It’s all in the way you wash it

July 27th, 2009

Today’s topic is laundry. As I am the laundry slave in this house, I believe I have more than a little to say about the topic.

Of course, when I say “laundry,” I’m not talking about that neat little basket of unmentionables that can be tossed in the washer with a dab of soap and a happy smile. When I say “laundry,” I’m talking about the stinking heap of barn clothes and dog towels and horseback riding clothes that requires a moment of silent prayer.

I’m thinking of blue jeans that are so crusted with dirt and grass stains that they could be leaned up against the wall as a post-modern sculpture. I’m talking about the white t-shirts with pit stains that go halfway down the sides and circle up to the shoulder seam. I’m pondering muddy, hay-infested dog towels, sweat-stained underwear, sweatshirts with pockets full of screws and hay chaff, socks that were once white and that are now a muddy gray.

In short, I’m talking about day-to-day farm laundry. (I won’t even tackle the big guns of farm laundry: shit-encrusted horse blankets, cat-stained blankets, and horse leg wraps. I don’t know anyone who actually washes that stuff in their washer. They either send it out to a service, wash it by hand in the yard, or sneak it to the laundry mat and clean out the poop-balls from the washers and dryers with a large portion of guilt.)

I thought it might be helpful to discuss how to handle day-to-day farm laundry. Although most of my readers don’t actually live on a farm, some of you must certainly encounter scrungy laundry. Here are a few of my thoughts on how to tackle really dirty laundry:

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Intricate, woundable, unknowable

July 11th, 2009

I just finished reading Charles Siebert’s moving essay about whales and their emotional and intellectual lives in the latest New York Times Magazine. Titled “Watching Whales Watching Us,” it explores new research that suggests whales are not just dumb sea creatures upon which we can play our fantasies and dreams, but rather that they possess intelligence, emotional lives, and complex societal structures.

Besides being lyrically written (truly one of the most moving essays I’ve read in the last year or even last few years), the piece also had special meaning for me because my memoir-in-progress is organized around a series of chapters detailing the animals in my life.

***

Far from being dumb beasts who live to serve me, I have come to know the animals who share my life as independent creatures with their own social hierarchies and concerns. In addition, they seek, as Seibert notes in his essay, to interact and to communicate with humans.
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All the morphine I could take

July 10th, 2009

Paul’s story goes like this:

He works in the flooring department at Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse in Vestal, N.Y. A six-foot tall, thin man with a friendly smile and an efficient way of getting things done, he and his manager, Fran, have improved sales in their department by nearly double. In fact, in the last six months, they have managed to win awards from the regional office and garner customer praise by the bucketfuls.

It’s not surprising, really, since both Fran and Paul are older—both in their early to mid-40s and both have had long-time careers in flooring installation and sales. They know their products, and they like to talk about them.

Fran is a straight-shooter, the one clearly in charge. Paul defers to him gracefully, and this easy-going quality, this ability to roll with the power differential becomes more surprising when Paul’s story emerges in little snippets between sales pitch and friendly banter.

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Making hay

July 10th, 2009

The smell of hay hangs heavy in the air this morning. Maybe it’s the mist that holds the scent close to the ground, or perhaps the air remains pregnant with it because it can hardly do otherwise. After all, every farmer around us has fired up the tractor and gotten to work on cutting lush, overdue hay fields.

I’m not complaining either way.

After nearly a full month of rain every single day, the return of the sun signals a welcome shift in weather. People keep telling us that northern Pennsylvania weather never behaves so oddly, that this truly represents an anomaly, that in years past there have been droughts and long inexplicable dry spells. It’s hard to believe, as all we’ve seen are the stainless steel undersides of storm clouds for weeks and weeks.

The weather has been so uncooperative, in fact, that to my deepest sorrow, we were unable to plant our garden. Underground springs form a tracery beneath this soil, so the ground remains sodden and uncooperative in many places. (In Wisconsin, we would designate this land wetland. Here, people turn their horses out on it.) Thus, our tomatoes remain in pots on our porch, and our seedling potatoes go unplanted.

