Snowstorm chitchat (plus images).

Today I bought blood oranges. Like the ones below painted by Emily Proud, an artist I discovered through another artist, Lisa Congdon. I don’t know either of them personally but maybe someday they’ll come over to the farm and eat citrus with me.

 

bloodoranges_EmilyProud_72dpi

 

I bought them in preparation for The Storm. I also bought bacon, of course. And, as usual, kale. Also milk. And a knobby three-knuckle piece of fresh ginger.

Meanwhile, down at the coop, the chickens are all, “Where is the grass? Why can’t I have it? Why aren’t babies coming out of these eggs I’m sitting on? I’m cold!” They’re huddled on their roosts underneath their red-bulbed headlamps as I write this. If I make a ruckus the rooster Claude will crow & crow until he lets me know that he heard me do it. Having a rooster really gets one thinking about the term “cocky.” That dude walks around like he’s the king of something awesome. Because he is, I guess.

 

wickies roosting

 

 

Thankful for bacon pancakes & so much more (poemthing) (mine).

On the night before Thanksgiving, I am thankful for friends. Thankful for the emails I get from friends like Chase, with this enclosed:

because I’M LAUGHING and because that video is so much like my life, my life is so much of making up songs about loving the things I’m cooking, picking, making, seeing. Thankful for friends who have and will come visit, and thankful for new friends in the making, thankful to be back east nearby closefriends I felt so far away from and thankful for the busestrainsandautomobiles which transport me and them to and from the country where I live. I’m thankful for my family members who are my friends in the deepest sense, the friends I haven’t picked but who have made me and it continues:

Thankful for

winter sun and

a grownup rooster fluffed with feathers (his name is Claude!) and

the shoes on my feet and

good soup and a fire and

the ever-discovery of poems and

the way lighting a candle makes me feel sacred no matter the time of day I do it and thankful

and apologetic to the mice we’ve killed in the basement who did not deserve to die and

thankful for free health insurance from the state of Vermont!

and emoticons and

thankful for sage and sweetgrass and cedar incense and

for the pond that I hopehopehope will turn to ice and hopeful

for finding ice skates at the thrift store for our pond and

thankful for nice thick socks

thankful for nice coworkers and kind customers and a wall of windows

thankful for how cheap a stamp remains and

for letters and packages and our big box from “fungi perfecti”

which means we’ll grow mushrooms underneath the sink throughout the winter and

thankful for the boldness of 2012 and all the good change it’s wrought and brought and

thankful for mittens

and a yellow hat from my sister

and a red hat from the country store which makes me look like a hipster which I am a little bit I guess but mostly I’m just a farmer who likes clothes and colors and thankful for

a grey hat from amsterdam

and thankful for all the things that weren’t stolen from our truck

like eachother and my gorgeous blue rounded piece of sodalite

which a woman at the stone store told me to select

because she said the purple of my aura was sagging that day

and it was

I was sagging that day

I’m thankful for people who help me unsag

like that cosmic lady who made me buy a very dark sodalite and also for my family and friends and

now I’m back to where I began which is thankfulness and

yayness and love and thankful and giving

this tinysmall poemthing in thanks and

in preparation for a bigmeal tomorrow, amen.

Things that are NEW (list).

 

Things that are NEW:

 

1. My dad no longer has a mustache. (My dad has had a mustache my entire life. My mom has literally never seen his upper lip before.)

 

2. We got CHICKENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Four ladies and a cock.

 

3. My parents live in Austin, TX. It’s true what they say: you can never go home again.

 

4. I quit a job after one day. Adios, youseguys!

 

5. I’m currently cooking a VAT of French onion soup. That is a lot of soup. (I’m using the word “vat” loosely here, considering I have no idea how much soup amounts to one. But trust me: soup for days.)

 

6. My closest friend lives over an hour away (insert sad emoticons here).

 

7. Almost every item of clothing that I’ve been wearing for the past THREE YEARS is packed away in a box labeled “Summer.”

