3:55 pm

Yesterday, dawn. If you look closely, you'll see Shorty's satanic eyes glowing in the lower right quadrant of the photo. And Domino is off to the far right.

When MeeMaw left for work, I kissed her goodbye, whispered a traveler's prayer after her taillights, and went back inside to lace on my boots. I picked up my stick and headed west down the driveway. I saluted the Confederate soldier who rests in the cemetary and whispered, "Hello again, Jesse Lane. Thank you again for what you did for our people." Then I climbed the cemetary hill, stepped over the electric fence, and plodded the steep hill to the top of the other side of the holler. When I turned to look down, the rising light had sharpened the floor of all things.

Near the crest of the hill, I noticed how Mr. Davidson's barn was framed by the oaks. When postmodern men sneer at poetry, they betray themselves: I know that they have never been alone in such a scene, with such air filling their shallow chests.

A single stalk of coffeebean plant reached up to catch my attention as I sat on the hillside, catching my breath.

And then, not many minutes afterwards, I could see Possum Cough far below. I love this photograph, because it exhibits true perspective: how small our little farm is beneath the majesty of the Clinch Mountains. I like the colors of the woodlot behind the farmhouse, and the layers of timber in the rising slopes behind the place where we live our quiet lives.

Up there, up at the top, sits the most natural pulpit I've ever seen. A felled tree left a slab of its form standing upright on the flat platform of what used to be its trunk. One would have but to step up onto the surface and lean back, using the upright portion for support, fill one's lungs, and bellow out across the valley. I did all of this except the bellowing. But I think I preached just the same. And my congregation was silent, brown-eyed, and dew-cooled.

The recent violent winds felled an old tree at the pinnacle. It now rests on a massive rock, a rock which looks like a half-buried dinosaur, with smooth hide and undulating movement that will never again show forth to living eyes. I sat on it and thought and talked for a while, and then it was time to return to the farmhouse and cook something.

Headed back up the driveway, the greenest tranquility was sitting there, bird-sang and donkey-brayed. Home is the sailor, home from the sea/And the hunter, home from the hill...





MeeMaw's miniature azalea and the unnamed blue groundcover looked ethereal in the early light.

And later in the day, Ernie came over, unasked, and mowed the front (west) pasture for us with his tractor-mower. MeeMaw baked him and Helen and Gabriel a pan of brownies as thanks for the kindness. The pasture looks good, but we pray that someday it will be just as closely-cropped by mammal mouth, and not by internal combustion engine.

Someone once said that all men who love their families cast a long shadow. As I stood on our country road and looked down to where my loved ones always disappear from my view, I saw my own shadow, and I wonder how long it will live in your collective memories.

Rest well, loved ones.

6:34 pm

I'm just in from a walk in the rain. Sounds like a line from a personal ad, doesn't it? "I am looking for someone who likes to take long walks in the rain." Have you ever noticed that when it rains, you usually don't see lots of folks out walking in it, particularly people who are on a date? Rain is seen by the postmodern world as a bad thing, no matter what people might say in a personal ad or an internet profile. Just watch people walking across a parking lot when it begins to rain. Most of them (particularly men, which irritates the living crap out of me) will duck their heads and hunch their shoulders, as if the rain were made of hydrochloric acid. I rarely see men walk through rain with their heads held up. They flinch from the rain as if from a beating. And when it does rain - even in an area like this which has been beset by severe drought for two years running - people invariably whine, "Oh, it's raining. I wish it would stop. I was hoping it would be clear for the weekend." Yes, it's quite a burden to endure when one has to activate the windshield wipers when one is heading to the mall or to some sporting event.


Well, it's raining here today, and we are enjoying it thoroughly. It was clear yesterday, though. Very sunny and warm. It started out that way for breakfast:

And it continued on through the afternoon. While MeeMaw slaved away, setting out vegetable seedlings in the raised beds and while PeePaw slaved away, cutting the grass and making compost, the two nonproductive members of the farm busied themselves in their usual fashion.

MeeMaw and PeePaw had the decency to postpone our naps until this afternoon. The rain does make for a nappish atmosphere.

I took this photo when I came back down from the woods. If you look carefully, you'll notice a new object sitting next to the yard barn.

This is our new superduper fancified compost bin. Not long ago, it was a nine dollar trash can. After about ten minutes with the drill (you may notice the dozens of holes in it if you look closely), it was quite perforated.

