DARK HORSE FARM  

Letting go of my farm in Maine was a long and painful process. The slow un-gripping of a stiffly clenched fist.  It took many months after putting my farm tools down to shoot these photographs, getting out of work mode and looking at my land with different eyes- eyes that weren't assessing the chores that needed to be done; but eyes that were stepping back and letting me 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 chattering away, hanging upside down in the alternate dogwood, 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. The neighbor baiting that bobcat. When I called to the owl, he called back to me. Someone stole the diesel out of the Super Duty. We picked sixty lemon cucumbers today. The calf from next door 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.