Dear Folks: August 25, 1998

Dear Folks,

Well, I guess I’ll start with the sad news and end with the happy news, because that’s the order in which they happened. If you don’t like sad news, skip a page or so.

The process by which the universe is directing me to let go of Foundation Farm continued in its orderly pace this month, by bringing the life of my old dog Basil to a peaceful end.

I was firmly anti-dog until 15 years ago, when the universe sent Basil. Other people had brought dogs to the farm, and those dogs killed chickens, ran roughshod through gardens, pooped on lawns, shed all over the house, jumped on visitors, barked all night, and thoroughly disgusted me. Finally I enforced an active no-dog ban.

Then the woodchucks closed in. They made a burrow at the high corner of the garden next to the woods, and they moved methodically down the cabbage and broccoli rows, munching right down to the ground. We put bombs in their holes. We dug a four-foot trench around the garden, installed a tough wire-mesh fence, filled the trench with stones, and electrified the top. Still the fat groundhogs with their motley brown coats chewed on the beans, took one bite out of every squash and melon, and stared at me insolently when I discovered them there at dawn or dusk.

Get a dog, the neighbors said. It’s the only thing that will work.

So my mind opened on the matter of dogs. Shortly thereafter I went to a meeting in southern Vermont and was invited to a friend’s house for dinner. The friend had a litter of nine squirmy, round, golden retriever/lab puppies. I drove home with one of them snoozing happily on the front seat. I stopped at a mom&pop store along the way for puppy food.

Even as a pup, Basil was laid back, as much of a true gentleman as a young dog can be. He slept alone on the back porch that first night without a yip. He trained himself to go outside in no time. Suzanne put him through the classes of the Upper Valley’s formidable dog trainer April Frost, in which, Suzanne says, she learned at least as much as Basil did. He went running with us, he went swimming in the brook, he followed us everywhere, he never wandered from the farm on his own. He loved all inhabitants and all visitors. He never hurt a chick or a duckling or a lamb. He never hurt a woodchuck either, but they disappeared. I became a dog lover.

Fifteen years is a long time for a retriever to live. In his later years Basil slowed down and grew deaf and slept peacefully while raccoons stalked the chicken house, which is why, three years ago, we got Emmett, to be trained by Basil to be, we hoped, just as much of a gentleman. Because Basil was such a great dog, we looked long and hard for that same golden/lab cross. And well, Emmett is definitely not Basil. He’s much more bumptious, way more dangerous to chickens, crazier, more enthusiastic. I doubt we will ever call him a gentleman. (Clown is the label that fits best.) But Basil did his best to calm him down, and Emmett’s turned into a good dog and a great comfort to me, now that I can’t hug Basil any more.

Old Base got stiff in the hindquarters and took a long time getting going in the mornings. He got a bit incontinent. He was stone deaf to every sound but the dog-cookie jar opening. Even short walks over next door to visit Chrissie and Scot set him panting. But he still ate well, dozed in the sun, greeted me with a goofy grin, slept in my room every night, licked my hand with thanks when I petted him. I could sleep through his snoring, but not through his whimpering toward the end, when he needed my help to get up at all. He fell down a lot, and one Sunday he must have fallen in a way that hurt one of his front legs — reducing him to one working limb, immobility, and pain. I tried for two days to keep him going and to heal that front leg. But he decided he had had enough. He stopped eating (except for dog cookies). I called in the vet.

One shot put him to sleep and the next one gradually slowed his breathing until it stopped. It was very peaceful. I was a mess of tears, but I think he was grateful. Stephen and I buried him under the oak tree in the orchard, next to Liz Krahmer Keating’s beloved dog Cassie. This is the place where we put only the very, very best pets, I told Stephen. I knew Basil would never make it to the new farms; it’s right that he’s lying here on the old one, where he lived all his life.

Boy, these partings are so sad, aren’t they?

I said to Basil while we were waiting for the vet, and again while we shoveled the soil over him, the only thing I know to say at these times, the great Ecclesiastes 3:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up;

A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away;

A time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak;

A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.

And a time to celebrate, so here is the turning into the good news!