My dear friend Doug is a gardening/composting dervish. He uses this type of system to make compost in a relatively short period of time. "Get a 32-gallon trash can and a pair of bungee cords. Drill holes all over the can. Put in approximately equal parts of manure, grass clippings, and other organic matter. Sprinkle it with water until it's as moist as a wrung-out sponge. Put the lid on it. Affix the lid with the bungee cords. Tip the can over onto its side and kick it. Kick it and roll it across the yard several times to mix the contents. Stand it up. Leave it alone. When you check on it in a day or two, the composting process will be well underway."

Well, I did everything the way he told me. The contents of the bin are pretty much equal parts Domino & Shorty manure, pine straw, and grass clippings. Also, some potato peelings, cabbage leaves (minced) and coffee grounds. I wet it down, rolled it around, and left it alone. Just now when I came back from my walk, I took the lid off and here's what it looked like:

The sporty thing about it is that it's already heated up. The microbes are doing their job, and the whole mass has compacted down to less than half of what it was originally. There are some splendiferous red earthworms in the batch, too, and I know they're loving what they're in. Doug says that if I kick the can around for about 30 seconds once a day and make sure the contents stay slightly damp, it'll be useable compost in less than two weeks. We'll see...

We've come to some sad but necessary conclusions in the last week here at Possum Cough. No matter what our plans or enthusiasm called for, we've realized that there's just no way we can accomplish everything this spring/summer that we'd hoped for. If we were able to do this full-time, we could do it. But with both of us working, we simply don't have the time to do everything. After a nine-hour day at work, I have limited energy and daylight hours for doing things during the week, and Saturdays just don't have enough time in 'em. So we've prayed and talked and made some decisions. For this year, it looks like the priority will be gardening. We need to get a good feel for how productive our land will be, and this is our learning curve. We will try to fence off the raised bed section of the yard, and will also fence off a plot up in the south pasture after Gabriel plows it for us. All this fencing will involve quite a bit of time and effort. I'll have to dig post holes, cut posts (I ain't about to pay eight bucks per post for storebought fence posts!), mix concrete, set the posts, run and stretch fencing, build and hang gates, etc. And this doesn't even include the other plantings, weeding, watering, etc. that will be part of the package. So the goats, bees, etc. will have to wait until another time. My friend Harry has offered to provide us with some laying hens, so I may try to build a chicken coop and run for them. If I can get that done, we'll take four to six hens from him so that we can have fresh eggs. And we also need to put a line of fence across each side of the house, separating the front from the back. This is so that we can get a puppy at some point and begin training him/her to be a farm dog...in other words, a working dog, not a worthless "pet." Like two cats I could mention.

God willing, we will, at some point in the future, have more critters and more projects going on. But we don't want to fall into the trap that so many folks have talked to us about: immersing ourselves in too many projects and finding ourselves unable to keep up with what we've committed to doing. For now, Possum Cough will continue to be a slow learning experience for us. And it's a beautiful place to learn.

The previous owners of our land left a considerable amount of trash up in the woodlot. Old tires, discarded vinyl siding, etc. This coming Saturday, while MeeMaw is working, I plan to take the wheelbarrow up there and clear some of it out and take it to the landfill. Some of it will be useful for projects in the future. But that which is truly trash (including a disturbing number of bottles and cans....why on earth would someone litter his OWN land with trash???) will depart these acres.

My frequent walks up in the woodlot are always soured a bit when I see a beer can or a Coke bottle lying in a bed of ferns. I prefer to see a mild pathway. It's the better way.

When I got back from my walk, MeeMaw and I were sitting in the family room and talking. All at once, two hummingbirds swooped down on the feeder out front. MeeMaw only put it out yesterday, and they've already discovered that Possum Cough Cafe is open for businesss. From what we've read, hummingbirds return to their favorite places year after year, and they "tell" each other about places to feed on the migration routes. We like the idea of being a topic of discussion.

MeeMaw almost has supper ready (fried chicken and mashed taters!), so I must attend to my gustatorial duties.

Rest well, loved ones.

8:16 am

Up this morning before dawn, I put on a pot of coffee and dressed as quietly as I could in the gray silence of the house. I wanted MeeMaw to sleep and rest. With the Folgers bubbling into the Pyrex, I slipped out of the house and went up into the woods. The sky was brightening with every second, and I was trying to be both swift and stealthy as I ascended the hill. I stopped by the northeast fenceline and looked into a sky of expectation:

By the time I reached the top of the woodlot and looked due east, the slightest flicker came across the top of the horizon, like an ember in a woodstove, recreating fire from the night before.

I never tire of marveling at how all of Creation seems to know when dawn is arriving. There is a hush that comes across everything, signaling something grand. And then, softer than an infant's breath, yesterday is forever past and today has come.

