celebrating compost

Yesterday we dug into the grandfather manure pile and found the gardener's version of gold. I've been told this morning that I either need a vacation or a stiff drink for celebrating this, and I laughed, but to be honest, it's one of the little miracles of living on a farm that I hope I never stop celebrating.

Since January I've been making small compost piles around the perimeter of my pastures, with the intention of composting some of our stall waste right where it's needed, so that when when it's mature, I can simply drag it out across the field. Unlike with chemical fertilizers, horses can graze immediately on composted fields.

It's an experiment, so we'll see how it works out. Yesterday I shifted from pile making to pile seeding. I'm going to cover each small pile with a nice layer of mature compost and then let nature do its thing.

Meanwhile, I've started saving for a composting system made by the o2 company, which will significantly reduce the time it takes to get from stall waste to mature compost. I can move the portable bins around to where I need them, and run the aerating fan with a small solar panel. The company also has a page on their site which talks about using mature compost as stall bedding, which would make the bedding issue a closed circle at some point - no need to buy more!  I can't quite picture it, but apparently there are more than a few horse farms doing this with good results. For the horse sensitive to the usual bedding materials, I can imagine compost being a very benign alternative.

Aside from the obvious benefits of composting, which include turning a waste material into something valuable, protecting the groundwater, and possibly reducing expenses overall, I confess there seems something almost magical about the process, and that has its own appeal.

One of the most constant, never-ending chores on a horse farm has to do with mucking and managing manure. Horses are designed to graze nearly 24 hours a day, and as we toss hay and maintain pasture to keep that possible for horses not able to range as they do in the wild, it's not lost on most of us that what goes in one end comes out the other.

Two years ago I transformed the daily chore into something pleasurable when I started using my wheelbarrow loads to create the labyrinth path. Once done, I moved on to the woodland path. Now I'm making these small piles, thinking of them as alchemical mounds, which will transform to gardening gold.

Even the equines are excited about it. I'm noticing they helpfully drop the manure close to the piles, and yesterday, as I was working on one small pile in the back field, the pony came over and backed up, leaving me more raw material for my alchemy lab.

a few photos taken by my daughter this week

rolling on, into a new week

Looking back to last week, it seems surreal - a wrinkle in time, to borrow from Madeleine L'Engle. Yesterday afternoon the wrinkle began to flatten out again, and we started work cleaning/pruning two big garden beds.

I imagined getting both of them completely done, but due to our jolly green giant butterfly bushes, we only made it halfway through one bed. My aversion to pruning always gets me in the end, because when it finally becomes critical that it get done, it's a huge undertaking.  It's intriguing to me that every time I undertake the huge pruning chore, it coincides with the need to 'cut through' something, or unstick myself from some mental entanglement.

This time it was what I needed to move on from this past week, which was sad and beautiful all at once, and difficult to let go. Much more difficult obviously for Gerry's closest friends and family members than for me, but it was clear that pruning away dead branches, dragging them to a pile, and then sitting with them as they burned to ash, was both metaphorical and healing.

We are having a beautiful stretch of days. The front field is looking so clean and good, and yesterday I saw just a shimmer of green beginning. The bare paddock always looks a mess this time of year - it gets the most traffic and right now it's so torn up it seems there is no way anything will ever grow there again. And yet by midsummer we will be seeing grass there, and I'll be amazed at the earth and how it heals itself with no help from us humans.

I have errands to do today, and chores, and if the forecast is correct it will be 68 degrees this afternoon. We now have two shedding equines - Salina, and the pony, going in the same sequence from year to year. We see the brush turn black when Salina sheds, and white once the pony starts. The copper and red bay comes a little later, and the donkeys shed out last of all, which is pretty smart of them, since their fur is good pest control.

I think this will be a good week to continue the spring cleaning we've been doing, and to start a few new projects: vegetable garden, new way of composting, etc. Right now it feels good to have good work to do.

Linda Parelli teaches a one-eyed horse a "lesson"

This came in to my inbox a bit ago and I am appalled. I've never been a Parelli fan, but mostly because of what I've read and heard - I've never seen any of their "work."

