immune system therapy (inhale deeply in any barn - it will kill what ails you), but she politely declined. Instead, we turned our talk towards turkey. The Grill goes through a lot of turkey, it seems, and she'd really like us to grow her some turkeys. After exploring various scenarios, it looks like it just might happen. This is good news for you - that is, if you live nearby. We'd be happy to grow turkeys for you, too. In fact, I got so inspired about raising turkeys, that I've already created my first advert.

Truthfully, I don't know where these things come from. I was looking for a dish for dinner - went into the storage room - saw the DVDs, saw Fight Club and in a flash of genius (some would call it otherwise) an idea was born. It won't change the world, but it might persuade you to try something really tasty. Here it is.

Welcome To The Flat Earth Society

2010-09-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a little mind - so said C.S. Lewis. How perceptive. How accurate. How unfortunate.

I thought that when I left my place of employment, I was leaving small thinkers behind. Or should I say, perhaps more correctly, I had left those whose perceptive power made it impossible to see beyond the flat earth. You may not know it, but the world of music and theology can be an incendiary place, with salvos of sanctimonious chinwagging flying faster that flies on a pile of turd. Heck, theologians love to paint the other guy as the culprit for the decay of orthodoxy, but strangely never have figured it out that the act of painting is in and of itself an act of relational decomposition.

Chinwagging by the flibbertigibbets - it almost sounds like a Welsh party joke. Alas, its far from it. Today I received a most unusual phone call, from a person - let's call her Zena - who wanted to purchase some of our organs. That is, the organs from our recently deceased cattle. It appears Zena comes from a country that specializes in the cooking of said foods and upon finding our farm as a source for fresh organs, called and asked regarding the price. Well, this was all well and good until the conversation turned very strange. Did I say very strange?

Go back in your imaginations, waaaaay back, Friendly Giant way back. OK, perhaps that's too far. Think grade nine. Do you remember those "he said/she said" conversations, giggles accompanied by stares when the party in question would walk past in the hallway? I do. Ah yes, the delight and the joy of gossip. Or, to sanctimoniously call it, "concern." Yes, the old concern ploy, as Inspector Clouseau would say. Reveal just enough details to your listener to cause a little asexual titillation, or speak to the spoken about as a way of revealing you know something they don't. Its a form of power, but at its base is cowardice.

Back to the conversation. After determining she could buy my organs, this customer then went on to relate to me (...."because I want to see your farm succeed..." - love that one) that our name was fast becoming mud in the fair haven of Greendale for alleged fecal indiscretions (..."if you're going to invite the public to your farm, clean up your dog pooh and put some gravel over the mud"... OK, should I scoop up every one of the 6000 pieces of sheep shit on the fields, too?), that our farm could be a set for Ben or Willard (...amazing how people can mistake the sight of a mouse for a full blown 12 inch long rat... has Maggie fallen down on the job? No worries - we have a litter of kittens who are already enjoying the fresh delicacy of mouse sushi.) and the piece de resistance (wait for it!), "we have high standards in this community and so you need to cut your lawn and leash your dogs." This revelation from her was information she said she was only relaying out of concern, something she had been hearing "from all sorts of people." Yes, apparently we have become fodder for flibbertigibbets at county parties.

A wise old person once told me that when people start spreading unsubstantiated rumours you've got to be doing something right. Hey, look at Jesus! Now there's someone who got everyone spreading something false and scandalous. OK, OK, I'm not comparing we on the farm to Jesus - the Beatles made that mistake and it almost cost them their Knighthoods. But I suspect that at the core of this are people who are resistant to alternative ways of farming. You see, all around us are large expansive farms with monocultures of chicken, eggs or milk. And we're not part of that status quo and don't belong to an exclusive farming club whose price tag is a mere $200 per broiler, or some obscene dollar value on a pound of milk. Nope, we're a permaculture, something almost lost and extinct. We're a farm where a multitude of species exist in harmony. Without a hermetically sealed barn; without Hazmat suites; without the reliance of pharmaceuticals to keep our animals disease free.

Oh once, just once, I wish I were part of some status quo. But, I'm batting 1000 here: theologian in a post-Christian society (marketable skill number one); musician - classical at that and a choral conductor who specializes in the unamplified, in a culture that has all but forgotten the sound of the human voice in unadorned splendour; farmer - first of all a farmer of doves and then there's that dang permaculture leading us right down the garden path towards biodynamic certification. Damn!

