“Every moment before this one depends on this one.”-Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I turned down a CAUSE request today.
“You’re so strong.”
I didn’t even respond to a WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU request,”
“Ohhhhhhhhh!”

I’ve entered the world of Facebook, thanks to my friend Geoff. He has been the driving publicity force behind the chicken book that we’ve just published. He called me one night and told me that we needed a Facebook page for it, and I gave him a long, exasperated sigh. Now, four weeks later, here I sit, maneuvering my way through posts and pokes and offers to join various causes. He’s right; the way to reach a mass number is to follow the mass media trends, and this is it. Daily, my question to Whit has been, “guess who just friended me??”

Just three days after I activated my account, I had a classmate from high school contact me, after 23 years of no communication.

Seriously, the premise behind Facebook is a good one. Keep in contact with one another. On the other hand, it’s a little voyeuristic; anyone and everyone has the ability to see what you’re doing and when you’re doing it. I suppose if you’re using it to stalk an old acquaintance, it’s not that great a use of time.

Interestingly enough, it’s been around for years, and only now are people who aren’t necessarily college aged taking advantage of it. The fastest growing demagogue using Facebook are the aged 35 and olders.

“Eliza ate too many cookies today.”
“Lupe is going skiing with a torn MCL”
“Jim is wondering whether he should sit on the couch and kill zombies or go home and clean”

“It’s ridiculous,” Whitney snorts at me. She’s shelling black turtle beans and listening to the Fruit Bats.
“It’s creepy,” she asserts.

Maybe she’s right- I mean if you’re a shooting star, and sailing into the swell of living, who needs that baggage trailing after you? All those painful memories of sitting on the gym benches during the slow dances at school, or being picked out as the one with hand-me-down clothes. Sitting at a computer to write 25 random things about oneself in the hope that it really matters to someone else might be a waste of time...still it’s fun.

“I’m a firm believer that some people should just remain forgotten,” she says.

“Ohh- I have 18 fans for the book now!” Whitney harrumphs and gets up to put wood in the woodstove. “I’m going to check the sheep,” she says in mock disgust, and out the door she goes.

“You still have time left to go back, you know,” she calls after me.

On the more practical side of things, Kyle has ripped up the hall and Brad’s room, and we’re doing renovations that we’ve put off for 10 years. He re-wired the barn, and the driveway has new gravel in it. Pretty soon, there’ll be no time for house repairs and yard work when the growing season begins.

Today we celebrated the sun’s light that still remained at 4:00 pm while we readied the greenhouse we rent from the neighbors for planting. The air inside should have smelled like spring- warm soil and little seedlings unfurling their green heads from their pots. Instead, it smelled strongly of ammonia and rodents. They kept ducks inside of it all winter, and the snow covering the plastic had shut out the light: a perfect petri dish for mold and bacteria. The place is a mess, and Whit and I have spent almost a week trying to get it back to something that resembles a place to grow plants. On top of the ducks, the floor of the greenhouse looks like a watering hole in the Serengeti- there are hundreds of rodent tracks searching for missed pieces of duck grain. You can actually see little rat footprints everywhere. We have to get rid of them before planting anything, because they’ll eat the seedlings faster than the seeds can germinate.

Whitney spent over four hours shoveling the heavy snow and ice off of the greenhouse’s roof, and now we’ve started bringing in the soil to warm and clear off the planting benches.

This weekend marks one year exactly that we’ve known the Red. In case you missed the picture of her, her hair is a burnt auburn, a flashy contrast to her smile and brown eyes. She showed up last year for the infamous interview that we have for our potential apprentices, which isn’t really an interview, but just a chance for us to meet whomever has decided that they want to spend the summer working hard on a farm with little pay and a not-so-private place to stay. In just one week, she’ll leave for an eventual voyage to Hawaii, headed for the chain of uninhabited islands called the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It’s the same place I spent almost four years as a biologist and refuge manager. Paradise, really- seabirds and seals and sea turtles and shockingly blue water and white coral beaches. Her biggest regret is that they now have email capacity there. At least there’s no cell phone service yet.

I don’t look forward to when they leave, these people who put so much of their time and effort into Fat Rooster Farm. The hope they harbor in this world of doubt, fear and despair is such a tonic to me. Gets me through the dreary winter months.

The first lambs are being born now, and the first calf of this year is thriving. The greenhouse is teaming with onion life. Every new moment I live again is what has come before. And every moment points to now.

Soon will be spring- the blackbirds, the woodcock’s crazy aerial dance, the Barred owls calling out their territorial song. I better get busy and write my Facebook 25 things pretty quick…