All This Is Happening on the Farm

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Spring has been glorious on the farm. Usually by now we’re deep into summer weather, made increasingly less tolerable by the climate crisis, but last night the low temperature was 64 degrees. The high for a few days has been 80.

It’s perfect weather.

Last evening, standing by an open window, I said to Raven, my partner, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had these temperatures all year?”

But we won’t, and knowing that makes this gentle spring more precious.

I am surrounded by budding, fledging, sprouting, sprigging, tendriling, and pullulating.

For example, at least four nests of house finches can be found around the eaves. Two of the nests lodge in longhorn cow skulls hanging on our middle porch, and this creates a delicious irony, that hatchling finches tumble from their eggs into an old cow’s brain cavity.

A Carolina wren fledged a single baby from a soft and perfect nest the mom constructed quickly in a plastic bucket on the porch.

At the moment a female cardinal sits in a nest in the lemon tree beside the porch, and sometimes I see her partner—flash of crimson among lemony leaves—tending her.

Little Fawn

Of course the primary young in my life is the baby.

She is 9 months old now, and she has begun to say “Mama” loudly and often. Under her breath I hear her say “Papa,” and I’ve heard her pronounce “bebé” perfectly. She will never, of course, repeat these words when asked.

I realized this week that Little Fawn will not be a sign-language baby. She will acquire language far faster than she will gain physical coordination. I’m speaking consistently in Spanish to her.

She’s not yet crawling. She can sit from a prone position, and she can get up on all fours. She tries to crawl but it ends up as a series of lurches; she throws herself forward dangerously. Our floor is padded with quilts and pillows.

In April we engaged Amber Lively, Poetic Photography, to come out to the farm. I wanted a portrait of Little Fawn like the Olan Mills baby pictures so many of our parents had taken of us. Amber more than delivered, and I’m going to share a few with you.

Mulberry Moon

Our three mulberry trees gushed fruit this spring, so much that droves of cedar waxwings keep the yard sounding as if it’s full of carts with thin and squeaky iron wheels. We’ve made

• Mulberry Oat Bars

• Dried Mulberries

• Mulberry Fruit Leather

• Mulberry Syrup

We’re still using mulberries, so you’ll be hearing more about this. Look for a recipe next week!

Farm Report

So all that is happening on the farm. A skunk is hanging around, which might not make most people happy, but for many generations skunks disappeared from the southern coastal plains, and to have them back—that startling black and white pelt, that elegant presence—is a delight.

A couple of evenings ago the three of us—Raven, Little Fawn, and I—rode the electric golf cart through the south pasture, stopping to pick dewberries. They seem to grow in prickly vining clumps, so we surged from clump to clump. Raven drove, I picked, Little Fawn watched.

We came upon butterflyweed in bloom. Then a passionflower.

Our mule Tecumseh has been escaping his pasture, particularly at night, and traveling the dirt road. We see his hoofprints in the mornings. Finally Raven found a hole in the fence where another hurricane-damaged tree had fallen; now the fence is repaired. Cross your fingers that the mule stays in.

No-Mow-May ended early for us. The other day, on the way to the clothesline, I spotted a snake that was probably a cottonmouth. I only got a glimpse but I recognized it as a pit viper. When we see a snake of any sort we remove it, not because we don’t love snakes—we do—but because snakes eat our chicks and chicken eggs, so I grabbed a long hook and a large metal bucket we use for this purpose. Instead of slithering into the bucket, the snake squeezed under the house. The grass in the yard was, by early May, calf-high, and the snake’s presence worried me. So I dusted off the lawnmower and cut an area right around the house for safe walking.

Farther out, of course, the grass is unmowed, and in it grasses and clovers and Venus-looking-glasses are going to seed.

Ruby-throats orbit the woodbine. An Eastern kingbird hunts along the fence line. A mockingbird delivers worms—these would probably be pecan caterpillars—out of the pecan tree to a nest hidden deeply in a tangle of woodbine.

I could go on and on.

Act of Kindness

Recently I found myself at the post office in my hometown, 25 miles south of our farm, while in Baxley, Georgia to visit my mom. As I pulled into a parking space I recognized my sixth-grade math teacher, Miss Floyd. I had done well in math, so I had no weird feelings.

Miss Floyd played basketball as a schoolgirl, then coached, and she loved all sports. She was strong and athletic, and even at 80, that showed.

“Hey, Miss Floyd,” I said as she passed by, heading into the post office with a small package.

“How are you?” she responded, but I could tell she didn’t recognize me. I bent to extract Little Fawn from her carseat. Miss Floyd stopped.

“Oh, I have something for your little boy,” she said.

I didn’t say anything, just smiled.

Miss Floyd returned to her car, opened a back door, and rummaged around on the floorboard. When she straightened she held two small, brightly colored balls.

“The football is for your baby,” she said. “And here’s a basketball too.”

“Miss Floyd,” I said. “Do you buy balls and carry them around in your car for babies you meet?”

“Yes,” she said. “I give footballs to the boys and basketballs to the girls.”

“How kind,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you so much. We’ll enjoy these.” I thanked her twice because she gave Little Fawn two balls.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.

“I’m trying to place you,” she said.

“I’m a Ray.”

“I thought so,” she said.

“You taught me math in sixth grade.”

“I taught a lot of children,” she said.

How sweet, that my sixth-grade math teacher from 50 years ago travels around with small, soft balls that she gives to random children she meets.

Another Act of Kindness

A couple of weekends ago I spoke at BirdFest, which is a Birds Georgia conference. We checked into Villas by the Sea on Jekyll Island.

Little Fawn loves the song “Edelweiss,” and I was singing quietly to her as we walked into the front office of the hotel. The receptionist, as is often the case, was all eyes for the baby.

“Oh, that song,” she exclaimed. “My brothers and I sang that all the time growing up.” She put her hands to her mouth.

I started the second stanza, and a wonderful thing happened. The receptionist joined in. Her singing voice was amazing, so beautiful that it made my voice sound like a Model T pulling a string of tin cans. She only sang two lines before she had to stop, overcome by feelings.

Service workers are trained to be efficient, all business. They want to get you checked in to your room and tell you where the ice machine is and be done with you. But there was that moment, Jekyll Island, Georgia, the Polynesian receptionist moved by a beautiful baby and a song that carried her back to her childhood, to her family far away.

That she sang was a kindness.

A Political Revelation

My friend J, a medical doctor in rural Alaska, sent me this report today.

I want to share with you an extraordinary moment for me. Yesterday I was talking with a 74-year-old patient who has lived his life in this valley but had never been to our clinic. I know of him as I see him smoking while walking around town.

I did a quick mental status exam by asking him the typical questions of date, president, etc. Guess what. He did not know who is the president of the United States.

That gave me such pleasure!

My patient is mentally competent since we could converse about salmon, the river, the valley, and the meaning of certain words in his native language of Tlingit.

The word we were discussing was “hin.” Since rivers around here are Takin, Tahini (river of king salmon), and KlehiniI, I thought “hin” meant river . When I asked my patient he thought a minute and said “water,” which is a more pure translation than river.

I am letting the pleasure of that moment slowly fill me, in the way a small spring slowly fills a water jug.

There are smart grown people in this country who have no idea who the president is. Ha!

Radical Sustainability

Love the snake but mow the yard, lol.