A short hello to say that I hope you’re having a lovely day!
“When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.” – Daniel Webster
Springtime at Middlemay Farm
Category: Uncategorized
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” ― Mark Twain
Everything you love today will be one day thrown off, cast in a heap, stolen or forgotten. You may write your mementos into a will, put your signature upon books you’ve written, and, in the case of your very body, have portraits done to capture who you once appeared to be.
As a man came from his mother’s womb, so he will depart again, naked as he arrived. He takes nothing for his labor to carry in his hands. This too is a grievous evil: Exactly as a man is born, so he will depart. What does he gain as he toils for the wind? Moreover, all his days he eats in darkness, with much sorrow, sickness, and anger. Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of life that God has given him—for this is his lot. Ecclesiastes
Antique fairs are like walking through graveyards but with less respect and order. Attendees remind me of grave robbers on battlefields (in a small way) though I very much enjoy being one of them. The dead are not quite so fresh at a county fairground, and we have no idea in most cases what the original owners died of. Let’s hope all in their sleep and at ripe old ages.
Last year the fair was cancelled, along with most everything that makes life worth living so this year the line to get in to see dead people’s stuff was easily a football field long. Everyone was commenting about it as they stood surveying who wore the mask correctly or not-at-all, obviously that person over there was not up-to-date on the latest studies, etc — so many studies! At least as we stood (at less than six feet apart) we were getting a good dose of Vitamin D.
Anyway, despite knowing I’ll die one day, I still love collecting old stuff. I love imagining the original owners and wonder am I imagining or tapping into their memories — it’s hard to know for sure, but I’m leaning toward objects granting the seeker a knowledge, a hint of something more. It’s the same way with writing. The muses, the spirits are there inviting you to see things, to take a chance. Where might these glimpses and promptings lead?
“One must really be brave to choose love or writing as one’s guides, because they may lead one to the space in which the meaning of our life is hidden — and who can say that this space may not be the land of death.”
Demetrios Capetenakis
I think of the Catholic Sisters of Charity who ran toward the battlefields and hospitals and died (of disease and exhaustion) for the love of many soldiers during the Civil War who would otherwise have died without names. Or the soldiers themselves who found purpose in loving their country, or comrades or family back home. Nowadays we see all death as the worst possible outcome. I think this is because we have given up on the idea of eternity.
For the life of me I can’t keep death from my novels. I don’t even want to, I guess. I’ve made peace with what the muses say must be done. I’ll be happy if one day, for the love of my mission here, I am able to completely let my ego die and get down to just loving the people and things before me. The more I write, the more I love the characters, come what may. The fear of them leading to bad reviews or just plain bad endings diminishes the more I accept death as part of creation.
Do you know what this badge is? It’s a Grand Army of the Republic grave marker for a Civil War veteran. Somewhere a grave goes without its marker. I can’t imagine why, but I couldn’t very well leave it at the fair.
Again I think of the soldiers who died and were buried on plantations or in mass graves or even lovingly by their comrades. The men would often do their best to leave markers made of whatever they had available, most of it not holding up in the weather.
It was the evening before Cold Harbor when an officer spied all of his men crouched over sewing their names written on little sheets of paper to the backs of their jackets so sure they were of the hopelessness of their situation.
My idea is to plant a small garden for this relic of a brave soul’s life, to me unknown, but not really.
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“The worst of all fears is the fear of living.” Theodore Roosevelt
Spring has come despite the fear swirling around the parking lots littered with tossed away masks anytime I venture off the farm and into the “real world.” I try not to believe too strongly in this real world created by men and women who will never be held accountable for the tales they tell.
I choose to believe that I will live here until it is time for me to go. I do my best to tread lightly upon other people’s fears because I have so often fallen prey to the habit and weird allure of fear and victimhood. Yet there came a time after the worst things happened that I realized I would survive. I had to decide if the pain of fear was truly the companion I would take with me on the rest of the journey.
There were many frosty days of fear promised, but I began to notice the new and emerald growth in the valleys. I used to fight my fears by diving into deep pools to see if I’d swim or sink in the tangles of worldly cares and ambitions. And then I realized these acts of daring and fight were useless and silly.
To live without any longer needing to prove to the egotistical monsters my value was truly the most fearless thing I could do. People debate health topics and kill friendships. I believe what I believe and get on with my life. Maybe I will die tomorrow. Who knows? I may as well be nice to people especially if they are still gripped in fear.
