sheepishly

I’ll say this about Sunday: if you wake up and you remember that most every minute of the day ahead is accounted for, you feel cheated. As if you lost a week-end.

But every minute is not accounted for today! I have a handful of hours before the clock strikes the noon hour (at which time I will get ready, dress in black, walk to work). I hand over several precious minutes to reminiscing about how on recent, more flush September week-ends, I would be elsewhere, attending to grape harvests, or listening to the ocean waters pound the shores far far away.

To these musings I think Ed grunted. Or said nothing at all.

We should have house-cleaned, but I already cleaned this week-end and I felt I might well overdose on the stuff I spray on bathroom surfaces. Even though the container calls it eco this and green that.

Ed asks – do you want to go see an art show where the artists make things out of cigar boxes?
What things?
Don’t know. There are eleven artists displaying their cigar box works at a cigar shop.
It’s too perfect outside. I don’t want to breathe cigar smoke.
How about the Jefferson Sheep Fair? You like sheep.







Actually, I think sheep are pretty dumb. You look at them and they look away and they do it in unison. A bunch of sheep avoiding your gaze. It’s weird.

But I miss Scotland. Or, more accurately I miss the June days when I had nothing urgent on my plate except to hike from point A to point B, amidst fields of sheep.

We climb on Ed’s Honda and head east. Less than an hour out of Madison and we’re there.





We don't have much time, but I think we do take it all in: the market lamb contest…





The baby lambs…





The sheering of sheep (he charges about $4 per sheep; ...picked the skill up in New Zealand. It’s a lifestyle, he tells us. You don’t do it for the money but for the lifestyle. He sheers here and in Scotland and God knows where else. I think that I work for the love of teaching and for the money, sure, but I think that lifestyle – all indoors and very confined – is at odds with what I think of as healthy)…





Sheep. Everywhere sheep. And their attendants.





Sometimes back to back…





Or, really, just back to back sheep. Or the backsides of sheep (unlike the backsides of people, these are quite exposed).





I enjoy most watching the sheep herders participate in the herding event. I like how hell bent the dogs are – as if they could not run fast enough. Except when the master orders a stay. They crouch then, waiting to be released again.





There were other displays – of wool, spun by nimble hands…





Really, lots and lots of wool, for sale wool, for prizes wool, oily, beautiful, fragrant wool.





But in the end it was a joyful morning, full of those dumb, hairy sheep, uplifting to me, just because they made this Sunday morning less predictable than I thought it would be.

old dogs

On the one hand, old dogs have a hard time with new tricks, on the other, if they’re of a playful disposition, then sometimes they can surprise you.

Here's a photo of Ed, prior to dinner last night. Ironing. It would not shock me to learn that this was the first time he had ever held an iron.






The dinner itself was, of course, terrific fun – both to cook and to share. On the other hand, today was spent in the miserable company of dirty dishes, tired limbs and a great desire to not go to work at the little corner shop.

Ed and I took a walk by the lake just before I was due to join the retail world and truly, our pace was that of two very old dogs. He said it was my fault. I lagged behind.

Still, the summer weather continues energetically, as if it can’t get over its own wonderfulness. Take this one! And this! And another!

We watched others watching ducks. The water was murky, the sun hot, the air still.

2001

Eight years is a very very long time. September 11th eight years ago, for me, like for all Americans, was a milestone. We expected a different world after that.

Now, looking back, nearly all the changes that occurred both in my own life and in the life of the country have taken me by complete surprise. My days now are stunningly different than they were then (and the country, too, has moved in stunningly unforeseen directions). What does that say about life…


Eight years ago, I was about to set out with a small group from the old neighborhood for six day trip to France. I’m sure all of us remember the wait to board the plane on September 17th – it was one of the first flights to cross the Atlantic after a complete cessation of air travel. A very quiet wait. Do with us what you want, we were thinking, only get us there safely.

Safety was almost as big a word then (the safety of children living on the east coast, the safety of others in various parts of the world) as shovel-ready and big government appear to be today. Each year brings in a new vocabulary of concerns. And they’re always very local, very personal. And loud. And intense. As if no one has worried about any of this before we thought of it. Understandable, I suppose.