Retreating west into the woods, I saw one of the dogwoods lifting its blossoms to the still-young sunlight.

And the apple trees are leafed out and ready to begin producing a feast for bee and horse and deer and Southerner.

Back down at the farmhouse, sleep still reigns. Such peace is precious because it is so fragile and fleeting. This very day may bring tragedy or gloomy sameness before it closes. But right now, at this moment, time is kind and quiet.

Finally back inside, I pour a cup and carry it and the old book outside, where I will read and sip and watch and listen.

Always, I am listening.

Make the most of the day, loved ones.

9:37 pm

Resurrection Sunday is come and gone. So is Ishtar, come to think of it...


MeeMaw and I decided not to attend the sunrise service at church. What with getting up to be there at 630, THEN breakfast at the fellowship hall, THEN Sunday School class, THEN regular worship...it looked too much like the sort of rush-rush-rush, pack-as-many-frenetic-activities-into-one-Sunday-as-possible sort of day that MeeMaw and PeePaw eschew as much as possible. And we were so glad we did. The extra rest did us good. And no once-yearly service can top the tranquility we have on our few acres every Sabbath morning.


Speaking of church, I found this essay very thought-provoking. It deals with today's common practice of selecting pastors from outside the local congregation.


We were talking about Easters in our childhood, and both MeeMaw and I have similar memories about dressing up, going to church, dyeing and hunting eggs, etc. Mother always dressed me in a little suit and suspenders and bowtie, and I always had a little hat, like a beanie with a bill. Photos from those years show a smiling boy, squinting into the sun, cornsilk blonde and trusting to a fault. Easters in the delta in the early 1960's were always a bit chilly, but always with that hint of the warm, green months to follow. MeeMaw remembers Texas Easters in patent leather shoes and teeny purses and crinoline and white gloves snapped at the wrist. Texas, where the toughness of lariats and life meets the softness of a girl's hair and a horse's forehead. Our unified memory-world is one that will never exist again, except in our quiet, whispered recollections in the evening shadows of Virginia.


One of my favorite cartoons of all time is an Easter cartoon. Never fails to make me laugh.

I do get weary with the whole concept of Easter, though. So much vileness out there. For example, look at this.


There are some good things about Easter, though, even from repellant people like John Updike. Here is one of his best poems, which I think perfectly captures the hope, the need for reality in Christian faith:


Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike


Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.


It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.



The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.


Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.


The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.


And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.


Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.


Potent stuff.


And one other piece of good Easter writing, this one by a good friend of mine.


We continue to work slowly (and I mean slowly) toward getting the goat shed ready to house actual goats. I do hope we don't get one like this fellow:

Here I am up on the roof of the shed this weekend, repairing a hole in the sheet metal. It's almost completely waterproof now. I plan to get a couple of bales of hay to spread on the ground (after I put down some diamotaceous earth to control pests) so that Frito will have a warm, dry place to birth her kittens. She's getting bigger by the day.

My good friend Harry has been giving me some good goat advice. He has several (Nubians) and is trying to sell me some of them. He says if we both have Nubians, he will buy a buck ("billygoat") and we can share him throughout the breeding seasons. That way, we can avoid paying a wasted stud fee, and we can coordinate with our schedules. It's tempting. Except that he says that at least one of his Nubians is part kangaroo and can jump over a five-foot fence from a standing start. That would NOT be good here at Possum Cough. I'm not putting in six foot fences. Too costly.

Harry also says he'll give us some laying hens if we want them. It's amazing how the time has gotten away from us. Here it is, mid-spring, and I don't have half the things done that I had hoped to have done by this time. Ah, well. We do things at our own pace, in our own way.

And always with a Southern accent.

Speaking of accents, here's a good clip of young Lori Watson, playing Scottish borders fiddle music. Listen and see if you can discern the origins of bluegrass and mountain music.

Here's a cute shot of MeeMaw up in the woodlot on Saturday. In addition to Domino and Shorty, you can see Fergus (the rogue bull yearling) in the left side of the background.

I was up on the roof doing some repair work to some of the vent flashing, and I took this shot of the front yard and pasture. Looks all Irishy.

MeeMaw found some tiny cherries on one of the wild cherry trees in the woodlot. We're hoping to put some netting on at least one or two of them this year so that we can enjoy some cherries, instead of donating every blasted one of them to the birds like we did last year.

MeeMaw has the seedlings flourishing. This is just a fragment of what we have a-sprouting in the back bedroom.

