DARK HORSE FARM  

Letting go of my farm in Maine was a long and painful process; the slow release of a stiffly clenched fist.  It took many months after putting my farm tools down to shoot these photographs, easing out of work mode and looking at my land with different eyes. i was learning how to stop assessing the chores that needed to be done, and stepping back to capture a beloved place that I was leaving.

This is what is left of the land that used to live beneath my fingernails.  The barn has been razed. The house burned to the ground. All I have left are  memories. The woodpecker hanging upside down in the alternate dogwood, chattering away while gorging himself on berries. The apples dropping with random thuds across a decade of autumns. The snow drifting up the entire height of the door. The sound of snowflakes hitting the windowpane- tst. tst. tst. The grill blowing across the yard. Stevie Smith baiting that bobcat with a dead porcupine.

When I called to the owl, he called back to me. the snow on the north side of the field is still here, and its July.  Someone stole the diesel out of the Super Duty. We picked sixty lemon cucumbers today. Bullet the calf  ate all of my spring bulbs. Billy French says he'll be my blueberry man. Six piglets are in the dog house, hiding from the rain.