She looked dead.

She looked dead.

Natasha lay very still, barely breathing. She looked dead. When an older cow calves, she can easily develop something called “milk fever” which is not a fever at all, more like a diabetic coma. The shock of coming into milk causes calcium levels in the cow...
A step back in time

A step back in time

The morning on pasture gave a renewal to our spirits, even though each day was long and left us with the feeling that we had accomplished little. I felt happy to be alive when I went to get the cows from the pasture covered with sparkling drops of dew. (There were...
Childhood memories of Justin Morgan, revisited

Childhood memories of Justin Morgan, revisited

I’ve been dreaming a lot about my horses, which I think I’ve spoken about — missing them so much. And I began to go back and read one of the books that I’ve had for almost 50 years now, The Morgan Horse by Jeanne Mellin. Jeanne is an equine artist...
Time to restore

Time to restore

As winter approaches, the days get shorter and grey. I find myself often staring into a sunset and being swept up in a wave of melancholy. The angle of the sun seems to shines into my eyes and pierce my brain, I can almost taste it. I go about my chores but not with...
Gratitude for those who work with my batik art

Gratitude for those who work with my batik art

I have been collecting photos of what others have created with my batik fabric art and have been thinking over the year that it would be nice to share what can be done with it with the rest of the world. There are many folks who have sent me pictures of what they have...
Batik, starting with black fabric: A twist

Batik, starting with black fabric: A twist

Sometimes I have tried a different approach to a batik and I have started working with the black fabric and gone through many stages of bleaching out and re-dyeing color in. This first photo shows a picture of the wax on the black fabric in the beginning of my...
The origin of Amity

The origin of Amity

Light as a feather, her hooves barely touched the ground as she stepped out of the trailer to my home in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Amity the filly had arrived from Green Meads Farm in the Berkshire hills. I had longed for a registered Morgan that I could ride, show...
I am rich in flowers

I am rich in flowers

The yard outside our old house has been bursting with daylilies and other flowers, and I have just been swept away with the beauty of them. My favorite time to take a walk is at sunset time, and the light here comes in from the West and bathes everything in the golden...
Video batik tutorials

Video batik tutorials

People ask me all the time, “How do you do batik?” I used to try to write summaries, but now I can just say go to my website! Last Friday, Maria Wulf of Bedlam Farm came and took video of me doing batik. She wrote some beautiful blog posts about each part...
Memorial Day Move

Memorial Day Move

It is said you have to love farming to keep doing it and we did. It was not a job but a way of life, a ritual repeated day in day out with exciting and unexpected events both good and bad. We loved the animals and loved the land. Here is the memory of our arrival to...