Maria loves the farm. At night, she loves to sit out in the pasture and watch the sheep with Rose. She is very serene there. It was a beautiful, Autumn like day today, and we walked out with Rose. Rose went up to to get the sheep at the top of the hill, but they were settling in for the night and we didn’t want to bother them, so she came down.
Rose likes to sit on the edge of the barn – especially if I’m in it, and watch the sheep. The barn is special to me, and Maria and I will be married in there. There is a loneliness to Rose, in many ways a tough dog, in many ways vulnerable, different from the others and off by herself much of the time. Lenore is a dog that is very available, and there is a part of Rose that is unreachable, feels a bit lonely to me sometimes.
These small cemeteries dot the countryside, tucked away in corners of pastures, on hilltops near the roads. Some are tended, others overgrown, but they all seem to be forgotten, left behind, like stone walls, and telling stories, like stone walls.
Few dogs get to live their natural lives. They are leashed, neutered, confined by laws and culture. They rarely get to make decisions, work regularly. I am fortunate to give Rose her natural life, and she relishes it. It’s the core of my novel, “Rose In A Storm,” seeing her evolve as a decision maker, and a vulnerable soul that rises above herself to take on challenge after challenge. I see her emotional landscape as rich, in an animal, not a human sense. She has evolved. I’ve been with her since she was six months old (here on the farm) and she changes all the time.
I wish more dogs were allowed to move freely in society, and to life their lives. I wish the same for people. I am just learning how to do it myself.
When you put up photos of working border collies and lambs, as I do, you can’t blame people for thinking animals are cute, or that I should get and keep all of them, and more. We are thinking about how many animals we want here, now that we are staying at Bedlam Farm and not selling it. People are urging me to keep the donkeys, the sheep, Bartleby and mom, and of course the dogs. People even think I should get Elvis or other cows and steers back (Elvis is gone to glory, for those who don’t know. His return would be a very big story.)
I understand people’s feelings, but they provoke quite a few of my own. My own thoughts about keeping animals:
Nobody should keep animals for the amusement of other people. That isn’t fair to animals, or to me.
I had too many animals – cows, goats, sheep, donkeys. The reasons for this were as complex as they were unhealthy. I think I was creating story and drama to fuel my writing, as well as my loneliness. Nobody can really care for that many animals. It’s not healthy, in my view, unless you make a living raising and selling them.
My main focus is the dogs. That’s what I write about. I have four now – Rose, Frieda, Izzy and Lenore – and they all require love, exercise and work and training. That’s a lot. And I have two barn cats. I don’t want to lose that focus. It’s essential in creative terms.
I am a writer. I am not a farmer, a zookeeper or an animal rescue facility. There’s nothing wrong with those things, but it isn’t what I do. It’s important, I have learned, to know what you are as well as what you are not. I am also a photographer and children’s book writer, and have returned to fiction – novels and short stories. That’s a lot of work, as is managing a farm and a new relationship. I don’t wish to spent all of my time and energy on food, water, medical care and fencing issues. Not to mention money.
Animals are not cute, at least not to me. They are spiritual creatures. They – and Maria and I – need sanity, space and quiet in our lives. Not mayhem and chaos.
So I’m not going back to stuffing the farm with animals. At the moment, we are considering keeping Lulu and Fanny and a handful of sheep. I don’t know about Bartleby. I don’t want to keep him because he is a cute lamb. Soon, he will be a big ram. We’ll see how it turns out.
I lost perspective before, and I don’t intend for that to happen again. I think it is exploitive to keep animals because they are seen as “adorable.” I don’t see them that way. I only want to keep animals Maria and I know, love and can spend time with. And that don’t make it impossible for me to do the best work I can do, and that requires a lot of time and thought. Not to mention a partner that deserves the same.
