When it Rains...

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Obituary for a Farm Cat

With all the indicators in place: temps, gnats and pollen – spring has formally arrived and for good here in the Deep South.   And like every spring, everything is awakening and is new: new growth and new life all around us.  With this, I am always entertained by our farm menagerie as they too, seem to be as excited with the change of season. Our “working cats” in particular seem exceptionally frisky with all that is stirring and vivid memories of Whiskers come to mind – she was the fiercest and most prosperous of all our barn cats.

Ever.

Originally written and posted in May 2009 when she departed our lives, here is her obit., in loving memory.

 ___________________________________________

OBITUARY FOR A FARM CAT

The Dirt Road Farm is grieving a great loss with the passing of Whiskers, the Farm's 5-year old black and white, tuxedo barn cat. Though not the eldest, Whiskers was regarded as the Matriarch of the Farm’s feline pride.

Born in the early spring of 2004, she was adopted by the Farm along with her 3 litter-mates in May of 2004. Affectionately known as “Ma` Ma`”, she was the quintessential farm cat. While lovingly devoted and loyal, Whiskers was fiercely independent and the open pastures remained her preferred domain; she was never to be a house cat.

A proud mother of two litters of kittens and skilled as a master huntress, Whiskers was best known for her tenacious mousing. She took great pride in her work – all too often sharing her prized kills with her beloved humans.

She lost the first of her nine lives to a mad swarm of wasps that had nested behind a window shutter on the Farm’s front porch requiring days of Benadryl treatments eventually seeing her closed eyes and softball sized head return to normal. The next of her nine lives was taken by the garage door leaving her with a fractured tail. The 3rd loss was a narrow escape after being locked inside the Farm truck on a long, long hot summer’s day. Her 4th life claimed from a possible coyote or wild dog having treed her resulting in serious injuries to a hind leg. But it would be an untreatable and fatal blood disease that would ultimately conquer what remained of her lives now leaving a huge hole in the hearts of her human family.

On May 26, 2009, Whiskers was laid to rest in the shade of the Oak and Pecan trees that cascade over the large granite outcroppings on the upper 26 acres of the Dirt Road Farm where she loved to watch and hunt from. She was buried alongside her first born son, Oscar-Duke of Meyer. She is predeceased by her sisters Misty and Diva, her brother, Professor Button, her daughter, Possum and her son, Oscar as well as other nieces and nephews including the Brer Brothers: Brer Fox, Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit, triplets born to her sister, Misty. She is survived by her two daughters Miss Georgia “Peaches” and Savannah Lucille (“Lucy”), nephews St. “Simon” La Rue and Rev. “Billy Bob” Clyde, nieces Skidaway and Charlotte, great nephew One-eyed “Rowdy” and great niece Princess “Patches”. Max, the eldest of the Dirt Road Farm’s cats and of no familial relationship to the deceased, remains indifferent to the passing of Whiskers.

She will be greatly missed seen frolicking and pouncing in the upper pastures as well as hearing her raspy mews expressing thank you’s for an early morning’s saucer of milk. This writer will deeply miss her all too familiar, gentle rubs against her legs while gathering eggs in the hen house – the comfort of her purring companionship while weeding the garden. But I know that somewhere her spirit lives on here along the Dirt Road…. and while on my early morning walks, I will likely feel her presence woven within the breezes that surround me along my trodden path.

…..just beyond my footsteps in the earliest morning sunlight, perhaps I’ll catch a glimpse of a distant silhouette of an elegant cat sitting proudly atop an aging fence post and it will bring a renewed sense of comfort reminding me of a farm cat’s lifelong devotion and unconditional love for me.

___________________________________________

Post Script:

Following the burial of Whiskers on the upper 26 acres of the Dirt Road Farm, the writer was driving the Farm’s truck back to the house and, due to an unprecedented amount of recent rainfall, miss-navigated the pasture and became stuck in an all too wet low area requiring a long walk back to the house and having her truck rescued by the tractor.

It just wasn’t her day.

HKJ

Copyright © 2009, 2013

All Rights Reserved.

Back Door Discoveries

Just outside the back door of the screened porch, I was greeted by a newly hatched turtle....

The Iron Horse - Green County, GA

Where All Directions Lead South - 
Including the Direction of The Iron Horse!

Photo by South of the Gnat Line. Copyright 2013. All Rights Reserved.

The Iron Horse in Greene County, Georgia

Created by Abbot Pattison at UGA in 1954

The Sculpture has resided in Greene County since 1959

Highway 15 in Greene County, Georgia - right at the Greene and Oconee County lines - has a famous site to see: The Iron Horse statue.

In the summer months, you may not be able to see the horse if the corn crop is good.

Strong and proud, photographs of the sculpture alone don't serve the size and scope of the Iron Horse true justice - perhaps SLG will have to revisit the statue with an entourage to give this grand Horse some scale.

Meanwhile, here's a little bit on this sculpture's history.

