Book Review: Jo Ann Beard’s forthcoming Festival Days

I discovered Jo Ann Beard’s rich, riveting work when a writing teacher assigned her essay The Fourth State Of Matter, which appeared in the New Yorker in 1996. That essay so wowed me, I couldn’t wait to read more. This forthcoming book, Festival Days, is a potent treasure, jammed with perfectly-observed details and a rhythm that tumbles forward like a song. Beard chronicles the commonplace and the unusual with equal beauty. Her ability to make time do what she wants is impressive. She can make it drag, while simultaneous pulling the reader forward, in The Tomb of Wrestling, and pushes it into quick leaps as if choreographing a fast-paced dance in the title piece Festival Days. As she so often does, each piece, and the collection as a whole, come to a smashing final beat, more than the sum of its parts, both separate and connected. A beautiful book, highly recommended

Christmas morning, November Hill

 My daughter and I are here with the animals until this evening when the rest of our family arrive in town, so we’ve done our own thing. Watched Little Women last night, woke up with nice Christmas music and a few gifts, and managing a very cold day for the herd today, after yesterday’s 65 degrees and pouring rain. Thankfully the sun is out, but the wind is blowing and it topped out at 34 earlier - we’re going down to 19 tonight. Blanketing has been a challenge, but I found an almost brand new pony sheet in my storage bins that I’d forgotten, so now the pony has a sheet to wear during this cold windy day and can give his heavier blanket a rest until later tonight. Keil has switched into his fleece for the day, and Cody’s getting Keil’s old Schneider’s sheet which will give his (not that well fitting) warmer blanket time to air out. I am ready for his new one to get here!

The dogs got new stuffies last night and provided quite the show for us, new dog chews this morning, and the cats got a new cubby/house, toys, catnip, and treats. They too provided quite a show. My daughter and her amazing photo skills captured this fueled-by-catnip play:

Happy Christmas, all!

Christmas Eve day, November Hill

Yesterday was so lovely. I started the very dry morning watching these three crows enjoy what remains of the final Halloween pumpkin.

 Today, it is pouring down rain off and on, and we just had a very intense wind gusting for a few minutes, but nevertheless, we are warm (it’s 62 degrees outside) and hopefully I can get the pony dry before the temps go down to below freezing tonight. There are some dire predictions for parts of North Carolina, so I hope everyone remains safe.

The beginning of the stream that runs through the front pasture when we get big rain. I’m happy to see that it’s flowing nicely, in between the row of alternating elderberries we put in last winter. While not yet big up top, under the ground their root systems are securing the banks on either side of the water. Allowing the leaves to remain on the ground also helps with run-off water.

This is what happens when your farm helper thinks he’s doing the right thing by removing every single autumn leaf. I saw this today and remember last week when it rained and no water collected - the leaves were still there. I raked out the leaves he’d banked around the oak tree and put them back where they were. This area is the back of the donkeys and pony’s small barnyard paddock outside their stall and shelter. They put the manure on the leaves along the fence, which are then easily mucked. Today, they couldn’t even get over there. The one small pile was before the rain started early this a.m. After I put the leaves back, this standing water was quickly absorbed. I’m not even entirely sure what magic leaves perform, but after years of living here, I’ve learned that taking them away is detrimental in horse-keeping and in water run-off control. Leave the leaves! 

The horses and donkeys are hanging in there - yesterday was beautiful and 55, so I let them stay out until 8 pm knowing they’d be in all day today. They did some galloping, Keil Bay included, and they all seem peaceful and content hanging out in their stalls and shelters and paddocks in this big rain.

The dogs went out dressed in their rain coats. Is Bear adorable or what?

This shows how much of his body is actually fur! He looks so slim and trim with the fur pressed down by the jacket!

Baloo ripped his brand new rain jacket off and tore it up within minutes of being outside. Sigh. However, he won a Twitter photo contest and had a prize portrait painted from the photo, so perhaps we will just call the ruined rain coat a wash. 

Tomorrow will be cold but sunny - a wonderful combination for Christmas Day.

Be safe, be happy, celebrate whatever you celebrate this time of year! 

Winter Solstice 2020

 I had grand ideas of what I would do to mark the winter solstice, but in the end, I went out just before sunset to help get the herd in, give Keil Bay his Marquis, and do a little work with my husband on one of Redford’s hooves, which seemed to have a sudden growth spurt (or wasn’t quite trimmed all the way in his recent hoof trim) and was in need of adjustment.

It was a quiet and sweet time, and afterward, we looked for the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn but couldn’t yet see it. 

I peeked out later and spotted this wonder, and overall, that was my solstice celebration!

We have a big week ahead, with my son and daughter-in-law moving their household from north to south. My part will mostly be waiting and holding down the farm here on November Hill. That’s a harder role for me than being actively involved, but it will be sweet and I hope as quiet as a December morning before anyone is up and about. 

The shortest day, the longest night, and now we’re tipped over to increasing our days bit by bit. It has been a dark year in some ways, so moving to more light feels like an important part of this year’s journey.

Happy Winter Solstice! 

A week of ups and downs

We started the week with rain and we’re ending it with more rain. Clementine is all of us right now, I think, longing for sunshine and better days.

On the sunny days, in the mornings, we enjoy the light coming through the plants, which after years of being kept upstairs in the winter, migrated back to their original spot here. I remember now how much I liked them there. The weeping fig has its own little autumnal response to being brought inside. Some leaves yellow, then fall, and it shoots out new growth. We repotted it this year and I’ve shaped it a bit.

One of the ups this week was finding this Meyer lemon bud, the first we’ve had in several years of caring for this plant. It’s the slowest growing thing I’ve ever had. If we get a lemon I will be over the moon!

Another sunny day Keil Bay and I waited for his acupuncture vet and I chronicled the oak tree shadow on the barn, something I love seeing, and often think how wonderful it would be to paint a wall with such a shadow on it. It transforms the entire barn.

After two and a half weeks of total normalcy, Keil has had a relapse and is holding his right rear leg outward again. He’s weak in the hind end and putting his feet in awkward places. But his spirit is good and he’s enjoying time in the barnyard with his fleece on, knowing the peppermint brigade is on the way.

The acupuncture helps, and while we’re now having yet another rain event that means he’s not moving as much, I hope we come out of this soon. He did a little trotting in his PT time and looked very good. We hope that time will heal the nerve damage and he’ll get back to his normal self and stay there. 

 It occurs to me that a week of ups and downs is basically a little piece of a life pulled out and observed, like a series of watercolors or notes on a pad. It is all ups and downs, isn’t it? And that’s not a bad thing, simply a true thing. In the middle of the acupuncture, when Keil had his blanket off, the vet’s assistant said she wanted to wrap up in Keil’s blanket, and she did, and in some small way that brightened up the moment, when he was standing wonky and tilting in the rear, and yet the three young women who come to minister to him were cheerful and behaving as if nothing were other than it should be. He’s having a wonky day. This will help. Let’s wrap up in his fancy fleece and give peppermints and update his treatment plan and aim for the next time. 

He walked them to the barnyard gate when they were done.