Floating Gallery

Natural objects find themselves unexpectedly surrounded by a gallery space.

Photo by Neko.

Great Leap Forward

Finally Yellow Bird is taking off as a writers/artist’s retreat and sculpture park. I currently have two artists in residence, a barn ‘gallery’, and some new installations of my own. (See http://sites.google.com/site/yellowbirdonline/about-my-art/new-installations). And with the help of the Lebel family - Daniel, Audrey, Neko and Luca, wwoofers extraordinaire - the whole site is being repaired, restored and generally made ship-shape, especially the orchard, the barn and the garden. I have identified the sites for three cosy cabins, the first one using the rough-hewn 9’ x 15’cedar frame of an existing shed (called the ‘garage’ because of its pre-1964 use), with an unusual bowed roof. And we are recycling wood from the demolished house, and standing dead trees in the woods, into stacks of fuel for the new woodstove.

The last few weeks we have spent creating things and mending them. The first makes afresh, the second works with a shape already given. Each has its own particular satisfaction. The first explores the unknown, brings into being. The second traces the contours of the given, with a view to restoring, even improving it. We repaired a cheap bench once imported as a kit from China, relaunching it with recycled heart of pine slats that will last indefinitely. It was easy to imagine, with Plato, that it now more closely participates in the ideal form of the bench.

When you get into the groove of mending things, it is astonishing how many of the things we live with need our help, and how we shield ourselves from noticing this. This phenomenon is ‘writ large’ when you inherit a dilapidated farm, but I suspect it is generally true. We dream of getting ahead of the game, but is that really possible? And if we include unfinished plans and projects, the fractal nature of incompleteness is surely incontestable. I have about five books currently on the go: suppose I completed all of them – what would the writing landscape look like then? My guess is that there would be another five germinating in the compost bin of the brain. But what follows from this is not that there is no point in finishing these books (because the category of the unfinished will be replenished), but that I (at least) need to convert that frustration into the creative tension of an active ongoing process.

There have been set-backs. The truck spreading gravel on the connecting road got stuck in the deep mud. So too did the wrecker sent to rescue it. Finally an old army truck with winches etc. pulled the other two out. (See image.) The whole convoy only pulled out long after dark. And the jury is still out on Waldo, the new goat dog. Buddy disappeared in October, and I was assured that two year-old Waldo, a Great Pyrenees, had been raised with goats. A real goat dog runs with the goats protecting them day and night. Waldo however likes human company. A final 10 day goat-sequestration experiment will decide which way he will go.Newsflash: yesterday two new kids were born into freezing weather, dying hours later. Their mother licked them, but I think she knew they were doomed. 150 days after the pleasures of August, who would have known where it would lead. I bought straw bales to provide a nest, but … I am told heat lamps might have saved them.

All the mending, clearing and re-arranging sets the scene for the next phase, of art and intellectual creativity, residencies etc. With Rohan Quinby’s help, we launched the YB series of workshops/seminars Thinking Without Boundaries with Time and the Image in November, and then in December we had an inaugural exhibition at Wild Goat Gallery, with Daniel and Audrey Lebel, Paul Littlehales, Joel Beaupre, and William Kooienga.
Plus two of my own installations, and a new Floating Gallery. [See next blog]

Non-profit status is being applied for, and Margaret Pearson’s generous support is continuing.

This morning (Sunday) I helped Luca measure up rafters for his tree-house, keeping watch over the Peace Circle. We saw a red fox, a flock of plump iridescent blue turkeys, white-tailed deer high-tailing it through the woods, and we released Waldo from his captivity with the goats for a spot of galavanting on the newly frozen lake.

Life goes on.

From our solstice party!

Waldo

I understand how mothers set the table for their sons missing in action - for years. Its not just to keep hope alive, but to make sure one is NOT doing something that the cosmos would take as a sign that he could now die. The 'sighting' of Buddy was a tugging of the heart-strings, but I think, an illusion born of wanting it to be true. So yesterday I took delivery of Walker, a two year old Great Pyrenees. He came in a wire kennel, covered in canvas on the back of a pick-up. He has more or less lived with goats on a farm all his life, but probably in a pen. Yesterday and today I have unsuccessfully tried to introduce him to the goats, but they always run off when he approaches, and he gives up. I will soon be very fit, hunting for goats at the far ends of the property, chasing up and down hills. They keep melting away, keeping quiet. I am going to get bells for the leaders - if I can ever catch them. (I remember those cow bells in Austria.) Meanwhile, a problem. I can't leave the dog alone and loose - he might well just follow me home, or run away. So I have to shut him in the barn, which doesn't help with the goat bonding. I got lots of feedback on Facebook about a new name. Walker won't do. I am experimenting with Waldo (from JP). Worried it might get shortened to Wally.

K9 resurrection?

Yesterday, Bob announced that Buddy had been seen somewhere along Sunny Slope Rd, clipped of his long coat. Or a dog just like Buddy. Today I posted mail boxes along the road. Could it really be, that Buddy could return from the dead, after a commemorative ceremony? Missing PRESUMED dead! And just after I had lost the phone # for the people with the Great Pyrenees, that I would have picked up on Thursday, to replace him. Watch this space.

Feast of the Hunters Moon

A small but select gathering. Perhaps what brought on the rain was the announcement that we would play cricket. Rain is then traditional. But we did mass with umbrellas to commemorate the life of Buddy, a dear friend and protector of the bush goats. We planted a black walnut - the most valuable hard wood - near where the old house once was. And beneath the tree, we stuffed farewell notes. John Llewelyn, dog-lover extraordinaire, who had met Buddy, wrote: "Thank you for your continuing joyful presence in the thoughts of your master and of all those others of us lucky enough to have known you." We checked on the ducks - still swimming as a single flotilla. And we danced to Fleetwood Mac, and Eric Clapton. When people drifted home late it was still raining.

Like a duck to water

For Beth, ducks had become old news. Of the five left after Jesse died last week, many did not even have a name. There was Artemis, and then ... It was time they left. After we perfected the art of corralling and swooping with a big net, they were soon each inside a cardboard box, and being trucked off to YB. I lined up the boxes at the water's edge, opened the flaps, and Christina shot some pictures of ducks Celebrating Freedom, shooting off across the water, with big smiles on their beaks. This morning they were still sailing around the pond, in convoy, this time with grins. They are rising up to flash their wings, splash-washing in the water, and dipping for worms. They cannot believe their luck. But then they have not yet seen (or heard of) coyotes. I hope they start frequenting the Duck Hotel moored in the middle of the pond - the Blue Zone. I used to worry about them being snatched by snapping turtles, but I was assured that these would only take young ducklings. Then today I saw the shell of a monster turtle over 15 ins long, that had fallen into a sinkhole and died. If there are more like that... I also saw a long black water snake. And Kelly said that when he lifted the straw bale out of the water, lots of orange snakes swam off. Later this was modified to brown. What do we have in the water?