 

8. I read a memoir. (I hate memoirs! Not this one though. Probably because I know the author. Also she is very, very skilled at describing food.).

 

9. THE LEAVES ARE CHANGING COLORS EVERY DAY IT IS SERIOUSLY A DYNAMIC EXPERIENCE TO WATCH.

 

10. I thought I was eating bacon the other day, but…it was ham. I ate ham, you guys. This is Really New.

 

Sideyard success. Serious joy.

The sideyard was so much fun. I was this happy:

Except I was wearing a blue crown with curled ribbons longer than my hair, a patterned poncho, and wings made out of leaves (made by Jen), and not a clown costume. As Frankie puts it,

best thing about the sideyard poetry readings:

the folks walking past on the other side of the hedge

on their way to friday-night-party

catching clips of outloud poetry

and the quick image of

a writer in the light

as they pass

What was also wonderful was how many people there were (estimates are in the high 90s), and the flower bouquets with artichokes in them (made by Ellie of course):

and how everyone got so drunk that no one bought books like these:

and perhaps the greatest miracle of the whole event is that not a single neighbor yelled at us. And people bought Misha’s photographs! And I didn’t even have a hangover the next morning! And the next morning was Saturday, and Ellie and I split a mushroom and bacon fritatta covered with blue cheese with whole wheat toast and raspberry jam. The end.

Mary Moon: she’s a vegetarian (song).

When I was sixteen years old I was the only vegetarian around—I lived in a small town and I guess everyone ate meat.

 

I had three best guy friends; we were a bit of a foursome. We once made a short film with my video camera where one of them, Eoin, turned into a cigar Indian while trying to thieve objects in a house (including toilet paper). The house was my house and we still quote that movie; it’s called “Sitting Bull” and my parents still have that cigar Indian.

 

The point is, I was the vegetarian of the group. They used to sing this song to me constantly. Listening to it now, I feel good about being compared to Mary Moon. She’s an intellectual, but despite this fact, remains quite sexual. I’m down with that.

 

This one goes out to Tom, Eoin, and Schnibbe, who taught me this song, to speed up at yellow lights, and the meaning of a “rusty trombone.” Gross.

 

Things that are awesome (Sunday edition).

 

garlic scapes are awesome

roses smell awesome

tampons are awesome

women that use diva cups are awesome

old ladies who dye their white hair purple are awesome

men with babies strapped to their fronts are awesome (so is anyone with a baby strapped to their body)

bare feet are awesome

mixed recycling is awesome

happy hour prices are awesome

bicycling feels awesome

tie dye is awesome

“Made in the USA” is awesome

having a sister is awesome

homemade hot sauce tastes awesome

grilling is awesome

finishing projects is awesome

making pancakes for yourself is awesome (so is making pancakes with anyone)

driving a tractor is awesome

getting high on coffee is awesome

artichokes are awesome

handshakes are awesome

wordplay is awesome

DJ names are awesome

blueberry season is awesome

reading is totally awesome

i think rollerblading looks awesome but i only did it once so i don’t know for sure

being taken out to lunch is awesome

feeding people is awesome

riding shotgun is awesome

James Brown will always be awesome

writing poems is for sure awesome

giving poems to people is awesome

whiskey is awesome

ginger beer is awesome

old friends are the most awesome of awesome

homemade muffins are awesome

thrift stores are awesome especially the sunglasses section

records are awesome

the word “platypus” is awesome and so is “spritz”

hip hop lyrics can be really awesome

bartering is awesome

letters in the mail are undeniably awesome

bacon is awesome why didn’t anyone make me eat it earlier it so so goddamn awesome

summer coming on is awesome

Misha is number 1 awesome

treasures are awesome (like bird bones or gemstones)

wind turbines are awesome

root beer floats are awesome

notebooks are awesome especially new notebooks

woodcuts are awesome

worms are awesome

herbs are awesome

friendship bracelets are awesome

monks are awesome and so are nuns

hats are of course awesome but we already knew that

getting an mfa is awesome and i’m almost done doing it!!!! awesome over & out.