Two years ago, for the first time in white people memory, anyway, Bald Eagles took up full year residency across the Boise River from our farm.  A birder guy was parked in our driveway one day and when we stopped to ask what he was spying, he gleefully filled us in on the news that eagles were nesting on the other side of his lens.  We looked in and, sure enough, there was a great big nest in an old cottonwood, tucked back plenty from the river.  Two adult Bald Eagles came and went, but one was always on that nest.  I rather love looking at them spread their wings and delicately settle down into the nest one leg at a time, like bemused parents picking their way toward the coffee pot, discretely and gently stepping over sleeping kids strewn across the floor at a slumber party. In and out they go this way springtime into summer.

We ended up getting a telescope ourselves and it's now permanently placed in our living room window, peering toward the nest, which has remained occupied ever since. It's nice to have Bald Eagles for neighbors.  I figure they eat stuff that would eat my farm's stuff.  They are lovely to watch and I like the shrill trill of their call.  Very distinctive and very perplexing for a bird of their size and stature.  Really pretty girly.

The ducks don't much dig them.  In fact, I can always tell when an Eagle or Hawk or Osprey is nearby because ducks take a particular stance to such fly overs.  They cock their heads sideways, streaming one eye skyward.  If they feel threatened, all at once, they rise as high on their webbed feet as they can and begin to flap their wings.  The effect is to make them seem as one large undulating field of duck.  I suppose it works since they're hard wired to do it, and I will say, from my perspective as a human, the image is daunting.  Were I an Eagle, I would guess I'd be a little intimidated, a little unsure where to start in picking them off.

Today, I was cleaning the barn and suddenly heard the sound of those wings. I ditched the pitch fork and ran out just as a juvenile Bald Eagle swooped the flock, roughly 25 feet over head, nothing too serious, but a warning, I guess.  Today, that Eagle went home without a duck.  The ducks won and I got back to cleaning the barn marveling at the good fortune of having a barnyard full of ducks and a sky full of eagles.   

About this time eight years ago, I met my dearest friend, Elissa Kline.  We laugh now at the subject over which we met--it was about my dog and her having stitches and her worrying them to death.  I emailed a mutual friend of ours, who I knew to be dog nutty, to ask what advice she might have for me and for Maudie.  That friend, Lorna, forwarded my question/email onto Elissa.  For an email or two, I had no idea that the kind woman responding to this stranger's strange request lived, literally, just up the road, which in Idaho means less than 200 miles away and fewer than five turns from one's door.  I made that up, by the way, but feel free to quote it if you like.

Turned out, Elissa lived in the most gorgeous valley I know at the base of the most beautiful mountains chance and geology ever pushed up along a creek with the same name as one just down the road (more really here) from me on the longest, wildest river in our state.  Damn, this was weird. When I knew she was a neighbor, I knew she was worth knowing.  Well, that and the fact that when I used "Pet Sounds" in an email subject header, she knew what I meant.  From there, it was her ability (unparalleled only by myself) to pull Joni Mitchell quotes from thin air that made me realize this girl was a keeper.

A flood of emails followed, then the first meeting, then a lot more, just, well, way a whole lot more came after, but suffice it to say that a love was formed and forged, and meeting each other was so intense and wonderful, we talked goofy about past lives.  Reality has smacked us around many a time in eight years, laughs, long trips in the car, talks about death and birth, loss and excitement, fear and failure and sunrises from Mexico and France, Italy and other planets have passed like clouds and smiles between us.  

Elissa is the most generous person I've ever known.  Probably the most thoughtful, too.  She gave me a god son, Ian, and that alone gets her a million thanks from me.  But besides her words there on the screen those eight years back, the thing that grabbed me hard about 'Liss, was her extraordinary photography.  I just want you to be blessed enough to see it, and that's why I mention her here.  Go check out my morning owl pal's art.  You'll thank me. www.elissakline.com 

I am of the belief, as are many others, that if one is privileged enough and able, it is a wise thing to reinvent oneself every now and again.  Life reinvents us often, usually without much say from ourselves, and I know that, but that's not what I mean.  I refer to those moments when we suck in the cold air, let out a big sigh and jump into the unknown, into the vapor, just to see whether we can come out solid again. Sometimes we don't, but, oh, when we do . . .

In September of 2001, days after that one day, I was in my small garden and a wave of something foreign and strange came over me.  it was peace, ease, the feeling that my body was my home, that my feet were wide and strong and firm, that the dirt in my pores and under my fingernails was beauty mingling with my own increasingly beautiful soul. I had shut down for days or weeks, startled still sometimes to find myself with my hand to my mouth, my heart and gut lost and far away and with my sisters and my brothers in the smoky streets of New York. My knees shook like those towers still, although I never did fall. At that moment, I knew I wouldn't, either, but I knew that to continue to stand meant I'd have to stand for something else.

It was time to reinvent, to become more, other, something foreign, even to me, and hope that in doing so, I might become closer to myself. 

So, I made a farm.  I knew nothing of farming, really, had no real sense of what would be called of me, how I would endure, where I would go.  I had romantic notions, I bet, dancing dreams of seeds grown to fruition, to food, to table, to compost again.  I had ideas about the sun on my arms and the feel of my toes in the turf.  I had thoughts, but no reality, but I was going to do it and I have.

But this isn't really about farming.  The reason we who can should reinvent is because in shedding old skin and growing new, we make new friendships, new relations, and new loves.  We find others passionate about things we adore, we find their passions ignite our own curiosity and our own desire to be filled by new knowledge, new feelings, new ways of just standing on the earth.  

My reinvention from teacher to farmer has been the most rewarding so far.  I was made fully aware of that today as I spent, seemingly without effort, four hours with three women friends, two farmers, the other one one of the area farmers' best friends.  We talked about things and people and organizations and ideas we knew well.  We educated each other, every single one of us saying something at some point that was all new to the others.  We were like jazz cats, just grooving and making notes and sounds and visions.  And I am in it for the food, yes, I am.  And I am in it so we can change the world and change our relationships to each other to our food to ourselves and to our earth.  But I'm in it, really, for the winter afternoons filled with coffee, awe, laughter and truth.  I'm in it for the friendships and connections and the love. I'm in it because this moment of time is hard and scary and not at all clear, but with people you love and respect, you can believe that it will get clearer, and it will.

I'm not entirely sure what I think of the new website, really, but because the software used to construct our first site is no longer made or supported, it was time to do something else.  For the moment, I hope we're giving you the info you need and, if not, I hope you'll let me know. 

I miss the old hooting owl and the screeching car tires, yes, but it's a new year and maybe a quieter site is what's called for here.  Outside my door, though, the real morning owl is calling.  It's mating season for owls and Lu is always in demand.  Right now, on the coldest day so far of the new year, our owl is thinking of spring.  Me, too, Lu, me too.

Happy New Year, friends, let's make it the best.