Lawrence is living the good life on the farm with a cow, chickens and hummingbirds for company...
There’s no rest in May because pipes are being laid from the Gallina canyon to irrigate their ranch in the mountains of New Mexico. Lawrence, who is still very ill, can manage the two mile walk to oversee the project but is ‘not much good to anybody’.
Living remotely means being reliant on guests to bring up supplies when they visit. Lawrence asks Ida Rauh to bring up ‘another bottle of Panttanberge’ and a ‘box of typewriting paper’ whereas Frieda opts for the more pragmatic ‘fresh vegetables and a leg of lamb and a tongue’. Frieda’s nephew Friedel Jaffe is visiting on the 19th and so she is in full home making mode.
Keeping Lawrence company are ‘little flocks of hummingbirds’ who are feasting on the wild strawberries and gooseberries – the few plants to have survived the dry climate. He buys a black cow he names Susan and nine chickens – it is his very own Diddly Squat.
These video essays are based on the letters of D.H. Lawrence one hundred years ago and are published monthly as part of the D.H. Lawrence Memory Theatre project.
To see previous Locating Lawrence videos from 1922, click here, from 1923, click here, from 1924, click here, from 1925, click here.
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