A walk in the moonlight...

This weekend, guests are coming to Four Cedars and I’m thrilled. The old place simply comes alive when dear ones, weary of city life, come for a brief respite among the vines. I love hosting visitors, friends and family alike, for it allows me the chance to fill the kitchen with tasty foods and music and activity. And isn’t the kitchen really the heart of the home, even a farm home? Especially a farm home? When guests come, the heart beats as if it has found love for the first time.

I am grateful to know others love this place as much as I, yet I wish, just once, they could experience it the way I do – in joyful solitude. The farm is a different embrace when one experiences it from a place of isolation. It’s not a better place, nor a worse place. It’s just a different place in a way that is profoundly internal.

All this week, I’ve been blessed with warm, windy, sun-splashed days and cool, star-filled nights. And a bright moon. I first noticed this moon Tuesday morning when I emerged from my slumber earlier than normal and headed outside to feed the chickens. The sun was up already but the moon hung over the western tree line and shone so brightly that you could discern its topography. It was striking the way the translucent body caught my gaze and made me pause, right there in the driveway, to consider my life, my calling, and all the paths I’d traveled to find myself there at that moment, gazing at a morning moon in my pajamas.

This same moon has circled the planet while I’ve gone about my business and last night it lit my route home as I had stayed in town late listening to heavenly music. Once home, I meandered the property by moonlight while farm dog got some exercise. At one point, I found myself standing at the edge of the driveway. Our road, which stretches north to south, was lifeless; the cornfield across the road stretched to a murky infinity. The vineyard was draped in shadow. Beyond the tree line, the faint sound of water and waterfowl intersecting reminded me there was a lake over yonder. Crickets and frogs were the chorus. Above, there were too many stars to comprehend and I felt at once both large and inconsequential. And, in the southeast sky, a swath of cloud – or spirit – had been painted in earnest on inky sky.

I stood in the darkness seeing all that surrounded me quite clearly, thanks to the moon. I stood alone, in modified prairie, feeling not lonely but peaceful. Serene. Immersed in nature’s quiet, which isn’t the same as man-made silence.

As I walked slowly toward the house, the four cedar trees swayed darker than the surrounding sky. I followed my shadow down the gravel drive. I glanced once more toward the vineyard. I could barely make out leggy vines swaying too. The silence enveloped me. This is my Four Cedars experience. It is solitude. I wish my visitors could partake in its beauty. Unfortunately, solitude isn’t a shared experience. Fortunately, moonlight is.

Every day, the duck population grows...

I’ll bet you didn’t know Minnesota has a duck plan. It’s true. You can download it from the Department of Natural Resources web site. What’s more, DNR officials are seeking public input on its plan; they want to know if its plans to recover breeding and migrating duck populations are appropriate and if they address your concerns. You should feel honored that they care.

There are a half-dozen men in my part of Blue Earth County that have a duck plan too. Their plan involves canoes, muck boots, camouflage, long guns, and the body of water out back that’s speckled with black ducks. These men plan to implement their duck plan one half hour before sunrise on October 4.

I have a duck plan as well. It involves ear plugs.