I love this woman. No man ever had a finer wife or a better friend or a more valuable counselor. Fergus seems to favor her, too.

Here's PeePaw, convinced that the guvmint is planning to hang him from this cross-branch.

We found this pretty setting of vine-framed honeysuckle. The terrycloth moss is sublime to the eye and the fingertip.

My favorite lady engaging in my favorite activity: preparing PeePaw a pie. That's her mother's (Grandmommy's) cookbook open before her. Talk about an heirloom treasure.

We love you all. Rest well, loved ones.

1:28 pm

An update...MeeMaw figured out that the yearling bull was coming through the one temporary gate adjacent to the goat shed; there are only two strands of barbed wire there, and they're not really taut. So I improvised a stub-gate and added three strands, so now it's a five-strand.

And since I fabricated the stub-gate, I didn't need the two temporary wire latches, so I moved them over to the larger gate opening (next to the yard barn) and made that a tight five-strand setup, too. If Fergus can get through either of those, he's welcome to 'em. He'll probably figure a way to drive my truck, too.

To my dismay, when I turned back to the house after repairing the fences, I saw a gaping hole in the latticework under the deck. On closer inspection, I have deduced that Ernie's hound Gus is the culprit. The large dog-paw prints in the mud under the deck are the main clue I used in making this deduction.

Also, Gus is a scaredy-cat when it thunders...and he's been used to hiding under our deck for shelter whenever a thunderstorm comes up. I saw him in the yard yesterday during the big storm we had, and I'll bet he broke into the nether regions of the deck in some sort of canine panic. I repaired the breach with a scrap piece of lattice I saved just for such a contingency. I try to be understanding about such things.

But sometimes I fail. And I am laying for ol' Gus. If he tries something like this again, and if I catch him at it, I've got something for the elderly Basset hound. When I get done with him, he'll be a bb-shot-in-the-ass-et hound.

But that's life at Possum Cough.

MeeMaw's home from work, so it's time to rustle us up some chow.

Rest well, loved ones.

9:04 am

Today is cool and rain-washed. The rebirth of the earth's green energy continues all around us. I stood on the front porch this morning and looked east, across the valley, and the air was as sweet in my lungs as MeeMaw's voice is in my mind.

And this is all quite the dramatic change since just two days ago. On Maundy Thursday morning, the dawn looked like this:

The snow blew all day on Wednesday and that night, and it was easy for our minds to be distracted from the reality of springtime. The creatures in the woods fell silent once more for a brief, one-day season. Even Hazel II, Possum Cough's resident rabbit, was hiding somewhere in his hillbilly hole burrow. And we waited and watched the white day roll past.

Thursday, everything cleared up. The day warmed with green herbacious force, and it was a good time for things sprouting and growing and rustling and stretching. It felt as if all of Creation were swinging its legs over the side of the vast bed, rubbing its eyes, and reaching for its house-slippers.

MeeMaw spent her day off on Thursday baking bread for that evening's Maundy Thursday service. John (our pastor) and I planned the service together, and we decided that a common loaf would be nice for the observation of the Lord's Supper. So MeeMaw made two loaves that were about the size of medium pizza doughs, about an inch or so thick. They worked very well.

The service was simple, reverent, and beautiful. There were about thirty of us there, including the parents of one our newest members, Amy. She and her husband Scott are about our age, and they are vibrant folks who happen to have some serious physical handicaps. They are a radiant couple, very down-to-earth and un-stuffy. Watching them together as they help each other and hold hands is a tonic for the heart.

John opened the service with some readings from the Word while the pianist and organist played in the background. Then he stepped down and stood behind the table. He divested himself of his coat and rolled up his sleeves while telling the story of the night in which Christ was betrayed. He poured water into a basin to illustrate a point, and when he got to the passage in John where Judas goes out to betray the Lord, he read the words, "And it was night." At that point, our friend Chris turned out the lights in the meeting hall. There were candles burning in every window, so the muted lighting was very effective in setting a somber mood.

The elders remained seated for a change, and John himself brought the elements to each member. We tore off our own piece of bread from the common loaves prepared by MeeMaw. After the sacrament, Chris and I came down front, and he and John and I did a three-part choric reading. John would read from one of the messianic prophecies (mostly in Isaiah), and Chris would respond with a New Testament fulfillment. Then John would read another prophetic passage and I would respond with a verse or two from the Passion section. It's interesting how difficult some of those portions are to read ("...and they struck Him...")

