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.