Tonight, I’m cooking dinner for people whom I have neglected for far too long. Indeed, one of the big changes in my life is that I cannot remember when I last cooked for someone other than Ed or my daughters.

So I’m thinking maybe the next two, three, eight years will still be different. Maybe I’ll write more, maybe. Tonight, I’m just fussing with food though. And opening a bottle of wine that I bought in September, eight years ago.

identity

I think Wisconsinites would do well in… California. We take to good weather like fish to water.

During a long stretch of beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures, we have demonstrated our real capacity for enjoying the outdoors. We have biked, boated, found peace in quiet spaces, eaten lunches outdoors, stretched out and reached for the cushion of a loved one’s belly – we have done it all.




peace in quiet spaces





lunch outdoors





stretched out and reached for the cushion of a loved one’s belly



So please, continue with the warm stuff! We’ll become known as the state that does good weather well. We’ll set an example of balance. We’ll work steadily and appreciate the leisure hours afterward. Just make us (climatically) into a California! (We are so almost there...)

a moment in time

People behave irrationally. There, I’ve said it! We are not nearly as logical and sane in our actions as we pretend.

I’m impulsive, I know that. I also know that my impulses have taken me down a mixed path. Some good stuff has come of it and, at other times, I’ve done things that make me later wonder – what was I thinking?



When I was a kid, I loved the number nine. I don’t know why. It’s just a touch demented! Addicted to a number? It’s not that my ninth year of life was more memorable than, say, my eight, or tenth.

Still, I loved that nine. (Recently, I changed my mind, I have a new favorite, which only goes to show that you can continue to be irrational into your post-middle-age.)

So I thought I should do something special tonight as we get to the numerically significant moment when on 09/09/09, we roll by the time of 09:09.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

Nothing.

Because, even though we behave irrationally and we say things that are stupid and against our own interest and the interest of someone less favorably positioned than us, we really should not flaunt our irrationality. We should try to curb it.

At least this is my hope.

And so I end now, before 09/09/09 at 09:09, just so that I can make the statement that it is possible to let go of insanity. It’s not too late.

I leave you with a photo from the market. This morning, I went there, for the flowers, for the quiet. For the love of markets and the foods that bring people together.

for granted

You should know that this semester, Tuesday will be a posting challenge. I am out, teaching, then again teaching, and finally, in the evening hours, selling stuff at a little corner shop nearby. So, I'm out of the house a very, very long time.

This should make it an exciting check of Ocean under fire. Like speed dating, where you only have a minute or two to impress.

I begin this round of crazy Tuesdays with a post on corn. Surprised? Here's why I'm corn-focused:











I found these people pushing corn and apples (and messages of sustainability) just down the hill on library mall. And the reason I title this post "for granted" is that we are so used to fresh corn and the bounty of apples now, that there actually wasn't a line for either. Even though both were free and it was lunchtime.





It's hard to appreciate bounty.

Today there was yet another day of warm, gentle sunshine -- the kind that warns you that there's only so much left... And yet, we go to work, we worry about this or that, we go home, eat a meal, go to sleep with little appreciation for what we have, and are about to lose.

Let me end with an assurance that, even though I passed on the free corn and apples…










… I did not take the warmth of the day for granted.

Labor Day

From farming machines on Saturday, to working people on Monday. From free time (can’t remember, when was that? Oh, that! That was illicit free time! I should have been reading!), to no hours to waste.

To have work, health insurance, health, more work – that is, of course, a good thing.

Except today, it’s easy to feel discouraged. One of those times when I’m in the “one step back” part of the course (or, is it that I’ve switched to “two steps back” for every step forward?).

Oh, I know. We all have disagreeable days – when the IRS tells us we did our taxes incorrectly (why are they picking on me? I’m not worth the money it takes to review my paperwork!), when worry about keeping up with the demands of the everyday make you shake, when surfing the Net brings no relief (quite the contrary – you wonder where people find such tremendous reserves of belligerence and fury) – we all have them.



When Ed suggests we take a spin by the Labor Temple, I first say -- no time! But by late afternoon, I change my mind. It’s Labor Day. My grandfather was a labor organizer. I’m one of those who thinks that people who provide labor have had an especially tough year.

