Comments

spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
hand in a window
(carefully to
and from moving new and
old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

e.e. cummings

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 8, 2008 1:17 PM

TOM...

Just love the picture of the chickens... Do you have names for YOURS? We use to name ours - ours use to free range over 4 acres BUT we keep losing them to the sly old fox! We now have them confined to about an acre and do not name them any more - it is too hard on us to keep losing our pets!!!! They give us such great 'free rang eggs' - they are much more useful around here than ME! Lucky there is no fox big enough to carry me off - eh?

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at May 8, 2008 6:28 PM

As fellow Michigander Judith knows well, this was a looooong winter. I always welcome the first crocus bravely, yet predictably, breaking through the frozen ground to once again remind us that rebirth is the rule, not the exception. I find it most comforting.

Posted by Mike Neiss at May 8, 2008 6:58 PM

Beautiful, Mike. Thank you.

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 8, 2008 9:08 PM

'Rebirth is the rule, not the exception' - superb Mike - well said. I always think of Easter as endings and yet beginnings. Spring is my favourite time of the year.

Posted by Trevor Gay at May 9, 2008 3:45 AM

Ditto on the chickens - and on the yummy eggs. We still name ours - but the kids are the leads on that.

Great thing about chickens is that they illustrate the customer comes second principle - you don't take care of them and make them happy their product suffers for it. They produce less and what they produce is not of the highest quality. ;-)

Happy Spring!

Posted by Martin Koning-Bastiaan at May 9, 2008 11:57 AM

Martin

I love the way you think!

Yeah, same here it was our kids who gave them names and then who felt the most pain.... YOU have to love the circle of life!

I manage people the same way I manage chickens - I let them "free range", let them find their own sustenance, let them lay their eggs where/when they will, and I let them get taken by the BIG BAD FOX if they are stupid!!! You win a few and you lose a few - all the chickens can be replaced BUT as the consumer/customer who is willing to provide a 1/4 - 1 full acre of "free range territory" for each chicken to do their thing I am irreplaceable..

Good luck to YOU and to all your Chickens!!!

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at May 9, 2008 7:53 PM

Richard and Martin...not being a gentleman farmer, and being a vegetarian for 12 years (though eating meat again,)I must be missing something. Are you merely raising chicken for the eggs or are you actually eating the chicken themselves?

One of the reasons I stopped eating meat was handling the meat as I cooked became too much for me, though my Viking meat-eating love of five years cured me of this. Anyway, how do you name chickens that you will some day eat? I feel your kids' pain.

And Richard...your "free range" story somehow does not sit terribly well with me. Perhaps, I'm a bit too sensitive...perhaps not.

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 9, 2008 8:36 PM

Judith

We do not eat our chickens (the fox does that for us as it should be in nature's circle of life).. BUT we do eat their bountiful health giving eggs!!! Other than that we simply love our chickens to death!

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at May 9, 2008 9:07 PM

Richard...what will eat you?

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 9, 2008 9:48 PM

Judith - we don't eat the chickens either - only the eggs. Been a pain-in-the-ass vegetarian for a long time now. My kids are funny: yesterday with a neighbor who asked my younger son whether he wanted some ice cream with marshmallows (Rocky Road) he said "No, we don't eat anything with ground up animal bones in it" (at 3 years not the most tactful...).

Richard - must admit - chickens, fruit trees, parenting, management, all the same - treat them right, watch what's going on, respond quickly with a caring and thoughtful attitude, don't lose sight of the goals, you get good things from it all.

Martin

Posted by Martin Koning-Bastiaan at May 12, 2008 12:28 PM

Beautiful response from your son, Martin. LOL! Sometimes we're a bit too tactful.

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 12, 2008 12:46 PM

Martin - Agreement - now there is a rare thing... I do prune the fruit trees heavily - too heavily actually - but not the kids... sometimes I get things the wrong way around but that is life down here on the farm... Keep well!

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at May 12, 2008 5:33 PM

Richard - I admit that I am a bit worried about the big bad fox attitude - that has a tendency to be misinterpreted as some social darwinist "evolution in action" sort of management style. Gives Law firms a bad name when everyone is thrown in with the sharks and we'll see who learns to swim before getting eaten up.

Anyway, I find that it is sometimes the best chickens that get eaten by the predator - and luck is no way to ensure good quality in your employees or poultry. Thus your analogy might break down a bit - certainly you wouldn't want to lose great employees that way.

Or maybe you would. Perhaps they are ipso facto NOT a good employee because they can't excel in the environment you provide. But of course, they said that about women too... and geezers ... and ... (see where I'm going on this? ;-)

Posted by Martin Koning-Bastiaan at May 12, 2008 6:43 PM

Bravo, Martin.

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 12, 2008 8:54 PM

Martin.... All analogies break down when pushed to explain a real situation... All I ever do is try to be the best employee OR customer that I can be given any circumstance (you know I fail on both counts more often than I would like to admit!)...

