Freckles

Here is a photo of Freckles, our most notable cow. She is at least twenty-five years old and was here on the property before we owned it. She is the most intelligent in the herd and certainly the most assertive. Her calves are always the most trouble. Freckles was always the one who got into the yard and left copious nonverbal negative messages for us to step in. She is always the first to gallop up to the feed and when we go out in the truck she's the one who gets close enough to slobber on the windows, and she's always dragging her kids behind. Our farm manager says she has 'dying rights' here, and he's never going to send her to the knacker.
Andy built a beautiful blanket chest of wide cypress boards and I am painting Freckles' portrait on the top of it. As I paint I think of Sarah Palin and her similarities to this loud, smart and assertive beast.
I am trying really hard to learn and be understanding and not so crazed about everything political and economic. Yikes! What a week. More McCain signs in the neighborhood, but all is cool with my lovely neighbors who do NOT wish to speak to me of politics. They haven't a clue about the fall out of all these events on Wall Street. And I hardly do either, though I do know that our worth is considerably less than it was last week. We have all had to be quick studies on practical economics. Before now I had never thought about short selling and leverage and such.
So, now, in addition to reading all the political coverage in the New York Times, I have to read the economic coverage- and even the Wall Street Journal editorials. My nap times on the couch with the dog have become two hour economics tutorials. No time for crap reading!
This next week we are hosting a Nature Conservancy meeting and seminar on climate change. I am looking forward to this event. I love being in the company of these scientists and environmentalists. I know that many of these guests know so much more than I do about our natural world, and I also know that many of them are folks who live much more opulently than we do. As a person afflicted with 'hostess syndrome', my instincts are to clean everything up, gild the lily, think of every little thing. But we aren't doing that. We'll take a group out for a long walk in the woods, and we're not taking down the fist sized golden orb weaver spiders that span our doorways. We'll put the telescope and binoculars out on the front porch and invite our guests to enjoy the deer and turkeys and cranes they'll see. We put fresh batteries in the flashlights and maybe some folks will be interested in exploring the pond life after dark. Our house is a fairly modest and idiosyncratic place, no Subzero appliances or media rooms. Spiders will have to be it.

Keeping Going

Here is a photo of a coral snake I found in my studio a few days ago as he (she?) slithered across my feet while I was checking e-mail and blogs about Sarah Palin. I shooed it outside where it disappeared under a flagstone. I am loving these natural happenings I see every day. They keep me sane in a time when I think I could go beserk!
My neighborhood out here in the boondocks has sprouted many McCain/Palin yard signs. Every day there are more of them. I had downloaded a program of registered voters in my neighborhood and I meant to stride right out and talk to them about their voting choices. I stopped by the Obama office in town to pick up a few yard signs of my own but they had none left, so I departed with a stack of fairly meaningless fliers with a cute photo of Obama and one of his kids.
I am absolutely terrified of these people I should speak with! So far, in the twenty years we have been coming here, and where we now live full time, we have only spoken about farm things: rainfall, the price of fertilizer, when hog hunting season begins, our gardens, what to do about cows with swollen bags, tractor issues, and such like.
So, when I see our farm manager drive up in his truck to get cow feed from the barn, I dash out of my studio, give him a hug and ask."Are you mad at me?" We always say this to each other when we haven't had a conversation for a time. A few days ago I left a bunch of butterfly plants in his garage and he tells me that he's planted them, thank you very much. We are always leaving things - fresh peanuts, zipper peas, baby squash, newly caught and cleaned fish, tomato seedlings- for each other. I love this funny grizzled old guy and I would trust my life to him. I love my other neighbors too. They have been there with chainsaws to cut up fallen trees after storms. They fix our broken motors, clean our house, pass along used clothing for our grandchildren. They fish in our pond and help extinguish that pesky invasive weed, soda apples. They pick our blackberries and in holiday season we exchange cookies and savories.
I am beginning to get it. My experience, education and sophistication puts me on the moon by comparison. My rural neighbors have closed minds, they only watch Fox news, they are not at all interested in or want to understand the issues. We are the only family here that gets the NYT.(not to mention the Wall St. Journal). Their lives are pretty much going along O.K. I am pretty sure that race is a key issue, but they assure me it is not. "I just like the way McCain talks." I press this lovely guy too much. He says that Obama wants to raise taxes but McCain does not. I think about how to address this and I patiently explain. It's no use, he's decided, and so are the others, they are an invincible tribe. We differ.
This does not seem to be a "one issue" campaign. These neighbors of mine, blue collar workers, do not seem to be talking about guns, abortion, gay marriage, god, or suspicion of science. Yes, they want cheap gas for their pick-up trucks, but they do seem to respect environmental issues. They haven't a clue about economic issues. They do know about greed.
I think I will go out on Thursday to sign up Hispanic voters.
It's a full moon, so bright outside, and I can see bats flitting around. I can hear that breathy thwack of deer voices. The stick bugs are copulating on the screens and the love bugs have arrived. The golden orb weavers are huge and just about ready to construct their egg cases to be ready for spring.
I am cleaning my studio in preparation for a new project - painting the top of a new chest Andy made of lovely ancient wood that had been immersed in water for decades. I am still feeling so accomplished at having finished my book this summer. Stay tuned, friends.
Next week we are hosting a group of environmentalists/scientists for a couple of days of talking about climate change. We will take them on a long walk in our forests and I hope we'll see the wonderful fall wild flowers and maybe even some greenfly orchids.
Life is great and I'm working on being more mellow about this upcoming election.

