Keeping Time

Dear Friends,

The farming season is officially over! Whew! I haven’t written a blog for months. Not because I didn’t have time, but because the swirling activity was all geared towards outside, external, farm business, and necessary haste. I’ve written newsletters for Old Frog Pond Farm, but they promote the farm and encourage visitors. For blog writing, I like to travel on back roads, interior paths, to keep my finger on the pause button, to listen for thoughts that arrive in quiet moments and wend my way. A little like how I sometimes begin a sculpture. This morning I stayed in bed with my eyes closed and let the dreaming continue until seven! Instead of the darkness I was greeted with this view.

Sunrise Colors in the Pond

 I share this poem by the great 13th century Chinese Zen Master Wumen, the compiler of The Gateless Gate koan collection.

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

The great Zen master, Dogen Zenji, a 14th century philosopher, linguist, and poet, wrote in the fascicle, Uji, “The Time-Being.”

Since there is nothing but just this moment, the time-being is all the time there is. . . . Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.

 Translated by Dan Welch and Kazuaki Tanahashi from The Moon in a Dewdrop, writings of Zen Master Dogen

Dogen’s Uji text is only a few pages long, but he completely twists and turns and challenges our view of time. As a teacher he wants us to realize the wonder and completeness of each moment and not be caught by the conventional view of time as a continuum. These and other writings about time are inspiring a new sculpture, The Keepers of Time, though the title is always provisional until it is complete.

It begins with a wheel, one of two old cart wheels leaning against the chicken coop. This wheel has eighteen spokes, six more than hours on a clock. The Timekeepers are women who will inhabit the wheel. I envision them placing the numerals for the clock in position around the perimeter of the wheel.

I'm not sure if the Timekeepers recognize that time is not an abstraction, but something they are creating. Do they know there is no time apart from their creating time? How will they each play with their hours, days, and weeks ahead?

How do I have more time to read and write? This thought arrived in my mind this morning? I held it as if it was lightly filled with helium. It had form. But as I stayed with my attention on this thought, it squirmed away. For a moment I couldn’t find it. Then as if it could slither like a ghost under a door, it appeared again. It wasn’t a shape any longer. It was detaching, losing meaning.

In mid-November I gave a Dharma talk, Time Present, at Zen Mountain Monastery. Writing this talk is what started me on this investigation of Time. If you’d like to listen click here.                                             

Another new project is Two Chairs—Conversations with my friend, Lyedie Geer. Posted on the farm’s youtube channel are the first two videos of this new collaboration. In the winter of 2022, inspired by a purple velvet chair I inherited from my mother, and Lyedie’s blue chair, we decided to get together for conversation. We didn’t know where or what we were doing, but it was a treat to be together in person and talk as the pandemic was losing its grip First, I went to Putney, Vermont, with my mother’s chair in tow, then Lyedie traveled down to the farm and we sat in two chairs outside my studio near the pond.

In the first Two Chairs—Conversations, we explore Pruning—daring to make those difficult cuts—in the orchard and in one’s own life. In the second, Splash, we dig into the creative process as we talk about one of my new sculptures. We’re grateful to be working with David Shapiro, who also made our farm’s video.

Finally, I want to let you know Lyedie is an amazing coach of creative women. Until December 21st, she is accepting applications for the Bluebird award! I suggest if you have any desire to be encouraged and inspired in your creative life, click here to learn about the three-month pro-bono coaching program she is offering.

That’s it for now!

With love, Linda

Figs

A few weeks ago, a friend gave me a New Yorker article: “Love the Fig” by Ben Crair from August 10, 2016. In the autumn issue of my favorite literary journal, Orion, the last essay was on the subject of figs. Why are all these figs coming into my life? Is it because I’m feeling naked as my memoir, The Artist and the Orchard, begins national distribution? Like Adam and Eve, I need to cover myself with fig leaves.

Adam and Eve, 2015 Sculpture by Madeleine Lord

We grow two fig trees at the farm. Right now they are outside my studio in clay pots, shedding their leaves and becoming naked themselves. Once we get consistent freezing temperatures, they will go into an unheated garage space. They’re not cold hardy; they can’t stay out all winter like all the other fruit trees.

Meanwhile, I have been reading about figs. As the fruit grower at the farm, I care for the figs. But I have learned that a fig is not a fruit, it is a flower. A flower that doesn’t strut its stuff like most flowers but hides its blossoms inside its fruit. The fig is an inside-out flower. And because of its uniqueness, it requires a unique insect for pollination.

The fig lives symbiotically with one insect, the only one that pollinates its unusual flower: a fig wasp. There are over 750 varieties of fig trees, and most of these have a unique fig wasp to pollinate their flowers.

The female wasp enters the fig through a tiny opening at the base of the unripe fruit. On her way in through this narrow opening her wings are clipped off. She will never fly again. Once inside the fig, she lays her eggs, and then dies all within a couple of days. When the eggs hatch, the males hasten over to the newly hatched females and fertilize them. Then the males tunnel out of the fruit and die shortly after. The young females follow these tunnels and fly out into the world to look for their own fig tree where they can lay their eggs. Of course, and importantly for the fig tree, they carry pollen from their birth flowers to the new flowers. And from these pollinated flowers grow the seeds of new fig trees.

