Maria brought a brush today to help Rocky with his shedding and he interrupted the process to nuzzle her. Rocky is not a sentimental creature. He gets his apple, stays for a few brushes and pats, and takes off purposefully towards his hay, water or scratching tree. He moves around his pasture almost continuously, pausing at mid-day to lie down and soak up some sun. He is businesslike, but he knows how to show affection too. Rocky is doing well in his pasture, plenty of room to roam, lots of fresh hay and grain, lots of sun and shade.
Watching Izzy in his hospice work was a transformative experience for me. He responded to attention and need, and when he locked in on a hospice patient’s eyes, there was a connection that only deepened an – and grew. When I see that look in his eyes, I know I am in need, and I remember all of the beautiful people we met at the edge of life. Izzy is a spirit dog.
We have found a couple of places we would love to buy and live in when Bedlam Farm is sold. I know now that I need to live on a farm with pastures, an old farmhouse and barns. I have to have a place to write, Maria has to have a studio for her work, and a gallery for her art shows. Time for a different place, a smaller place but not a small place. Time to move. Farms are magical to me, they light up my writing and story-telling, give me a laboratory to live with and understand animals. I need a farm. Maria feels the same way, and we are not giving up the donkeys, chickens or barn cats. The whole crew is moving along to the New Bedlam Farm, the promised land.
People are interested in my farm, but no buyers yet. I have already learned a lot in the search for a New Bedlam Farm. This market has a mind of its own, and moves at its own place. The larger, bigger places around here are beginning to sell, and somebody will love this place as much as we do, I know that. It’s a very special place. But I need to understand that these deals are complex, and they might fall apart for a million reasons. So even though we have found a farm I would love to be in, I know to go slow and see what happens, and hope it will be there when the farm sells. My motto: If not this one, then something better. Just wanted to offer an update. We are happy to be here for as long as it takes, which is not a bad position to be in.
A farm is a chore machine that is never turned off, a series of lessons never quite grasped, a reminder that the perfect life is not about perfection but about playing chess with life, instinct and survival. We learn that dramas are not dramas, they are life. They come daily – foxes, fences, water pipes, storms, coyotes, animals getting sick or stuck in things. This morning, I forgot almost every lesson that I’ve learned on the farm when I woke up and came downstairs to find a note from a neighbor taped to the back door.
The note said that she and her son had come by to visit the donkeys, as they often do, and she saw that Fanny seemed to have her right foreleg trapped in an old rusty can. The note had been pinned to the door the night before, and we had gone out, and I didn’t see it until early this morning when I got up in my bathrobe, to let the dogs out and feed the cats. One lesson you always learn on the farm is to think before you act. Another is to not push a donkey, but give him or her time to decide to work with you. It’s always their decision. Also to get help when your back and leg is hurting.
Instead, I rushed out to the pasture, and I saw Fanny hobbling around, walking funny and I could see she had put her foot through a sharp-edged old can, an old WD-40 lubricant can, from the looks of it. She was agitated, I’m sure, from walking on the leg all night and from feeling its sharp and rusty edges. Not a thing you want to see on an equine ankle. I came over to her, and she started circling and running and I didn’t pause or get help, but spread out my arms, got her head in a grip and leaned down to lift up her leg, grabbing the can and trying to push it down off of her hoof. She swung her butt into me and sent me bouncing off the barn doors, about five or six feet away. An exciting site for the people driving by taking their kids to school. When I shook myself off and got up, I saw there was blood all over my hands. I assumed – wrongly – that it was coming from Fanny, and I got alarmed. What was I thinking? I missed Rose, she would have kept Fanny still. I was glad I was not holding my new camera when I got bumped. I am grateful to have a partner to share this stuff with.
I came over to Fanny and she gave me one of those try-me donkey looks, and then, my back shrieking in protest, blood dripping down my leg – I looked and saw I had sliced my hand on the can, and Fanny was not bleeding. I relaxed a bit. I decided to think. I went into the barn, got a grain pan. Fanny and the other donkeys came running into the barn. I closed the door, went to the house, got Maria. Animals are much easier to contain in small spaces. Usually, they freeze when cornered. We both got dressed. We went to the barn with a wire clipper, bandages and ointments, and I held Fanny’s head – she was good for me now – and Maria snipped the can open and we slid it off of her leg. It took a little more than a minute. Everybody was cool. Lulu came over to comfort her sister. Fanny is fine. I went to the chiropractor. How about giving the donkeys away, she said? Not likely. I’d have to give my wife away first, and I love the donkeys, mostly.
I am grateful for the lessons of the farm, even if I forget them. And I will never know what that can was doing there, or how Fanny came to put her foot through it.
Rocky has been loved and well cared for, every one of his 33 years. Every day, he is brought fresh hay, grain, and he seems so at ease in his pasture, so content and healthy. In our culture, we seem to need to see animals as piteous and needy, this is something we seem to need even when they do not, and Rocky’s eyes tell his story. He is blind, but seems to see so clearly. What is it that we need? Rocky has what he needs.