If I finish a project or don’t it no longer matters. This worry used to keep me from even starting. The Y2K scare, the 9-11 scare, the illness and disease scares — and still I am here. Don’t get me wrong. I mourn the death of my uncle who died after getting the shot and for others who died from sickness. Yet I know we all will die and that it will seem unfair or terrible. In the meantime I like having goals.
I still want to make tons of money writing so that I can buy a pond. I still haven’t figured out how to do that yet. I’m writing a novel that I’m thoroughly engrossed in, yet for now it is enough to love my characters and immerse myself in research.
As an artist and writer I no longer fear living or dying. I only fear not creating, not sharing, not encouraging beauty, goodness and truth — wherever that takes me.
I encourage you today if you are fearful to accept that the emotion is only useful to a point. Sometimes talking to a friend helps or turning off the news. We are all born to create — to bring a little heaven to earth for each other — don’t deny us what only you can offer.
Since my daughter is still in the mental health facility I’ve had time to not only write, but to make crafty things for the sheer fun of it:
Over the winter I started making gourd head dolls too. Little Zack has been wanting to kill them for weeks and yesterday he climbed up and got one!
Have a wonderfully fearless week!
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The Portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This is her picture as she was: It seems a thing to wonder on, As though mine image in the glass Should tarry when myself am gone. I gaze until she seems to stir,— Until mine eyes almost aver That now, even now, the sweet lips part To breathe the words of the sweet heart:— And yet the earth is over her. Alas! even such the thin-drawn ray That makes the prison-depths more rude,— The drip of water night and day Giving a tongue to solitude. Yet only this, of love's whole prize, Remains; save what in mournful guise Takes counsel with my soul alone,— Save what is secret and unknown, Below the earth, above the skies. In painting her I shrin'd her face Mid mystic trees, where light falls in Hardly at all; a covert place Where you might think to find a din Of doubtful talk, and a live flame Wandering, and many a shape whose name Not itself knoweth, and old dew, And your own footsteps meeting you, And all things going as they came. A deep dim wood; and there she stands As in that wood that day: for so Was the still movement of her hands And such the pure line's gracious flow. And passing fair the type must seem, Unknown the presence and the dream. 'Tis she: though of herself, alas! Less than her shadow on the grass Or than her image in the stream. That day we met there, I and she One with the other all alone; And we were blithe; yet memory Saddens those hours, as when the moon Looks upon daylight. And with her I stoop'd to drink the spring-water, Athirst where other waters sprang; And where the echo is, she sang,— My soul another echo there. But when that hour my soul won strength For words whose silence wastes and kills, Dull raindrops smote us, and at length Thunder'd the heat within the hills. That eve I spoke those words again Beside the pelted window-pane; And there she hearken'd what I said, With under-glances that survey'd The empty pastures blind with rain. Next day the memories of these things, Like leaves through which a bird has flown, Still vibrated with Love's warm wings; Till I must make them all my own And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease Of talk and sweet long silences, She stood among the plants in bloom At windows of a summer room, To feign the shadow of the trees. And as I wrought, while all above And all around was fragrant air, In the sick burthen of my love It seem'd each sun-thrill'd blossom there Beat like a heart among the leaves. O heart that never beats nor heaves, In that one darkness lying still, What now to thee my love's great will Or the fine web the sunshine weaves? For now doth daylight disavow Those days,—nought left to see or hear. Only in solemn whispers now At night-time these things reach mine ear; When the leaf-shadows at a breath Shrink in the road, and all the heath, Forest and water, far and wide, In limpid starlight glorified, Lie like the mystery of death. Last night at last I could have slept, And yet delay'd my sleep till dawn, Still wandering. Then it was I wept: For unawares I came upon Those glades where once she walk'd with me: And as I stood there suddenly, All wan with traversing the night, Upon the desolate verge of light Yearn'd loud the iron-bosom'd sea. Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears The beating heart of Love's own breast,— Where round the secret of all spheres All angels lay their wings to rest,— How shall my soul stand rapt and aw'd, When, by the new birth borne abroad Throughout the music of the suns, It enters in her soul at once And knows the silence there for God! Here with her face doth memory sit Meanwhile, and wait the day's decline, Till other eyes shall look from it, Eyes of the spirit's Palestine, Even than the old gaze tenderer: While hopes and aims long lost with her Stand round her image side by side, Like tombs of pilgrims that have died About the Holy Sepulchre.
