Today is the day....

Some mornings I just wake up with a feeling "Today is the day I should ______." That's how I became a professional bus driver. Tonight I sat down at the computer and realized it was time to start a blog. Yes, Dad! Thanks, Terry! And all you who enjoy it can thank my way-to-busy life for bringing me to this monumental technological step!

Of course, the real reason for starting the blog today, and not last week, is that the Northern Chorus Frogs ("spring peepers") have just begun to sing their spring songs from the wetlands just past the farm boundaries. "It's time! It's time!" they always seem to be saying to me. A time of new beginnings, increased busy-ness, and always, in all dimensions, tremendous growth and insights. A time of never-enough-time, yet of stopping a hundred times a day to marvel at a crocus spreading its petals in the lawn (it suddenly appeared one spring, the only crocus on the farm, and returns faithfully each year...where it came from is an on-going mystery), seeds sprouting, night crawlers mating, twin lambs staggering to their feet moments after being born....

This spring is special. This is my first spring of being fully a part of the farm again since I left in August, 2004, for a sabbatical of more than 2 years. It's been 2+ years of amazing spiritual pilgrimage, wonderful connections with people across the U.S. and Canada, relaxation, introspection, learning, growth, creativity, and even play (who, me?). It was a great good thing to take a sabbatical: I hereby renew and make public my commitment to make this Old Testament mandate an integral part of my life/business plans. And now it is a great good thing to be back, to once again take my humble place amidst the Community of Life* that I call "Pinwheel Farm." I can feel that community welcome me. And I look upon that community with fresh eyes, seeing it as if for the first time, in a way I never actually saw it the first time because I was too confuddled and befused to know what I was seeing. This time I KNOW...and absence has, indeed, made the heart grow fonder.

This blog is my gift to each of you. Through it, I hope you will know that as I work, I am thinking of you all, and sharing with you the little daily treasures of this life I love.

*As I refer to various themes, contexts, quotes, etc. in my entries, I'll footnote them for the eventual compilation of the Pinwheel Farm Reading list. First (after the Bible): Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael", "My Ishmael", "The Story of B" and "Providence". These books have profoundly shaped my understanding of my relationship with the human and natural communities that are the context for Pinwheel Farm. You'll be hearing from them again....