Stephen and Kerry were married two days ago, in a beautiful ceremony in the little meadow by the pond at the new Hartland farms. It couldn’t have been more lovely. About 60 folks –family, friends from their old farm at Hawthorne Valley, members of our new community, co-workers — stood in a big circle, facing Mount Ascutney and two venerable maple trees. Stephen and the minister, my old friend the jolly Malcolm Grobe (who also married Chrissie and Scot) waited by the maples, and Kerry’s good friend Rebecca played a processional on the cello as the bridal party came down the road — Kerry’s youngest sister Angelica and her friend Caera strewing flower petals they had spent the morning stripping from the garden. Middle-sister Rachel was the maid of honor. Stephen’s brother Chris was the best man. Kerry was gorgeous in a dress she had made herself and a veil topped with flowers.

It was a happy wedding. Malcolm told of Stephen and Kerry’s lives and their devotion to the land — which was so perfect as we were standing on the land. Stephen was beaming; Kerry looked demure and happy. Rebecca played two cello solos, one of them she had written specially for the wedding. Sometimes music played outside gets lost in the vastness, but in that place on that day, with the hills cupping the sound and a low overcast reflecting it down and the maples cradling it, the single cello sounded as if we were in Carnegie Hall. Malcolm called on various of us to speak, including me. All choked up, of course (I hate weddings!), I talked about the joy of the new community having the first wedding on the land, and how appropriate that it was Stephen and Kerry’s wedding, the two who are most eager to work that land, the two who came all the way from Idaho, out of utter faith or foolishness, to help make our common vision come to fruition.

They spoke their vows with ringing voices. At the end Malcolm had all 60 of us join hands in a big circle and together pronounce them man and wife.

Then they walked in joyful procession through the crowd and we ran to my car — I was the getaway driver — the girls pelting them with multicolored petals. Someone had sneakily attached the JUST MARRIED sign and the tin cans and we screeched away, horn honking. About two minutes later it started to pour. Perfect timing. Farmers appreciate rain, even on their wedding day, but it’s nice if it waits till after the ceremony!

Well, then everyone came over to Foundation Farm for a party. We had been cooking and cleaning for three straight days (with the help of Chrissie and Scot and other friends), and you should have seen the place. It hasn’t been so festive since Chrissie and Scot’s wedding, three years ago.

I didn’t count, but there must have been at least 30 bouquets scattered around, all from our various gardens — so nice of Kerry and Stephen to have chosen August, the month of abundance. The back porch was outlined with little white lights, the double doors to my study were opened wide, and the whole thing became a banquet hall. Kerry had baked and frozen lasagna, I baked 20 loaves of baguettes, and Jen did all the rest, with the help of her boyfriend Ben. Bean salad and cucumber salad and a heap of beautiful mesclun from the CSA garden, with three wonderful dressings. Chips and fresh-made salsa, also from the garden of course. Fresh-picked sweet corn. The only things we didn’t make ourselves were the beer and soda and wedding cake. (At Foundation Farm we specialize in low-budget, high-quality weddings!) Ben is an apprentice glassblower at Simon Pearce, and Jen used to work in the pottery there, so we had probably $5000 worth of elegant glassware and pottery to serve from. Ben stayed after work for days and made Stephen & Kerry a beautiful cake-plate of his own design. It must weigh about 10 pounds of perfect, clear crystal.

Well finally we all fell down from exhaustion. The next morning we got up to a scene of utter devastation. Jen and Ben had to be at work at 6 am. Numerous overnight guests (somewhere around 10 or 15, some in tents) helped us begin to clean up. It will take at least three days more to get back to some semblance of normal, but we won’t have to cook for awhile. As of this morning, Stephen and Kerry were out picking the Tuesday delivery for the CSA customers. They hope to get in a honeymoon sometime in November.

It goes on being a blessed growing season, and we are at the bountiful peak. We’re almost to the point of being sick of melons and sweet corn. All summer long the fruits have yielded astoundingly — strawberries, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, blueberries, crabapples — and I’ve just stopped canning pears, letting the rest fall from the tree. (Emmett eats them.) Apples are shaping up well; the early Gravs and Wealthies are already ripe. The rains are regular (and almost too abundant), the pole beans and squash vines are taking over the world. My dinner-plate dahlias are actually bigger than dinner plates. Tomorrow I have to can tomatoes, freeze beans, make applesauce. We eat about 10 kinds of vegetables at every meal. YUM!

There is just no other abundance like that of a farm worked with love at the height of a good growing season. After 26 years of love, this farm is humming with fertility. It’s sad to be slowly shutting it down, it’s especially sad to lose the beautiful creatures who have lived here, but the lesson to be learned is about being grateful for the opportunity to have loved, and to turn and see what needs loving next.

Love to all of you,

Dana