Our hay supplier, Slugger (”Mr. Slugger?” I asked. “Just Slugger,” he said.), has been at work in his fields, trying to pull off as many bales as possible. When we call the feed store where he works, they tell us “he’s at home making hay while the weather holds.”

When we break open a bale of Slugger’s hay, a mix of timothy and other grasses, it smells divine—of sunshine and chlorophyl and the soil from which it grew. Next week we will begin bringing home 200 bales of it, and then, even in deepest winter when tears freeze on our eyelashes and our fingers go numb, we will be reminded of these drowsy, sunlit days of mid-summer in the whoosh of captured air that bursts from the middle of the bales.

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Dissolving the political bands

July 9th, 2009

After nearly a week of relative quiet, revolutionary protests and clashes continue today in Iran.

With this news coming so soon after the Fourth of July holiday when we celebrate our nation’s embrace of democracy, it’s hard for me to concentrate on a single other thing besides the struggles of people who are risking their lives to oppose a government they believe has become “destructive of these ends.”1

Many news outlets have reported numerous acts of violence against the protesters, as well as arrests of those involved and of bystanders. Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic Monthly has remained one of the few bloggers who has continually posted updates. I won’t replicate his work. Visit his blog and learn more about the Iranian struggle.

Our founding fathers risked everything—life, liberty, family, the pursuit of happiness—just as the Iranian people are doing today. If you haven’t lately, re-read the Declaration of Independence, and you’ll get a sense of just what citizens risk when they uprise against the government in power.

Whatever you do—be it pray, meditate or some other way to commune with your spiritual beliefs—please send your best thoughts to the Iranian people who are locked in a struggle that truly represents a grassroots democracy effort.

It’s not hyperbolic to suggest that these demonstrations mean life or death for thousands and thousands of Iranian people.

1Words taken from the Declaration of Independence: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

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Lemon Chicken fail

July 9th, 2009

At the Vestal Public Library yesterday, one of the clerks behind the desk said, “I heard you tell the library director you are a writer. That’s fascinating.”

I was standing behind 15 books and two DVDs. The clerk had to duck her head around the pile to make eye contact.

“I am,” I said. “I’m taking year off to write.”

Saying this made me feel shivery and fraudulent, since I have done exactly no writing since landing in Pennsylvania/upstate New York. Then I thought: Does a half-truth like that constitute grounds for universal dismissal? Will I come down with the swine flu for straining credulity? Then I remembered this blog. Aha, I thought, I have been writing.

The clerk scanned and stamped my books, working slowly but carefully through my pile. She shook her head. “I don’t know. Being a writer…it must be…hard. What do you do when you can’t think of anything creative?”

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Ma reviews cat food

July 3rd, 2009

If you’ve ever wondered what your cats think of their food, wonder no more. Tonight I talked to my mother. Two of Mom’s cats, Cooper and Rudy, have been ill, and she had to change their food. They wouldn’t eat the new food, so she did what any crazy cat lady cat owner would do. She tried it herself.

“I noticed the Katz-N-Flocken had a slight aftertaste,” Mom said.

I paused, thought hard about how to respond, then asked the only logical question: “Well, like what?”

“I don’t know. Tallowy.”

“Like grease?”

“Yeah, like grease,” she said, then added, “But the Royal Canin [HLS: the new food] tastes good. It has a slight chicken flavor.”

“Hmmm…that’s surprising,” I said, although I was thinking the food should taste like chicken since that’s presumably one of its main ingredients.

“The Katz-N-Flocken leaves a slight salt taste on your lips,” Mom added. I started to wonder just how much cat food she had ingested.

“So are they eating it [the Royal Canin] now?” I asked.

“They are,” she said. She has this way of saying things in a way that makes her sound surprised and certain all at once. That’s the tone she used when she said this. The more surprised she sounds, the happier she is with whatever transpired. She was very happy.

“Good. I know you were worried.”