Painting: Ophelia by Arthur Hughes 1863 (Public Domain)
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DIY Maple Syrup
In 1860 the United States produced more than six and a half million gallons of maple syrup. In 2019 only about one and a half million gallons were harvested. What’s wrong, Americans?
My husband “sugars off” the sap alone at our house after the one year he slipped out of a church function to tap trees and left the rest of us to endure an awkward after-church potluck and games gathering. As a family of introverts, we (as one) revolted. Soon after our two strong sons disappeared into adulthood and far from the sugar bush. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’ve had weird luck with broken arms and hands in March so I’m never much help and stand by the fire only now and again to see how things are progressing (I am the main imbiber of the golden sweetness though).
My husband is not 100% selfless. He loves to plan, to improve, to go bigger, to make more, to give away more, and especially how by the second or third week the sun warms the chair he sits in as he listens to the bubbling sap. There is nothing like the smell of maple on the wind. The dogs instantly lift their noses to it when I take them outside on their little rambles. Nala the farm dog used to lounge with my husband until a local marathon runner started jogging by. Nala hates fast moving people and makes it very plain. Nobody likes a big white wolf-dog snarling and hopping at their heels.
In pioneer days the young people loved a good sugaring-off party for sweets and sparking. We do that too when I remember to bring my husband out coffee. Here’s how native New Yorker THURLOW WEED remembered it:
This is a season to which the farmer’s sons and daughters look forward with agreeable anticipations. In that employment toil is more than literally sweetened. The occupation and its associations are healthful and beneficial. When your troughs are dug (out of basswood, for there were no buckets in those days), your trees tapped, your sap gathered, your wood cut, and your fires fed, there is leisure either for reading or ‘sparking.’ And what youthful denizens of the sap-bush will ever forget, while ‘sugaring-off,’ their share in the transparent and delicious streak of candy congealed and cooled in the snow? Many a farmer’s son had found his best opportunities for mental improvement in his intervals of leisure while ‘tending sap-bush.’ Such, at any rate, was my own experience. At night you had only to feed the kettles and keep up your fires — the sap having been gathered and the wood cut ‘before dark.’ During the day we would also lay in a good stock of fat pine, by the light of which, blazing brightly in front of the sugar-house, in the posture the serpent was condemned to assume as a penalty for tempting our great first grandmother, I have passed many and many a delightful night in reading. I remember in this way to have read a history of the French Revolution, and to have obtained from it a better and more enduring knowledge of its events and horrors, and of the actors in that great national tragedy, than I have received from all subsequent readings. I remember also how happy I was in being able to borrow the book of a Mr. Keyes, after a two mile tramp through the snow, shoeless, my feet swaddled in remnants of a rag-carpet.
Thurlow Weed, History of the Town of Marathon
Here’s the way the season goes:
When the days of the thaw and nights of cold are balanced perfectly (days 40-52 degrees/nights 24-32 degrees) the sap starts flowing — for how long nobody knows so you have to be ready!
My husband has a source of free pine which is the preferred wood for boiling. He cuts, stacks and ages it all year long.
In late February we tramp through the snow, falling in when there’s a layer of ice on top, looking for the maples marked for tapping the previous summer. In the old days farmers would sit by their hearths in winter whittling sumac spiles (spouts). to tamp into the bored holes on the sunny side of trees at least 10-12″ in diameter and 1-4ft from the ground. Nowadays you can buy metal or plastic spiles online (but do it early!).
The average farmer in the olden times relied on a good cooper for his buckets. My 4x great grandfather was a master cooper until the drink dulled his skills. A leaky bucket then was very bad indeed. I imagine my poor grandmother doing her best to keep the family in funds with her spinning, but from what I know, the children suffered. Drink sap to play it safe. Sweet water (before it’s boiled down) can give you a bad stomach ache so don’t be greedy!
Millions of sap buckets were required in the mid-nineteenth century and each one was made by hand and sold for six cents a piece:
They were shaped not for finish nor beauty, but solely for utility, and not one unnecessary stroke went into their construction. Almost invariably the material was the very best old, free-splitting white pine … Neither the inside nor outside of the staves was touched with any tool, but left with the grain showing as rived from the block. The edges of the staves, however, must be beveled and jointed with almost perfect accuracy, and the bottom must fit the chine, the groove cut to receive it, with the same preciseness.”
