Ground still frozen, huge trucks ferrying in loads of fertilizer. The tractor is just there for colour and to make nice circles in the snow. Old farming joke: Contrary to popular belief, plants don’t get nutrients from the soil. The soil is just to hold the plant down and then you pour fertilizer on it. These fields will be planted with canteloupes.
The next day it thaws. A pile of irrigation pipes sinking into a field of melt water.
The swamp at the back of the farm is the headwaters of a creek that eventually flows into Lake Erie, twenty miles away. This is precisely where the creek begins.
Cedar trees in a copse dg’s father used to call Hernando’s Hideaway (his reasons remain obscure but mysteriously romantic).
Wild turkey tracks, not to be confused with chickens (see below).
Chickens. Reminded DG of Culebra.
Sick chicken sleeping by the dishwasher in the farm kitchen. (The chicken’s name is Annette.) The chicken has moved into the house. It is like the pioneer days when people and farm animals lived together.
Chickens haunt dg’s dreams.
—dg
12 Responses to “Out and Back: The Restless & Peripatetic DG Visits the Farm”
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Very cool little multimedia essay, Doug. The landscape reminds me a lot of rural PA, where I was raised. Beautiful shots.
I think we have now found the culprit for the mysterious crop circles that appear from time to time in farmers’ fields: the Glovers’ tractor. Odd that you would so brazenly publish the evidence on the internet.
Your readership is vast. Expect the authorities shortly.
Also, I feel sorry for the chicken.
Actually, chickens are pretty strange. This one has been having trouble from the start. She was the runt of the flock and the roosters picked on her from the beginning and she had to be brought into the house to recover. She used to perch on the back of a kitchen chair. But then finally the remaining hens started going after her. In poultry circles this is sometimes referred to as “cannibalism.” They pulled out her feathers and worse. She stopped laying eggs; the top beak disappeared one night (this does happen from time to time).
Okay, Robin, maybe too much information. 🙂
Chickens, eggs, and anatomy lessons. But which came first? Really, that poor chicken on your floor in your mother’s kitchen is at the crux of the universal question: Why oh why do we ignore the downtrodden? Clearly, the chicken was in desperate need of rescue pre the beak-loss incident. Soon, the chicken union will be upon you. At least then the unkind chickens in the yard will be roasted for their crimes. And apropos of your next post regarding whistleblowers, it was not me who called the authorities in your county. Or parish. Or whatever you Canadians call your districts. It was not me. And the fact that I am named after a bird has nothing to do with my interest in the matter. Not. At. All.
🙂
We at NC take a dim view of whistleblowers. Just to let you know. 🙂
We are also responsible for the Nazca lines in Peru. Just so you know.
Also, no doubt, the recent meteor that struck Russia.
All of us remarked on that fact that it didn’t hit your farm. Or anywhere in Canada.
Lovely photos; thanks for them. I wish I had cantaloupes growing in my yard. (I do have wild turkeys, though. Big ones.)
Just saw this and really enjoyed the photos and Hernando’s Hideaway. What an incredible place to have in your life.
You’re too kind, Sharon. 🙂 I do get a kick out of the beauty of the place. I am not sure my photos are up to much though.