Biologists say that the fig and fig wasp have been courting each other for more than 60 million years. And for almost as long, a broad range of animals have depended on figs as a food source. Figs in temperate climates fruit all year round, ensuring a steady food supply. They are loaded with minerals and vitamins, and have received the designation ‘superfood’ from humans. Of course, the animals knew this without our branding.

Foresters consider figs to be an important tree for deforested areas. With their quick growth, and attraction to many different species of animals: trees shrews, monkeys, bats, birds, hornbills, squirrels, to name a few, the pollinated seeds deposited from these foraging animals help to quickly create a diversified forest.

We had a small crop of figs this year. I wondered if there had been a fig wasp in the area. But then I checked, and the Chicago fig is one of a few varieties of figs that are self-pollinating. A few apples are also self-pollinating, but they produce a better crop with cross-pollination. We all do better with cross-pollination.

Two Figures on Cherry Wood, Sculpture LH Private Collection

Join me for the book launch for The Artist and the Orchard: A Memoir next Saturday, October 30 at 2 pm at Sanctuary in Maynard, Massachusetts. Proof of vaccination is required. For more information: https://www.sanctuarymaynard.com/.

If you can’t attend the launch, the book is available at your favorite bookstore, online, and at Loom Press. I am also happy to send you a signed copy.

Happy Fall!

Our Trees are in Bloom

As an apple orchardist I pay attention to the buds. Will they be strong? Are they healthy? How will I take care of them, because I know—left alone, an orchard in New England will become a massive tangle of brambles, invasive vines, and diseased fruit.

We’ve already sprayed the apple trees with fish fertilizer, seaweed, a little copper, and two different biological fungicides to make sure our buds are protected from the spring diseases. Microscopic fungal spores will rise from the soil beneath the tree in a light rain and land on the leaves. There they find purchase and grow. Once the fruit develops, the fungus jumps to the fruit, ultimately making scab-like forms covering over the developing fruit. Once infection begins, it’s hard to reverse. Spores are released over the four-to-six-week period until we reach 100% release.

Every year I have to be prepared for scab, the nickname orchardists use for the fungus, Venturia inaequalis, one of the early apple diseases and one of the worst problems for organic orchardists in New England. I remember when I first learned to spray. Suited up in protective gear, spray tank filled with 300 gallons of water and the spray materials, the tractor settings in low speed, 3rd gear, at 1700 rpms, I was told that the spray for scab needed to renewed before every wetting period. It seemed an overwhelming proposition. If it rained one day, and then four days later, I needed to spray again because the material would have washed off the trees.

First Spray

Since that time, I’ve learned to time our sprays to most effective for the maximum spore release. I’ve planted many new scab-resistant varieties in our orchard, and removed some of the scab magnet trees like Macintosh. And since 2006 when Old Frog Pond Farm received organic certification, new bio-fungicides are available for organic orchards.

Orchardists have their own language to describe the stages from bud to blossom. Dormant describes the trees in winter, when the buds are gray-brown and tightly closed. They wait for the right combination of temperature and length of daylight to awaken. The outer sheath on the bud is a winter quilt protecting the folded blossom inside. When the apple bud breaks dormancy, the covering of the fruit bud opens slightly to reveal light gray tissue, silver tip.

Then comes green tip. The buds plump in response to warmth and light. The bud opens further to reveal a green plant tissue. The next stage, half-inch green or mouse ears, is an apt description as two tiny oblong-shaped leaves appear. Tight cluster follows with a rosette of green leaves around a tightly packed flower bud. Pink stage is next, as this singular flower bud separates into five or six individual pink-sheathed blossom buds.

This is the most exciting moment in the orchard, for each of these flower buds, if pollinated, will become an apple. In the center the king blossom opens first. It’s the strongest and largest bud. The others follow; reserves for the tree in case something happens to the King. Full bloom is when all blossoms are open. Pollinators arrive from far and wide to drink sweet apple nectar and unknowingly pollinate the trees.

Our trees are in full bloom, and I won’t spray again until the petals fall. Bloom is the time when I walk through the orchard rows and feel overwhelming gratitude to be part of such fragile beauty.

May 4, 2021 Old Frog Pond Farm

Sitting

Dear Friends,

The week between Christmas and the New Year when the world quiets and the light imperceptibly returns has always been one of my favorites. I chose to sit in silence this week along with my Dharma brothers and sisters at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt Temper, New York. Using Livestream, we sat together from morning darkness into the night, adding more hours as the week progressed, sitting deeper into the stillness, until last night’s midnight hour when the turning of the earth was complete, and our Great Mother began her new journey around her favorite sun.

Wishing you all more ease and comfort, peace and health in the new year.
May it bring us the opportunity to hug each other!

In the meanwhile, “Fear Not. Even the Coldest, Darkest Winters Bear Fruit,” was recently published by WBUR’s Cognoscenti. The apple trees understand quiet time. You can read it here.

With love, Linda

Susan’s Sitting Figure, 2020