The Golden Age of Homespun by Jared van Wagenen, Jr.
Some say that Native Americans boiled down sap and showed the process to the first pioneers, others disagree and say it’s only folklore because the Native process in the way that it’s spoken of doesn’t seem to get the sap quite hot enough to be true. Maybe they just drank the sweet water as-is which with the minerals may have seemed a healthy tonic. Who knows?
The first year we tapped trees, we boiled sap over a metal grate sitting on cinder blocks. My husband’s set-up improved over the years and now he boils on a converted fuel oil tank.
HOW TO BUILD A MAPLE EVAPORATOR FROM FUEL TANK
In the last month he picked up two old oil tanks, some angle iron and a welding machine off Craigslist. I steered clear of the sparks that he said could blind me until the tank looked like this:
The tank was empty so my husband welded the shelf within–I had no idea what it all meant until it began to come together .
First we put in some sand and leveled it:
Then I had the job of cleaning old mortar from the bricks also gotten off Craigslist while husband cut a door into the tank.
Carrying the full buckets of sap back to the evaporator is a test of endurance when snow is still on the ground (some years a foot or two of it). The pioneers used to have yokes to wear over shoulders with hooks on the end for buckets or big barrels as reservoirs on sleds to bring the sweet water to the fire. We lug the buckets out of the woods (the reason the boys go AWOL). Some people have intricate systems of plastic tubing running into a reservoir at an easier location to access the sap. We’ve had years where we’ve had to climb snowy hills to retrieve the buckets –a lot of splashed out sap! We’ve also dug out snowy trails in February. The boys did not approve. Now my husband uses a mix of human and tractor power to get the sap. It’s not as picturesque, but I’m not complaining. I like my coffee sweet.
Once the maple trees start to bud and the peepers come alive in the puddles and ponds of melted winter, farmers know the Frog Run has come, the final sap drips just as the daffodils begin to stretch from the garden beds. And just like that the robins arrive and the buckets go away for another year.
The neighbors greet my husband with grins as he tramps up their driveways with gallons of the real deal.
Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends—the few
Who yet remain—shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown ...
John Greenleaf Whittier
Maple Equipment Suppliers:
Maple Recipes
Some of this post comes from my old farm blog at RAISING MILK AND HONEY
We no longer raise milk or honey. After too many bee swarms my husband realized how much he hated seeing bees die. I felt the same about my goats. Despite years of vet bills and consults we just couldn’t figure out why our goats always failed to thrive. We have some theories about our sulfur water preventing uptake of copper in goats, but who knows? Our sheep are much healthier and just as cute.
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The Cry of the Deer (St. Patrick’s Breastplate)
I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation. I arise today Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom. I arise today Through the strength of the love of cherubim, In the obedience of angels, In the service of archangels, In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward, In the prayers of patriarchs, In the predictions of prophets, In the preaching of apostles, In the faith of confessors, In the innocence of holy virgins, In the deeds of righteous men. I arise today, through The strength of heaven, The light of the sun, The radiance of the moon, The splendor of fire, The speed of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of the sea, The stability of the earth, The firmness of rock. I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me, God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me From snares of devils, From temptation of vices, From everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and near. I summon today All these powers between me and those evils, Against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, Against incantations of false prophets, Against black laws of pagandom, Against false laws of heretics, Against craft of idolatry, Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards, Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul; Christ to shield me today Against poison, against burning, Against drowning, against wounding, So that there may come to me an abundance of reward. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
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The Unknown Soldier
One sharp pain. One utterance of surprise. Oh. He leaves no great philosophies. There are no medals, no headstone. Only a few strings left attached to this world. Letters in government files The sacrifice a mother makes to prove her relation to the boy whose life is opened up on paper for a pension she is denied. Is it invasion to hang on their every word -- the words of intimacy and filial love in these letters? I am his family too and he is mine. These strings scribbled on cheap, creased stationery little ways of knowing a great deal (though I knew him without knowing it all my life ). Apologizing for his handwriting and blaming his pen. Butter from a country doctor as he sits in a hospital bed. No letters from home yet. Despair in one string, bravado in another; A book sent home to remember him by and I'm a tuff buck now. Have brother plant these pair seeds They be big as a fist and From Vermont. He spells as he spoke: haint, dast, Upstate I be The book cost me dear. The last string of words money sent home for mother's new house never be afraid to ask, I gladly go without. He is my muse and my relation All these years later a picture is found and we look the same. I've known him and I have no doubts. Never question God's creative force, or His happy coincidences. The heavens open sometimes and the saints speak and pray -- happy for reunion.
Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:8
For Further Reading:
THE BIBLE SUPPORTS PRAYING TO THE SAINTS
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“DOG: A kind of additional or subsidiary Diety designed to catch the overflow or surplus of the world’s worship.” Ambrose Bierce
My husband’s mother cancelled Christmas one year after her dog Mopsy died. She didn’t get another dog for over twenty years. When my husband’s favorite Golden Retriever died I said I thought it was a little disrespectful for him to want a quick replacement, but I immediately jumped in to seek out another. We picked up a new puppy a week after burying Elizabeth.
When my best friend Rosie died suddenly last summer, I vowed never to get another Cavalier King Charles Spaniel – then I started looking. Over the years the breed has become a status symbol. The interview process can be ridiculously grueling. I tried to explain to my husband why the breeders had to be so — particular.
“Golden breeders aren’t such snobs,” he would often say, and it’s true.
And then I discovered a new breed, one I had never heard of, one that intrigued me, one with a LONG life expectancy. Losing two dogs in less than a year had been tough on us. I wanted to avoid the pain if we could.
I deleted all of the Cavalier Instagrams I followed. I couldn’t handle seeing so much cuteness knowing I would never have another Rosie. I started following Tibetan Spaniel Instas instead. My husband was still bent on getting me a Cavalier puppy.
“It’s your signature breed,” he said. “I don’t care if they cost $6000 and still have heart murmurs that slowly kill them.”
“No. I want a Tibbie,” I said, not sure at first if I meant it, but then I did.
My husband stayed up nights scouring the breeder map and was willing to drive all the way to the Mississippi if need be (we had only driven a few hours to get the Golden puppy, but there’s no stopping him once on a mission). The phone rang one day (it was one of the top breeders of Tibbies!). “Oh, so you have no litters planned? But you have a retired show dog who sticks his tongue out too much? I’ll ask her, but she wants a puppy. Yes, send us a picture.” My husband turned to me. “You’re already settling on the breed and now it’s a two-year old dog …”
The email came through and I gasped — I actually really gasped. I was instantly in love with ZACK. Even the name spoke of greatness somehow. And he is pretty terrific. Before him we had only female dogs and they always fought. He walked in the door, glanced around, claimed the best couch and put all the other dogs in their place. Nala, the big white non-farm dog always seemed jittery in her alpha dog position. Now she can finally relax.
All dogs need to ask if they can join Zack’s humans on the couch and the bed. Actually the bed is off limits to the big girls now. He gathers all of the toys and doles them out as he sees fit and lounges at my side when I write. Sometimes you have to try new things or new breeds.
My husband has more than returned the favor. I still miss Rosie and Elizabeth, but there’s always more room for love.
“Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.”
― Dean Koontz, False Memory
Dean Koontz
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Vastness by Alfred Lord Tennyson
MANY a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish’d face, Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanish’d race. II. Raving politics, never at rest—as this poor earth’s pale history runs,— What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns? III. Lies upon this side, lies upon that side, truthless violence mourn’d by the Wise, Thousands of voices drowning his own in a popular torrent of lies upon lies; IV. Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet, Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause, trumpets of victory, groans of defeat; V. Innocence seethed in her mother’s milk, and Charity setting the martyr aflame; Thraldom who walks with the banner of Freedom, and recks not to ruin a realm in her name. VI. Faith at her zenith, or all but lost in the gloom of doubts that darken the schools; Craft with a bunch of all-heal in her hand, follow’d up by her vassal legion of fools; VII. Trade flying over a thousand seas with her spice and her vintage, her silk and her corn; Desolate offing, sailorless harbours, famishing populace, wharves forlorn; VIII. Star of the morning, Hope in the sunrise; gloom of the evening, Life at a close; Pleasure who flaunts on her wide downway with her flying robe and her poison’d rose; IX. Pain, that has crawl’d from the corpse of Pleasure, a worm which writhes all day, and at night Stirs up again in the heart of the sleeper, and stings him back to the curse of the light; X. Wealth with his wines and his wedded harlots; honest Poverty, bare to the bone; Opulent Avarice, lean as Poverty; Flattery gilding the rift in a throne; XI. Fame blowing out from her golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time and to Fate; Slander, her shadow, sowing the nettle on all the laurel’d graves of the Great; XII. Love for the maiden, crown’d with marriage, no regrets for aught that has been, Household happiness, gracious children, debtless competence, golden mean; XIII. National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the village spire; Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are snapt in a moment of fire; XIV. He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing it, flesh without mind; He that has nail’d all flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the love of his kind; XV. Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old revolutions of earth; All new-old revolutions of Empire—change of the tide—what is all of it worth? XVI. What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of prayer? All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that is fair? XVII. What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins at last, Swallow’d in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown’d in the deeps of a meaningless Past? XVIII. What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment’s anger of bees in their hive?— . . . . . Peace, let it be! for I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead but alive.