“I was,” she said. “You know, they didn’t really start eating it until I ate it in front of them. I think they knew it was OK after I ate it.”

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Rural life uncovered

July 2nd, 2009

On permanent loop today: Richard Buckner’s The Hill. Buckner set a portion of the poems from the haunting collection Spoon River Anthology to music. Many people don’t know this poetry collection or they dismiss it as sentimental, but when it was published in 1915, it broke barriers.

Spoon River Anthology was “unconventional in both style and content,” and “shattered the myths of small town American life.”1 Written as a collection of epitaphs on gravestones, the underlying narrative of a small American town emerges in fragmentary pieces. The dark undercurrents of lies, sorrow and anger shocked readers of the day.

Of course, the frisson that Masters’ readers first felt cannot be replicated for modern readers who have spent a century weaned on the idea that small rural towns are hotbeds of vice brushed over with a patina of godliness. There’s much to admire in Masters’ collection, and Buckner perfectly captures both the tone and the narrative arc in his selections for his album.

In an interview with Jennifer Nine at Comes With A Smile, Buckner talks about why he chose Masters’ collection as a basis for The Hill:
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It’s just our thing, I guess

July 1st, 2009

This morning we found the broken body of a snake in the barn aisle. Jesse cradled it in his hands, and we examined the bittersweet-blushed hexagonal blotches running the length of its body. Its underside, a bright milky cream, had the same pattern in a duller hue.

The kittens had obviously tortured it to death. Its upper and lower jaws didn’t quite match up, and its body hung limp and askew from Jesse’s leather gloves. A kitten leapt up and tried to catch the dangling tail in his claw. We put the body in a safe spot so we could look at it again when identifying if it was harmless or venomous.

The snake marked our nineteenth confirmed snake sighting at Bullfinch East. I used to think Bullfinch West was rife with snakes, but now I see how misinformed I was.

We consulted our new farm primer, the Pennsylvania Herp Identification: Online Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians of PA, to determine what we were dealing with here. Without hesitation, Jesse ruled that it was a juvenile milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum).

We know this snake only too well, having had to remove one from the space beneath our living room floor during the Bullfinch renovation. A common Pennsylvania (and Wisconsin) reptile, the milk snake can be found in most rural areas. It prefers hiding under building debris and other fallen matter. At first glance, the milk snake resembles a copperhead, but its diffident and distinctly non-aggressive nature sets it apart immediately. In fact, milk snakes are considered a docile snake that makes an excellent pet with some taming.

Having just dealt with the capture and removal of a copperhead, I know it’s easy to see the difference between the two. Copperheads will turn and strike. A milk snake will flee. It wants nothing more than to find something to hide beneath.

Our landlord recently jokingly said, “Snakes are a theme in your life, aren’t they?” I answered, “I guess they’re just our thing.” Later I pondered that until he met me, Jesse hadn’t seen a snake in years. Me? I have been plagued by them since I was a baby. So, perhaps it would have been better for me to say “snakes are just my very personal theme.”

At some point today, the body went missing from where Jesse had stowed it. We suspect the chickens or the cats dragged it off and ate it, but knowing my luck, I suppose it will turn up underfoot and rotting when I least expect it.

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Somebody please take my horse…

June 30th, 2009

I love Craigslist. Having outfitted Bullfinch Farm’s outdoor operation almost entirely from the online garage sale, I have only the fondest regard for it. I still don’t quite understand how Craigslist can be 100 percent free, and I do mourn the loss of classified revenue for newspapers, and yet, I find myself drawn to the list every day.

Yes, I visit several Craigslist cities every day. Or, maybe it’s just easier to say: “Hi, my name is Heather, and I’m a Craiglist addict.” There, I said it. That wasn’t so hard.

Truth is, I love to look at all the treasures people are selling. I like to ogle the tractors. I dream of picking up a couple roosters to butcher and eat. I marvel at the crap people dump in the free section. I enjoy reading the train wrecks that are wedding dress ads under the clothes section. But, God help me, I love the crazy ads best of all.

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