Ed Schiebel

Ed Schiebel works with IBM Global Services in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, having moved there with colleagues en masse from AT&T Labs, where he'd worked for 19 years. The move was virtual-he remains in the same office, with the same chair, mouse and screen, the same parking lot view. It's a long corporate story, not without its own interesting twists. But the more pertinent story is Ed's home at Littlewood Farm, where he lives with Robin, Perrin and Madeline. A mile or two off highway 62, near Johnstown, Ohio, Littlewood holds a long gravel driveway, their house, the barn and fields, fences, lines of trees. Adjacent farmers grow corn and soybeans; the Schiebels keep pasture for their horses.

In his spare time (when not tending horses), Ed drums for Katherine Dunham Technique dance classes, has dreams of recording and photographing the planet's belly, and whether it's fits of egotistical rambling or a parent's bragging on his kids, Ed occasional scribbles his thoughts on the News from Littlewood Farm blog.

This part of Ohio, at the western edge of the Appalachian and Alleghany Mountains, is all small rolling hills-baby foothills, good for walking. The land, in places, is oceanic-having the shape of ocean swells, wave tops and troughs. Only still, or at least, in much slower motion. Green, gone brown in winter, with patches-sometimes entire wavy meadows-of tall ancient grasses. And trees! Sycamore, Sweet Gum, Tuliptrees. Loblolly Pine. Black, White and Bur Oak; Red, Silver and Sugar Maple. And therewith, birds. Robin, Northern Mockingbird, Cedar Waxwing, Blue Jay, Crow, White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Cardinal, American Goldfinch. Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow. We've not the means to identify all of them on the Littlewood Farm 5AM recording, except, of course, for the rooster Ghost. That dearly departed soul is still very much with us.

For those living elsewhere-in cities, suburbs, or in other fields or woodlands-Littlewood Farm 5AM might serve as a nice background for morning. A comfort, we thought. Another way to start a day.

Ed has a very nice recording of a brook, a tributary of Lobdell Run Creek in the Lobdell Reserve near Alexandria, Ohio (which has a reputation as an excellent place for barefoot hiking). If you like Littlewood, watch for the babbling brook.

Contact Ed Schiebel via e-mail.