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD AND ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
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“Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.” Wendell Berry
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution
The morning begins. Those first sleepy moments are driven off by the cold in the mudroom as I tug my thick overalls and muddy boots on over my pajamas. There is something to knowing you’re needed, a mutual, satisfying feeling between the animals and me. We always say that every day is a good and pampered one for the animals except for their last.
I can’t imagine the loneliness of a farm with no animals. When we must load lambs off on their last day I cry and seriously consider giving it all up. But then I remember how sick I was without meat, and think too about the state of factory farming, and how life is a series of compromises. Not a single human soul is truly pure or innocent.
“I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, uncrowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”
Wendell Berry
When you raise animals you tend not to waste their sacrifices. I laugh at the ram lambs as they gambol about and admire the proud ewes as they murmur sweet nothings to their newborns. They clean and dote over them with such soft looks in their eyes — looks that disappear after the little brutes get bigger and nearly upend her seeking milk.
Every night there’s the big sky in its various moods as I trudge down to the barn. The wind, the snow, the sun, the autumn leaves in little whirlwinds in the apple orchard — all things to keep me forever in the world, forever in the seasons, forever dirty, forever unfinished.
For the curious there is always so much more to learn. For someone like me who is so attached to the past, there is nothing better than discovering how my ancestors went about doing the same chores I do now.
Work keeps me sane and the seasons keep me from ever complaining about the monotony of chores. Yet chores aren’t really monotonous. Chores are dependable. Every night I announce, even when we have visitors, “Okay, I have to go do the animals.” It’s funny to think that for ten years I’ve said it exactly the same way. Not a single word changed. The tone is almost a complaint, but not really. Once I’m alone and outside I’m happy to be there.
“He who tills his own land has food in plenty, but he who follows idle pursuits is a fool.”
Proverbs 12:11
The mini horse with his big personality always whinnies at the sound of the house door slamming. He still likes to push me around but I’ve charmed him into doing things I want to do as well. We’ve become friends. Every year I get quieter. I think it’s a spell that comes over some people who grow lots of things and keep farm animals. There’s so much to witness, tiny signs and bugs that hint at future doom or survival. Intuition, that feeling in your gut, becomes attuned to the dull look in a sick sheep’s eye. Sometimes in this quiet you know exactly what that dull look means.
I love the sound of a ticking clock. When I’m writing I prefer that to be the only noise. The other day the house was silent but for the ticking. I sat to write but was nudged by some spirit to go to the window. There against the white snow stood a fox staring right into our chicken coop. He looked curious, but I’m pretty sure he was just deciding which color hen he wanted for lunch.
The indoor farm dog was sent out to chase as I stumbled into my boots shouting from the garage (as if a fox would ever listen to me). The snow was so bright I was nearly blinded and didn’t get to the coop as fast as I would have in better weather. We lost one chicken. I spent much of the morning trying to corral the frightened flock inside for safety. Some regarded me as their savior and let me carry them into the coop. I felt complimented. The chickens are lucky. We take the eggs they couldn’t care less about and they live until they die of natural causes (whatever that means for animals with so many predators loving the taste of chicken).
I’m so happy that there are young people as entranced with the old ways as I am. The ideal of total independence is just that — an ideal, but without a grassroots embracing of the small and local, our land and independence will be swallowed up by an ELITE FEW who want to control (and change) our food supply. Slavery starts when the few control the very sustenance of life.
