I watched myself crop an image to extract an empty feed bag that had blown into a corner of the barn and felt dishonest. I tidy with the crop tool!. I just did not have the energy to pick up and dispose of the feed bag. I will soon – maybe today but there is a pile of them in the shed and if I pick up one I will have to pick up them all and now there are so many – what do you do. It is funny the things that can overwhelm a person. The ugly bits get to me.
I like things to be tidy so at any given time I can put my hand on what I need. And I can show anyone around at any time without warning and know it shows how much we care for our animals.
On Instagram yesterday I posted a picture of the fly paper in the milking shed – it is about a foot wide, bright yellow like a banana, you pull a little down from the roll each day to reveal a new sticky surface and within minutes it is full of murdered flies. Buzzing. It is so ugly – I cannot tell you how ugly. But being hit in the face with flies when you enter the barn is uglier. But I wish I could hide it.
It is hot and wet, everything is wet. Even the washing on the line will not dry now.
And these cows want to stand under the trees and quietly shit and piss and stomp about in it to cool their heels, everywhere under the trees is a mire. The mud is terrible. At night when it is cooler I lock them out into the fields. One of the Frenchboy’s last jobs is to give this area its weekly clean with the tractor but it will be hot hard heavy work and they are tired now. Ready to go home. And the cows will not appreciate it.
Look at Alex and her baby lying in the mud – happy.
I took these shots of the inside of the barn before I cleaned after the milking and before the cleaning. Usually I take images that show it clean and dry but today we are seeing the ugly bits before they are all tidied up. And nothing dries at the moment – especially not the waiting room and the milking area and the corridors that are cleaned twice daily.
The cleaning does not take long but the drying of the floors can take the whole day on a good day. I want to buy one of those scraping tools for the floors. It is on the list.
Every door and window is open too try and catch a small breeze both for drying the floors and keeping the barn ventilated for the pigs and the peacocks up in the rafters. The pigs have outside areas too but prefer to lay about inside – too hot outside.
And finally my pregnant pigs have succumbed and are lying in front of their fans. Not so stoic now that the heat has rolled in.
Today is the last work day of The Frenchmen. Although they are not asked to work in the heat of the day – we work until 9.00am on the hard outside jobs then have breakfast and the work from then on is in the barn or in the shade, then at lunch time they go to siesta until late afternoon. But I feel they are looking forward to finishing. They want to be sitting inside too – playing with the baby – or just turning up for meals. Being a visitor on the farm is great actually. It extends the farm family. But the last few weeks there has only been us three working and they are tired now. Wearing down. But they have worked so hard for weeks and now it really is time to relax for them.
And the dinner visitors leave the day after the woofers so it will be very quiet for a few days. Then in the middle of next week even more visitors come – with another, even younger, baby. These visitors are from my own family – flying in from New Zealand. It will be lovely. And they are more farm oriented.
My next wave of workers starts in early August – the 10th I think. I need to check the book.
The tomatoes are just beginning and if my luck holds I will be picking and preserving tomatoes for the next few months.
Enough chatting – time for work!
I hope you have a lovely day,
Love celi
My instagram handle is cecilia_bwg. It is a perfect complement to the daily blog. I am loving it. This is where all the breaking news goes. And sometimes even video. It is becoming an extension of the blog, though I have allowed myself to take images of the surrounding area as I puddle to and fro. Instagram is not just for the farm. I have the settings arranged so that every time you ‘like’ an Instagram photo it lights up my phone with your name. (No buzz or ding just the light) So your contact follows me out into the barns. The blog for me is computer based so reading and answering your wonderful comments is for siesta time curled up in my chair for an hour after lunch – just you and me. Instagram is different and just for fun.
And thank you for your comments here at the farmy – you are my constant companions. I still miss ViV, don’t you?
The Kitchen's Garden 
61 responses to “Ugly Bits”
Funny…as we are in Santa Fe while Richard prepares and conducts a series of Shakespeare concerts with a contingent of the SF Desert Chorale, I am of course taking my usual kazillion photos, and I edit mine heavily. Aside from the (at least) 2/3 to 9/10 percentage I cull before using, what I do keep is for illustrative purposes at least as much as for documentary ones. And my intent *always* with my photos is to show others how *I* see the world.
In my opinion, that was always the purpose of photography: even the most rigorous of news and docu- photographers have *always* only shown us what they choose, and are able, to shoot, and from their perspective. Heck, people were manipulating photographs (early “ghost story” and “fairy” photos, anyone?!) as soon as they could shoot them. Photos are no more concrete proof of Truth than are written or spoken words. Current politics confirm all of the above, eh!
So last night I was doing my own version of HDR, wherein I alter the light/dark contrast in various parts of shots to replicate what my eyes and brain do as I’m seeing the images live, and Richard commented on my play with the pictures. And then I showed him how, for example, the pictures I took while he was driving here through west-Texas and New Mexico storms (not as fabulous as your recent stormy sky photos!) are ‘readable’ only after such an edit, and that if his eyes weren’t already making such adjustments on the fly he’d not have been able to see, headlights or not, to drive.