So I went to my non-alcoholic pub today, and had a cuppa with Laurie, the owner. We talked about why some folk have the need to make themselves better by degrading others. I naively stated that I thought I had left small thinking behind. She laughed so loudly I thought a window would break. I guess that was a friendly rebuttal roughly translated as "are you an absolute moron!?"

The customer in question showed up later today and amid pleasantries and superficialities and no hint of the morning's conversation, Zena - may I call her the Warrior Princess For Truth - left with fresh flesh in hand.

The Silence Of Absence

2010-09-26T21:17:00.001-07:00

I have a customer who used to order nearly the same things each week: Five Alive Citrus juice, Peach Passion juice, and some other sweet things. It was like clockwork: arrive at their farm, look at the order, and bring them the goods. In fact, I would play a game and go to the door with with what I thought their order would be. Well, that's all changed.

A few months ago, I saw an unusual note on the front door: "We've gone to the hospital. Our son is in palliative care." Palliative care. These two words usually intimate that you are not long for this earth. I spoke with Lorin and he confirmed my thoughts: their son had cancer and would not live much longer. What pain lies behind customers' doors...

These last few weeks there have been no orders for sweet things, no Five Alive, no Peach Passion. The orders have become utilitarian, survival like: milk, yogurt, some cheese. I spoke with Lorin and and told me that their son had died.

I delivered milk once again to their farm last week. The order was sparse. It struck me how the absence of a few juices had such heavy significance. Does the mother, upon opening the door as I drive away, grieve each time she sees a milk container bereft of juice?

All of these vectors that we are part of, and have no idea about.

Guerrilla Marketing For Dummies

2010-09-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

The field is silent. Dust in the hayloft falls noiselessly. It was a dark and stormy night...

Blah blah blah. The chickens have all gone to the "Big House in the Sky" and are now snugly wrapped in our freezers. But, they're no good there! They need to be in your stomachs, making you smile. You're smiling because you haven't tasted chicken like this...perhaps forever. The "Costcoification" of the animal world (which equals $1 for 100 pounds of hamburger...great deal) has deluded us all into thinking that cheap meat is good for the economy. Actually, cheap meat is bad - all the way around. Your health becomes compromised. The dollars spent go abroad to multinational corporations, the meats are often grown in conditions that would gag a maggot off a gut bucket. And the illusion continues. Did you know that by the time a commercial beef arrives sliced up on your grocer's shelves, an entire barrel of oil has been consumed in the manufacture of feed, cost of machinery to run and grow the corn, transportation costs from the farm to the feedlot, more corn costs, slaughter house, transportation back across the country to a cold storage, then finally transportation to your grocery store.

By contrast, growing meat on our farm costs nearly nothing in fuel costs; we use no machinery; our animals eat hordes of grass, bugs, slugs and worms (depending on which animal you happen to be...). Is our meat more expensive than your grocer's? Yes. And that's the true cost of food when a Canadian grows it in Canada, as opposed to an anonymous laborer working for nearly nothing in a South American country.

So here we have all this beautiful chicken, just waiting and waiting and waiting. Waiting to become a part of your body, its nutrients and ingested trace elements becoming part of you, its big juicy hormone-free and vegetable based fed thighs and breasts - dripping with transparent fat - (much less than commercially raised, mind you) tickling your tastebuds and making your tummy smile. Well, that's what happens to me when I eat it.

In order to unload the freezers, I've become my own marketing agency. Here's a few attempts at advertisements from yours truly. Hey. Gotta start somewhere.

Number one is the classical American icon, the old man who want to get you to enlist. Its the classical Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ("it is good and fitting to die for one's country") ploy. In other words, the empowered trying to get the little guy to join the armed forces, most likely to become cannon fodder. OK. Propaganda of the political kind has little difference from advertising. They're both trying to sway you to agree with their proposition. So I took the poster and tried manipulating you to buy chicken. Is it working?

Number two is a take-off on a movie poster. We've got the dedicated Maoist farmer holding high the Red Book of Chicken, endorsing everything between the pages as all good proletariat farmers should. And, to make it look a wee bit contemporary, we've got a young couple walking to our farm, hand-in-hand, just gaa gaa over the prospects of a roast chicken tonight. Mmmm...

Number three is a natural because of Ahnold's alleged use of steroids and the sheer ridiculous bulk of his muscles. The commonality lies in the bulk of my chickens' thighs and their muscular profile. This isn't a mushy, watery chicken: these babies have substance, fibre and demand some commitment from your teeth and jaw. And the reward is a flavour that surpasses all understanding...

I think I'll try a Western movie add, maybe Clint Eastwood or John Wayne.

Well, at least this keeps me out of trouble.