Scrapbook for May 2019

27.05.2019 – Calm and contented

From modest beginnings our neighbourhood organic farmer has built up his operation in cautious, self-financing steps. Last autumn a sturdy cage appeared outside a barn followed by its new occupants: beef cattle.

Unlike conventional cattle, which overwinter in a dark barn, these organic cattle are able to get out at any time for fresh air and sun.

They were ten months old when they arrived last autumn, three extremely docile animals – 'minds innocent and quiet' – who took whatever opportunities a long winter offered to sun themselves in the open air and keep an eye on the passers-by.

During the winter they are fed only the hay produced on the farm – without any artifical feeds whatever. The farm only keeps the number of animals for which it can produce hay.

Now the time for alfresco dining in the meadows on the farm has arrived.

One day their day will come, but the way to the slaughterhouse is short and made as stress-free as possible.

14.05.2019 – Doris Day

Was I really only eight? When I sat alone in a small provincial cinema and watched Doris Day in Calamity Jane? Is it now nearly seventy years of searching for that lambent blonde in fringed leathers with a revolver on her hip? Really? And now I read that Doris Day has actually aged and died? How can that be? And the film wasn't a documentary, either? That she was pretending?

Food for thought: a life spent going in completely the wrong direction.

09.05.2019 – Seen recently in passing:

… before the snow fell, that is.