Most of the people I have managed (or more accurately have managed me - bless them all!) have been struggling with life issues like all the rest of us - so naturally they had both good and bad days BUT I was blessed because I never had the misfortune to manage a truly 'bad' (whatever connotation you might like to put on that word is up to you) person... I have been a truly stupid manager at times and my team members have done stupid things at times - my only message from that is that we all lived to tell the tale... Life goes on.. Winter turns into Spring - in the end its ACTIONS not WORDS that make a difference to our world.....

Stay well and have fun Martin!

Richard..

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at May 13, 2008 12:26 AM

Richard,

Ah, excellent - I did not think you were the old fox at that!

I really like the actions not words comment - oft said, not often acted upon (the irony doubtless escapes no one). But what I most enjoy are actions informed by words. How else can we learn at the feet (or upon the shoulders) of the amazing people who have come before us?

I, for one, really enjoy homey examples/analogies. But you are right - we enjoy them and use them for what they illustrate - to call attention to certain qualities. Naturally, when pushed too far and you get really sticky, messy, wonderful life instead.

You know, I have been the manager that has not liked his job particularly and contributed to a not-so-hot work environment. I even have done the sink or swim social Darwinist crap too. Perhaps that is why I value a good work environment all the more. When I have really enjoyed and identified with my work my employees were happy and productive with extremely low turnover. And the opposite too - hated my work, lost identification with the job, then my employees lost their enthusiasm too - and that was a really poisonous atmosphere to breathe (luckily past me now).

Posted by Martin Koning-Bastiaan at May 13, 2008 1:41 AM

Speaking of Spring and the inevitability of things, I give a quote by one whom I admire greatly. Though, I disagree on some fundamental things I do so even more with the dogmatic writing of proselytes or dissident voices that disregard the work or perhaps more importantly the spirit of the man:

"Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that "I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and no man can do more than this." (Charles Darwin)

Said of Darwin:

"Dogmatic fixity was wholly alien to his central idea...

We can watch his dominating love of natural history changing from his youthful passion of collecting and shooting, into the maturer passion of the theoriser; we watch his diffidence slowly giving way to scientific assurance, though never to dogmatic finality...

In the latter editions of the Origin Darwin showed an increasing belief in the inheritance of acquired characters and in the importance of use and disuse in the total picture of evolution, which led to some ambiguity of expression as to their respective roles in relation to Natural Selection...

Darwin faith in Natural Selection as the main agent never wavered, but this admission of other causes showed his awareness of difficulties still unsolved; indeed his vacillations may prove his wisdom in the light of recent work." (Nora Barlow)

Darwin's work or the spirit with which he worked is a far cry from "crap." Though, I understand the vehemence with which so many disagree. I value the man and his many years of dedication to discovery.

Spring is both inevitable and exploratory. May this Spring be one of many discoveries for TP and family, Erik and Cathy, and ALL those who read this blog.

Happy Spring!

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 13, 2008 6:55 AM

Ah Judith-

I was not being critical of Darwin - far from it.

Darwin had nothing to do with "Social Darwinism", a theory that tried to apply a crass version of Darwin's theory of natural selection to social life. This theory arose in the late 19th century and was used to excuse heinous crimes until the end of WWII. Tha Nazi's used social darwinist ideas to "account" for their "cleaning" their populace of the "unfit".

Even in the U.S. we had an "Eugenics" program which sterilized people deemed to be too stupid to have children that would benefit society. This shameful past is luckily behind us - but we should not forget it.

In business it shows up as cutthroat competition between employees - only the "fittest" of them will survive the feeding frenzy, and thus your business will be better for it (that's the theory anyway). I believe this management theory to be antithetical to the ideas expressed so clearly on this site. - and that is why I engaged Richard to clarify what he meant.

Spring is a wonderful time. The world renews and rebuilds - teeming, blooming, and growing into something a bit different, but built on, what came before. This is the magic that Darwin felt and we share.

It is a beautiful day here in Southern California - may it be the same wherever you are.

Posted by Martin Koning-Bastiaan at May 13, 2008 12:10 PM

Martin...thinking back now that you've mentioned it, I most certainly have read of the Nazi's ill-attachment to Darwin. Having recently read The Autobiography of Charles Darwin I've fallen in love with the man and honor his contributions to science. So, do excuse my ignorance and protectionism. I love also the spirit of your words and the very light they bring. Thank you.

Over the past few days it has been cold and rainy in Michigan, but today is wonderfully clear and bright. Such dampness is usually followed by unusual clarity. If we hold on to such renewal, the kind that Spring brings, we will outlast the storm. Hanging in is half the battle; being fully present most times wins it.

prescription free viagra

Posted by Judith Ellis at May 13, 2008 1:48 PM