The manicure lasted two weeks which is a long time, but maybe in Beverly Hills they do know what they are doing, as their clientele often need care on a weekly basis. It was fun while it lasted and – as I walked to the orchard – sweet to glance at my hands holding the pail of chicken feed and smile. Back in Northern California the March winds are now in earnest – rushing and claiming the April showers – to bring forth May flowers. We were taught this rhyme as children, as it was repeated to us with smiles when we were bundled up against the sharp north-easterner wind blowing – even though the sun shone – and we were sent outside to play. But the wind is sharp, the air cold, and only in the stillest of sheltered moments, can one feel the beginning of spring.

It is the woodland flowers that tell us spring has come. The irises on the Commonweal Mesa are glistening pale mauve and sharp purple. Bill’s black cattle are fat, their coats sleek and shiny with good health as they graze hock-deep and with heads buried into the grass as lush as I have ever seen it.

On this farm lambing has begun – often in the most difficult of nights, the early daffodils are fading, the chickens are laying more eggs than we can sell, and the swallows are back.

Maybe it is the birds that mark the seasons best. The swallows are now diving into the barn at the end of March. ‘Whew’ they seem to say, ‘Made it home safely’. But now there are two young barn kittens eagerly learning how to catch those on the fly. The bluebirds have returned too. She is resting in the climbing pink rose over the art shop as he has shown her a new housing option and she needs time to think about it, taking everything into consideration – as a woman does. The robins arrived with a loud fanfare and immediate squabbles, fights over sex and ownership of wives and real estate . 

It is past time to prune the orchard. Of course I am late and I move slower now. But Rudy has sharpened my pruners and they are shiny from his care. He still has the loppers – as there was something not quite right with a bolt and he must be sure I can manage it, such is his watchfulness of us all. As I reach each tree I apologize for my neglect over these last years. But like a hen-raised brood of chicks, some have survived, even thrived while others have stood still, rooted but not growing, waiting for that extra serving of water through the summer months or the loosening of soil around their root ball, enough to let air in but not the gophers. It often seems a futile effort and yet I keep on working. I look at all that we do – trying to keep the land nurtured and yet productive, a give and take between the soil and us and sometimes I feel defeated as if all my work is but a stop-gap between them – the .01% moving in on us – and us moving on into wherever we can go. 

The farm calls for focus and sends the world of wars further into the outskirts of my mind. Though the horrors that are occurring all the time – everywhere – still return to my consciousness when I try to rest from the chores that face me here. What is happening in Russia? Who is attacking whom and for why? This latest attack was claimed by an Islamic Terrorist organization maybe just to show that terrorism is another equal opportunity employer? But it matters, not just that – so far – 137 people were killed in the Crocus City Concert Hall attack – but – despite warnings from the US ‘services’ that this was going to happen – and like Netanyahu before him – Putin let it happen. For Israel’s Prime Minister the music festival attack last October was an opportunity to begin a war he wanted. For Putin it is the continuation of blindness that the Russian people matter and not understanding that somewhere in the months or years to come they will be able to say so. Or is Putin maybe looking to the blindness of other Western countries as they fail in taking a truthful way forward? Will Donald Trump find a way through his nine billion sale of something he probably doesn’t even own to stay out of jail and on the U.S. Presidential ballot? Will Julian Assange be shuttled from one secure house to another or is the possibility of honoring freedom of the press still alive? They – whoever they are – are playing a game that seemingly has no rules and we the people – of the West and of Russia, Ukraine, China ,and all continents – are tossed on the sea storms of their brewing.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

And always overseen by – beatrice@blmurch