Farm Report
Hello from my farm on the night of the first hot day of the year. I’m writing to you from beneath a perfect crescent moon.
Colin, my musician husband, is on tour for the month of May and I’m holding down the fort. I’m tired of doing everything myself and I miss him, but it’s going fine. I’ve been busy. I’m illustrating a picture book and helping with a big mural project at Milo’s school.
Window
After lunch today, on a whim, I let my indoor cat, Window, outside. I do a lot of public obsessing over my cats but I don’t talk about Window much because she’s kind of a sad case. I adopted her as a kitten from the Humane Society along with her brother, Fortinbras. (Hank, age three at the time, named them both over the phone when I called from the shelter to say I was bringing two kittens home.) Window was a miserable kitten. She was trembling at the shelter and cried for her brother whenever he wasn’t nearby. I took them both home because I felt sorry for her and didn’t want the siblings to be separated. But Fortinbras only survived a few months on our forested hill before a coyote ate him, and this tragedy plunged Window - already fragile - into an anxious despair from which she never recovered.
That was fifteen years ago. Now she’s old and spends most of her time under my bed. She sleeps with me but she hasn’t let anyone else in my family near her in a decade. Window is like a mythical creature. Visitors have heard tell she lives here, but it is a rare and mystical thing to glimpse her.
Anyway, Window is an indoor cat by choice. She hadn’t been outside in about ten years. She doesn’t want to go outside. Mostly she doesn’t even want to come downstairs. But after lunch she was sitting right by the door in a ray of sunshine. It was a beautiful day and she seemed curious, so I held the door open for her and she left. She slunk out the door and into some shrubbery and it occured to me that I might never see her again.
Honey Bees
At around 2:00 my friend Jacob showed up with a beehive and a cardboard box full of honey bees. This was a spontaneous arrangement. He texted yesterday to say that he had an extra beehive and would I like him to set it up in a corner of my farm? I said, Yes! And just like that I went from vaguely fantasizing about beekeeping and wondering how that all works, to having bees.
After Jacob left I picked Milo up from school and managed to get Window out from under the deck where she had been hiding for three hours. I brought her inside and then I walked around the farm to see what was growing on the first hot day of the year.
Slow Down
Every year or so there’s a bad accident on my road. People drive too fast. A few years ago someone died in my neighbor’s pasture. One time I was in my yard listening to the sound of a motorcycle racing down my road and when that revving engine noise abruptly stopped I knew instinctively that it was the sound of the motorcycle crashing at the intersection by my house and its rider flying through the air to land in the triangle of dirt next to the feed n seed. That guy lived, but I watched the paramedics load him into an ambulance from my deck. Tonight there was a terrible wreck. I don’t know what happened but I heard the sirens and saw the lights from my house. Slow down, everyone. Please slow down.
Good Night, Northern Lights
I heard that we might be able to see aurora borealis in Oregon tonight so I camped out in my north facing hammock and waited. I didn’t see anything in the sky but that perfect crescent moon and a small collection of stars. It was nice though, listening to tree frogs and a barn owl hunting on the night of the first hot day.
I hope the weekend treats you all well. Take in some bees. Attempt to liberate your tortured cat. Water your figs. Drive Carefully. Hug your family.
Did you know that bees can taste the sweetness of flowers they land on through their feet?
Nothing like giving a troubled animal love and peaceful place to rest. Ours was Banksy, the street cat that my wife discovered nearly at death’s door in the courtyard of our apartment complex in Beijing, China.
We would later discover, days on a saline drip, that he had been poisoned. He asked for help and we gave it without reservation, and his name fit him like a glove. He survived for five years longer, even with a compromised liver and kidneys.
From mornings with him sitting by, and sometimes on, my feet while I worked on the computer. Or, putting his paw on my hand while I did my morning yoga…..he gave me his thanks and so much more. If I could save them all, I would.