This is a horse with one eye, and watching the video, I am most struck by the fact that I can make no sense at all of what Linda might be asking this horse to do. It's clear the poor horse doesn't know either.

I only wish I had a video of Marlis Amato working in a clinic we hosted here a few years ago, with our one-eyed goddess, Salina, to show an alternative of what one can do softly, quietly, and with utmost respect to the horse.

I'm told this is from a Parelli Level 1 DVD. If this is basic, I have no desire at all to see what they do in advanced work, and as much as I adore Walter Zettl, I can't imagine what he is doing working with the Parellis, unless it's to try and get them to stop doing THIS:

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80925308

Note to everyone who doesn't know: this is terrible horsemanship. I'm so tired of so-called "professionals" treating horses badly and earning money for it.

Here's an alternative with Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling:

Happy The Man, and A Tribute

 This morning's Writer's Almanac featured this poem, which I think is fitting for this week:


Happy the man, and happy he alone,
   He who can call today his own:
   He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite or fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

-Horace, from Odes, Book III, xxix. Translation by John Dryden


My husband, Matthew, wrote this tribute to his friend Gerry, who died on Thursday after a car accident last Monday.  I wanted to share it here, as I feel it expresses well why Gerry's death has touched so many of us:

Friday, March 5, 2010 12:47 PM, PST

There were a lot of prayers this week for healing, and a lot of people lighting candles for Gerry. A lot of love focused on Gerry and his family, most especially Mandy and the kids. And yet his body died. So people with a particular perspective would say, "see, prayer doesn't work". But I differ with them about that.

There was such an intense light and love in Duke hospital this week. Most especially yesterday, our last chance to say goodbye to Gerry. I could see it on the faces of his family, a light of healing and love and grace. I think many of the visitors to the hospital came to give consolation to Mandy, but found themselves receiving so much of it from her instead. I have only seen this degree of grace and love a very few times in my life, and when I see it I am always humbled and in awe of its power. It can sometimes flow through us when we get out of the way of Spirit, out of the way of God. Sometimes in very small moments of creativity and energy and flow, and sometimes in awe-inspiring ways as the visitors to Gerry's hospital suite saw this week.

I have not had the honor of spending very much time with Gerry and Mandy's extended family, but he has always conveyed to me and his other coworkers how fortunate he is to have them, and what a caring and close-knit family they are. And I know we all saw that this week if we spent even a few minutes over at Duke Hospital. I believe it is the power of prayer, and the power of love, of Gerry's own kindness to all of us, and the power of Spirit to uplift us when don't hinder it. A fitting grand finale to Gerry's life so very full of friendship with so many people everywhere.

Sometimes it is not easy to have the full perspective of just how important someone is. Until they are gone, and you feel your heart crying. . .

Countless times, Gerry would tell whoever was in the office that he was leaving, and say "I'll walk out with you if you're ready to go home". And if we were finished, we'd gladly shut down our computer and pack our bag and walk down the stairs. We didn't know why, didn't really think about why, we just did it because we wanted to. Because talking to Gerry, somehow it always made you feel good, or at least better than before. So we would go out and chat for 5 or 10 minutes about the latest project we were working on, or fish oil supplements, or or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the latest office rumors that Gerry's unrivalled network of friends at work had passed on to him. But whatever the topic of conversation, it felt good and right to spend those last few minutes of the workday, out in the parking lot, talking to Gerry.

Look at the outpouring of support on these web pages, at the hospital, at his work, on phones, emails and instant messages going around the world. All of this speaks for itself, so loudly we all can hear it and feel it in our hearts. It is written: "By their fruits ye shall know them". Yes, indeed, Gerry, yes indeed.

Gerry I don't think you even knew how important you were to everyone while you lived your earthly life.

Goodbye, Gerry (for a while). You really did have a wonderful life, and I am utterly grateful that I got to share 10 years of working closely with you, and all our lighthearted and serious conversations, and more than a few cold glasses of beer.  Godspeed, Gerry.

Matthew Cromer