The Story of The Iron Horse

"Greene County (GA) Copyright 2010 D. Nelson

The infamous 12-foot-tall Iron Horse is an abstract sculpture that was created by Abbott Pattison at UGA's Lamar Dodd School of Art and placed in front of Reed Hall in 1954. Back then, art, and metal sculpture in particular, was new to southern universities and the horse was not well received. Just hours after its placement, students gathered around the iron creature, placed straw in its mouth and in front of it, manure at its back, and painted the word "front" on its neck. Balloons were tied underneath the rear legs, and attempts were made to set the horse on fire. When the fire department arrived, the students refused to back away until eventually the fire hoses were turned on the students.The day after the incident, the university moved the sculpture to a secret hiding place; R.I. Brittain, a university official. said it was unfortunate that students ''on the college level'' had minds on the level of ''grammar school or nursery children'' and ''react violently to anything new, with which they have not had previous experience.'' In 1959, the Iron Horse was moved to its current location on a farm in Greene County, where it now sits in the middle of a corn field, facing south and away from UGA, visible from GA 15 only in the winter. Jack Curtis, owner of the farm, says they are now judging the corn crops on whether or not they can see the horse.There have been several attempts to bring the Iron Horse back to campus but they all failed."

More links on the Iron Horse:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/milkaway/4338814021/
• http://onlineathens.com/stories/022799/sli_0227990017.shtml
• http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/statues/ironhorse.htm
• http://www.redandblack.com/news/decades-pass-iron-horse-still-lives/article_e1e5abfd-8c7d-588a-b6c7-c723f5c6cf61.html
• http://www.exploregeorgia.org/listing/2610-iron-horse

Virtuous Weeds...

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Great Lent: A Season of Inventory

I am so excited to share my first contribution to "The Sounding Orthodox Blog" of the Orthodox Christian Network!  It is both an honor and a privilege to be included among those who contribute to this ongoing body of work.

Great Lent: A Season of Inventory

This week marked the beginning of Great Lent for Orthodox Christians. Monday was “Clean Monday” and this whole first week of Lent is also deemed “Clean Week”.  Traditions for Clean Week may vary between Orthodox cultures with perhaps only one exception: Spring Cleaning.

(Can you hear my heavy sigh?)

Here in the Deep South, we’ve already had many a preview of spring weather days, and Clean Monday was no exception. Energized and motivated with the start of Great Lent as well as the warm temperatures that allowed us to open up the doors of the house, I stepped out onto our back porch fully prepared to ambitiously begin my spring cleaning.

However, when my eyes brought into focus what was in front me – from one end of the porch to the other – I was stunned at what I found.

As the sole female in a male-dominant household, wonders never cease at the myriad of paraphernalia from the man’s world that finds it way into our rural home. This back porch moment was a reality of that very fact; here is an inventory of the task before me:

• About a 3rd of a chord of wood

• An empty cat food bag

• An electric boat motor

• Bucket of kindling (lighter wood)

• 2 empty buckets

• Ashes from the fireplace (the entire winter's worth...)

• A Frisbee

• An empty cricket basket

• 4 fishing rod holders

• 1 fluffy tail of a coyote (…doesn’t every home need one?)

• A dirty towel (whose origin I know not – it’s not our towel…Oh. My!)

• 1 Camo seat cushion

• 2 tackle boxes

• 1 small drop-leaf table (evicted from the basement patio when the boys began their basement project)

• 1 BB gun (on the drop-leaf table)

• 1 bottle of Buck Lure (also known as doe urine…again, because every family needs a bottle)

• 1 beaver stick from the creek

• 1 umbrella

• A 5 gal. bucket of pecans

• A 5 gal. bucket of pecan shells

• A single deer antler (not sure where the matching antler made its way to…)

• 2 boat cushions

• 2 boat anchors (only one with rope attached)

• 4 boat oars of varying sizes

• 1 cooler

• 1 empty cat litter jug now recycled for carrying water (hopefully not drinking water!)

• 3 folding chairs

• A single flower vase (from last summer - no flowers)

• 1 [very dry & relatively unused] mop

• 2 fishing rods with reels

• 1 broken fishing rod (a trophy no doubt)

• 1 broom (that couldn’t sweep if it had to)

• 3 pairs of tennis shoes (one shoe is housing a single open-faced fishing reel; why not?)

• 1 pair of PINK flip flops (the ONLY evidence that I exist here)

• A single rubber crawdad lure

• An empty red wiggler tub

• A pile of towels (that do belong to us)

• A casting net

• A single bobber

• An empty tackle case

• Shooting targets & stand

• 3 more fishing rods

• 1 cane pole

• 2 dust pans (covered in dust)

• 1 fire fighter helmet

• A wrought iron basket

• A large hornets nest (no hornets)

• A 5 gal. bucket of compost

• 3 different brands of bug spray (insect repellant)

• 1 bottle of “Scent Away” (Oh lOOk - it's Dirt scent - of course it is!)

• Lady bugs and wasps galore!

Then there are the things that really belong on the back porch (table and chairs, wicker couch, wind chimes…).  Wow - so few.

And while this list could easily read like a complicated index for a magic potion recipe from a fantasy movie, I could only wonder out loud to myself, “How have I been coming and going and passing by [completely oblivious to] what has obviously been accumulating for weeks and months since last summer and fall?”

Then it hit me. Just as this mish-mash collection of assorted things made their way onto our back porch that have gone unnoticed for so long (and nearly taking root!), what about my own personal and spiritual inventory that needs to be brought into focus? What has been collecting in my heart, in my thoughts, in my words and actions that have long gone unaddressed? The Orthodox Church, the Holy Fathers and the Saints have long established for us the tools, advice and processes with which to inventory our lives and not accumulate the stuff that blurs our view, weighs us down and slows our Christian journey. May we all keep our focus on Christ as we navigate our personal inventories and reflections this Lenten season.

HKJ