I know that when I photograph my own environment, I do so with constant awareness of my version of Clutter Blindness, which makes me not see or notice things that are constantly in my environment—until I’m recording that environment with my camera. What an amazing tool is the camera! But it’s only a tool, and the images we take with it only the things we’ve chosen to note or share in our own ways. I love what you do with your images! They are always spot-on for the occasion, and often, very often, simply magically beautiful. What a great way to share our time: exchanging beauty! Thanks for that, Celi.
Love,
Kath
Hope you enjoy Santa Fe! It’s been much hotter than usual. Pat W, Santa Fe
Thanks, Pat! Loving it here. Such great people, both in the Chorale troops and in town, and of course fabulous food, walking, and sights. R is already at rehearsal this morning and I’m going to trot over to enjoy the Saturday market before heading off to join him/them. Last night was so lovely—a Chorale dinner party up on the hill at a magnificent home, from which we could enjoy the spectacular views, dozens of busy hummingbirds buzzing us, and in the evening, the lightning show and *exactly* the right amount of sprinkling on those of us who were still on the patio at midnight-1 a.m. to both cool us nicely and tell us to let the hosts get some rest! 😀
xo,
Kathryn
PS—if you’ve got any recommendations for either must-do stuff in SF or photo ops here, please do tell! You can write me directly at kathryningrid@gmail.com anytime.
I miss ViV as well. How about leaving her photo in the bunch published for, say, a year? What do you think? Much love, Your Gayle
Just located this from one of ViV’s postings:
Silly limerick
Posted: September 30, 2011 in Uncategorized
Tags: limerick 8
An elderly poet named ViV
had a brain like a very coarse sieve.
Everything went
‘til her words were all spent
and she has no reason to live.
This totally untrue limerick (well, partly) is for http://purpletreehouse.blogspot.com/2011/09/poetic-forms-wk-3-limerick-sept-21.
Love,
Gayle
My eight cows at the house pasture have access to the barn 24-7 as their pasture doesn’t have any shade. They manage to cram their hot bodies into several stalls and alleyways — there is a breeze usually blowing through and the flies seem to be a bit less of a bother – BUT I have to scrape it down to dirt morning, noon, and evening – literally. They can’t seem to make it outside to potty then come back in. They do spend the night and early mornings out grazing so that’s my time to lay down fresh bedding. And boy do I hear you on the pile up of feed bags. I re-use the plastic ones as kitchen and recycle garbage bags but that only uses up a few. I work at (and am constantly nagging my “hired hand with benefits”) to stuff the empty bags into one another to take up less space in the feed room until a dump trip is made. We have to haul our own garbage about 5 miles away to a transfer station that is only open twice a week — when someone remembers to show up….living on a reservation has a few drawbacks 🙂
We have no garbage collection either and so I try my best not to have stuff to throw away – sometimes i think my cows go inside to poop then wander back out again!! c
What is life without the ugly bits? I also miss Viv’s comments and think about her. And I only knew her through her comments I am enjoying your instagram and can’t imagine hearing something every time one of us “like”. That could be 24/7 with your worldwide lounge!
Yes, I keep it on silent! much better.. c
Ah, tomatoes. No home grown tomatoes for us this year. Our plants were completely ravaged by hail last Saturday- just before they were to go into the greenhouse, too. And only 45 more days of summer left for us. Makes me sad.
What a shame! Don’t count the summer down yet though – that would make me sad too.. c
I miss Viv too, her comments, her verses, the occasional photos of quilting projects, but mostly it is knowing that we only had what we’ve had. I love the barn. My uncle’s barn at the hatchery smelled of chickens, was on the dusty side but dark and mysterious to a kid, especially a city kid who didn’t want to be a city kid (I never wanted to live in the city and that’s where I’ve been all my life). Barns are wonderful places, their occupants usually are focused on the moment, they simply are. The light in barns is special too, illuminating something deeply fundamental, the process of life itself.
The ugly bits are important… how would we know MARVELOUS and BEAUTIFUL without ugly bit comparisons? 😀
It’s looking like not much of a break in the heat until early next week. It’s amazing how it makes even simple chores (like picking up the feed bags) an enormous chore. Things that normally only take a few minutes drag on and on. My horses’ run in is actually the lower level of the old machine shed. It normally is quite a bit cooler in there though with this weather it’s pretty damp. They tend to spend more time in there away from the wretched flies so it seems it never is really clean. I used to use a 13 foot long 1 foot wide stretch of fly paper attached to the overhang of the run in until a baby swallow got itself stuck on it and died. I still feel bad about that. One time one end fell down and got stuck to my young horse’s tail, he was off like a shot thinking the ‘tiger’ was going to get him, quite comical. Sorry for the run on, I seem to be in sloooooooow motion today!
Oh no poor horsey! made me laugh though – we won’t discuss the swallow . c
We will miss ViV forever zi think. I come here and wander about to feel close to her still. She so loved you C. And the farmy.
There is great beauty in all that you show us.
It is summer – the drying of the barn does take the day.
It sounds like a bit of quiet might be welcomed. A slight summer pause
yes – that is what we will call it Mouse, a summer pause.. 5 days of it!! c
You are such a busy person .. Your place always looks tidy Celi. I hope there is some coolness for you and your animals. How wonderful having family with you soon
YES! It is all very well looking after other peoples families but your own is just so special.. c
[…] she so often does, my amazing friend Celi brought up once again the question of what we photograph, and how, and why, and what it can mean when we do so. As an avid, inveterate and truly—in the […]