Let’s go.





It feels good to be there.















I invaded the farming machinists' reunion on Saturday, and today I invade the gathering of another segment of hardworking men and women.
















I think I’ve had a very, very well spent handful of days.

whirligig of time bringing those sweet revenges

Here’s an interesting phenomenon: as you get older, days spin forward like mad and then, so that you can make sense of it all, they all land in quotes that your brain has accumulated over the decades. If I continue to blog for the next five, ten, twenty years, expect to see increased reference to anything from Beatles to Shakespeare.

This post is a bonus – I already have a notation for September 6th. But I want to bring up an omitted photo from the Thresheree (see previous post). Why? Well, see if it does anything for you.






Nothing? Sure? You don’t identify with the endlessness of mechanical genius? Of collector solidarity? Of Wisconsin’s garden tractor mania?

Still no great awakening? That’s okay. Me neither. But Ed loves it. So there’s that.

searching

I want out. It’s a long week-end and I don’t want to lose it all to days that, when I’m working, look remarkably the same. The academic year is just starting, but I’m restless. Most week-ends are slated to be work week-ends in one way or another. The dearth of unscheduled hours is making me nervous, unsettled.

I ask Ed for help with the day. An escape. I want to be dragged away somewhere. Anywhere.

We don’t go to the Saturday market. We pack up my bike and head out. To where the wild beasts (mostly chipmunks and rabbits and turkeys) roam and cranes and herons and hawks fly. Or stomp.





Ed suggests an end of summer country road biking loop. Past tobacco barns and soy fields. And goldenrod.



























Not too ambitious. Twenty plus miles and we’re done. Better. Definitely better. But still…

Not done yet! Hurry up, we need to be in Edgerton by 3.

We drive south. More tobacco barns. In this part of Wisconsin, you get the sense that tobacco – that coarse one, used for wrapping cigars – was once a very very big deal.













And now we’re at a makeshift parking lot, crammed with pick up trucks, SUVs, your basic big cars, so that Ed’s little Geo looks toylike and fragile. We’re here, Ed tells me. The annual Rock River Thresheree. Just how do you spell that? With lots of e’s and r’s.

What could be more Wisconsin…

Maybe you’ve not heard of it? Until today, neither had I. As Ed explains it, it’s a time for collectors of old farm engines to get together and share their stuff. This weekend is their 53rd reunion. And if you think that it’s just going to bring out a handful of enthusiasts, you would be so wrong.





It’s a huge event: steam engines, high crop tractors, caterpillars, john deeres, combines, plows, hit or miss engines – most spiffed up and lovingly preserved. Hundreds and hundreds of painted to a shine machines – fifty, sixty, seventy years old.





The air is thick with coal burning smoke. But this isn’t a bad thing. Not here. Not among steam enthusiasts.





The men (and occasionally women) behind the machines are farmers. They’re in overalls and grease stained jeans and for once, Ed is almost urban cool in his standard shorts and tee shirt.

We watch the machine parade.









For one full hour, machines grunt and sputter past us. Each is enthusiastically introduced, like in a contestant in a pageant, except here there are no winners, no best in show. They all get their moment in the hazy sun.

We stroll through the exhibits, and sales booths (wind chimes made of tools, kiddie tractors, spark plug collections and the occasional pair of cowboy boots)…





.. past tents with lawn mowers (Ed: can I ask you – what got you started? I mean, you have dozens of these… He points to rows of Reo mowers and blowers. My dad picked up one for five bucks… no one else seemed to be interested in them, so I thought I’d jump in) and shacks with sorghum syrup.









Ed takes time to look closely at the various engines and machines. But after just a few hours, I’m lost in engine haze. They all chug and sputter. They mow, grind, grade, they’re gold, red, green, operated by burly men and burly women, or at least women who look like they could plow down a cornfield if asked.

At this reunion, one that is not my reunion, I indeed find the calm that comes when you get to stare at others and remove yourself from your own singularly pathetic concerns. We stroll and pause and ask questions until I am tired and hungry.

We head back home to Madison past barns with tobacco leaves and fields of soy.