At the end of the reading, John very quietly sang a portion of "Man of Sorrows, What a Name," intentionally leaving the lyric hanging, "Lifted up was He to die, 'It is finished!' was His cry - "

And then Chris and I walked down the aisle and out the door, signalling the other congregants to dismiss in silence. At the beginning of the service, John had announced how the order would be done, and he exhorted the worshippers to leave the building in reflection on what Christ endured...and what He accomplished for His people. Lovely service.

On the way home, MeeMaw drew my attention to the moon. It was full, and was tinged a sorrowful orange-red. She took this photo over the mountains to the east. It doesn't do justice to what a dramatic and profound sight the moon presented.

I've thought a lot about heaven lately, particularly the new heavens and the new earth. I've said before, many times, that Christians tend to think of heaven as some abstract concept instead of a real place. If we have an airline ticket to Dallas, we have a real expectation that we will leave a certain city and arrive later in a distant but real city. So it is with me: I will leave this place one day, and I will arrive at a very real destination. Not drifting through ethereal clouds and playing a harp with a dreamy expression on my face, but arriving at my real home. This comforts me. And it reminds me that so much of what drives my stumbling path here is...homesickness.

But for now, I do enjoy my home here, temporary though it may be. I was looking at the land and the field this morning and reminding myself of what a good life we have. Notice Domino and Shorty, fertilizing the verdant fields even as they are captured on digital film.

Speaking of fertilizer, I read a lively and informative essay by the ever-lucid and pleasantly-grouchy Gene Logsdon. Give it a look-see here. I think his points about today's dandified society are right on the mark, particularly when applied to men.

After our Lord's resurrection, He was encountered by Mary outside the tomb. You may recall that she mistook Him for a gardener, like his ancient ancestor, Adam. I like to think that someday, someone will mistake me for a farmer. I would never be anything but honored to be so named.

In other manure news, Mr. D's yearling bull calf (we've named him Fergus, because he acts like a contrary Scot from the Outer Hebrides) continues to be enamored of our yard. Yesterday I caught him in the goat-pen next to the goat-shed (which will someday have actual goats in it, d.v.).

He stayed there, munching with happy langour while I cut the grass (first time of the season - now I'm committed for six months...I need sheep!). Then I shooed him off.

The last I saw of Fergus, he was headed out across the western (front) pasture. But as I type these words, he's back in the side yard, cropping grass with the smug air of a landowner.

As I was typing the last part there, I received a phone call from a friend. When I used to work at the hospital, I made friends with an elderly man who was a frequent patient (he had multiple and complex health problems) named Mr. Morrison. We have kept in frequent contact through the last three years, and I have been to visit him many times.

Just now, his wife called to tell me that he died last night, just after midnight.

It's so odd...I have been thinking about Mr. Morrison for several days now, every single day. Thinking, "I should call him or go by and see him." But I didn't, and now the inexorable march of this life has shut a door between us, at least for the present.

I can remember taking care of Mr. Morrison in the hospital. He was a tough, angular man with a gruff voice and gimlet eyes. Not to be disrespectful, but he always reminded me of Statler, one of the heckling codgers up in the loge on The Muppet Show. But in his hospital gown, lying in that mechanical bed, he was frail and vulnerable, smaller than he appeared to the world.

When he was in hospital, he was usually too weak to do much for himself, so I gave him lots of extra attention. He was particularly fond of my shaves. I would draw a cup of superheated water from the coffee machine and immerse a little hospital-issued can of shaving cream in it for about five minutes. Then I would soak a washcloth in another cup of the same superheated water. I would spread this on his face and let him "steam" for a few minutes, and then I would remove the cloth and spread the luxuriously warm shaving cream onto his raspy face. He would sigh and close his eyes and talk to me about his experiences in wartime Europe while I sliced the whiskers from his creased face and neck. Then I would wash his face with more hot water and put aftershave on him. "You just like to slap me around, dontcha?" he would say with feigned brusqueness.

Mrs. Morrison told me that she hoped we could be at the funeral. I assured her that if it were humanly possible, we would. MeeMaw got to meet the Morrisons some time ago when I took her to the ICU to visit Mr. Morrison when he was in really bad shape, and Mrs. Morrison is very fond of MeeMaw. Mrs. Morrison asked for prayer for the family, particularly the grandchildren (all adults), who are having a difficult time in their grief. And so we will pray for them all. And I will look to see my friend again someday when my heart will no longer be clouded with care. The last time I saw him, he said, "Keep praying for me, my friend." I assured him that I would. He pointed a gnarled finger at me and glared at me with those hard eyes and said, "See that you do. See that you do."

I did, Mr. Morrison. I promise, I did.

Rest well, loved ones.