So Alarming

I am still hanging in there as a political junkie. I stayed up to watch 20/20 last night - the interview with Ms. Palin. I do not think that she has values opposite of mine so much as that she just doesn't have any well thought out values at all. She's a small town gal and was mayor of a town smaller than Dade City, Florida, where I live! It was embarrassing and pitiful to see her so out of her depth, but trying with her scripted remarks. She was not snide last night as she has been on so many occasions before. But she doesn't have a clue about the very important issues we face as a nation. She slides through some ethical issues (what she said about the bridge to nowhere, using state funds as a per diem so she could go home at night, etc.) And she told us yet again that she has experience in dealing with the complicated issues with Russia because she can actually see Russia from an Alaskan island. That's what my fifth graders might say.
As an older woman who could be Sarah's mom, I just want to tell her, "Honey, you just do the best job you can as governor of Alaska. And, honey, think carefully about the ethics of government, the privacy of your family, and for god's sake read the New York Times every day. Don't be beguiled by your fifteen minutes of fame."
McCain and Palin would be a disaster for this country I love. They are all about personality and seem to have left any issues behind. I am terrified that Palin does not understand the reality of why we went to war in Iraq. I am terrified that McCain understands and yet lets Paylin mouth those words at her son's deployment. I am appalled with the cynicsm and lies that fall so fluidly from his mouth. I used to respect McCain, but not now!
Is the general electorate so dim that they cannot hear that Obama's tax program will benefit them as never before? Do they not hear that Obama's healthcare program will benefit them as never before? Do they not hear that Obama's educational proposals will ensure that every kid can aspire to college and afford it?
Obama is not for taking away people's guns, he's got proposals for repairing this economy of greed, getting jobs here in America and he's a truly thoughtful and experienced person. Talk about family values: McCain abandoned his original family and Palin has subjected her kids to the exigencies of politics. Obama has a straightforward family he adores.
How can there be any choice?

Are We Talking About Class?

In the last weeks I have become a political junkie, the grandma who reads several newspapers cover to cover. After lunch I stretch out on the couch with the dog and we read everything the New York Times has on the political season. I love the letters to the editor and some of the op ed pieces. I watched both conventions with great interest (I only napped through Mitt Romney.) I have gone from appalled to depressed as I have tried to understand this great umerican country of ours. Everyone has an opinion, and that's great.

I am appalled because the great mass of Americans, it seems, just smile and clap mindlessly as the candidates snidely deprecate each other. Is no one interested in real issues? Do they even know what the issues are? Has no one taken the time to check into each candidate's proposals on the economy, health care, the war, and the very important issue of climate change? There is so much prevarication.

Sarah Palin, many think, is electrifying. For me, she is on the opposite side of everything I value. John McCain has sold his values for a passel of drek. Yes, I know that campaigns are tough and lots may be said that will never, fortunately, be remembered. I think, though, that this concentration on the 'real' America, hockey moms, Walmart moms, is born of a deep envy and resentment of class. So, the republicans say that this election is about personalities. There is talk of the 'privileged elite', the insiders, and who wants lawyers (smirk) who went to Ivy League colleges, (smirk) and god forbid if they were gifted enough to make the Law Review? Come on!

I want my candidate to have 'class'. I want my candidate to take the high road. I want my candidate to be really really smart and thoughtful, as the best educational institutions can educate their graduates to be. I want my candidate to be idealistically American. I want my candidate to be respectful enough towards his family to say THEY ARE OFF LIMITS.

It was unconscionable for Sarah Palin to take her kids on the road, floppy baby and all. Where is that mother's tenderness for her children's privacy? They have been trashed for political expediency. (I speak from experience in having a brother with cerebral palsy and an unwed teenage mom in the family.) Yes. These things happen. But I want my candidate to soar above and lead our country when the issues are dire and new to us.

I whine. Why are we so celebrity driven? Why can't we think clearly about the issues? My neighbor is a one issue person; he loves guns. A teacher I know is a narrow issue person; she is opposed to reproductive choice and gay marriage. These people will vote only on their chosen issue and nothing will dissuade them. They have blinders on. They think not of health care, the environment, not the economy, not the world their grandchildren will inherit. These issues are about class, and we as a society must talk about it; it isn't something nasty. Hey, we got over sex and mostly over money. We can do this. I still believe.