It is easy to overlook Lenore in the powerful stories surrounding dogs like Rose or Izzy or Frieda. Lenore is quiet, even, steady and she is not especially brave, brilliant or mythic. She would not take on belligerent rams or survive long in the Adirondacks and she isn’t the best hospice dog because she likes to plow into people and lick them all over and one time, grab somebody’s dinner.
Yet she is a great dog, wonderfully bred and trustworthy, a dog who can run into anybody and go anywhere. Lenore has only been on a leash once or twice in her life. Today I drove into Merck Forest with her and she hopped out of the car and walked with me for two hours, through forest trails, up a couple of hills, past chickens, sheep, other dogs and hikers. She never ran away from me, wandered out of my sight, caused me a moment’s distraction or trouble. This is greatness, in many ways, just as great a thing as Rose ever did, if not as dramatic.
I love hiking with her in the woods. We go to Merck often, and have our own trails. Short album on Facebook, a tribute to a wonderful animal and the wonderful breeder to brought her into the world and helps preserve the greatest traits of dogs.
I did some meditations on fear and strength on the walk, and I’ll write about that in the morning.
The three surviving chickens look quite natural. Fran was never hardy enough to fit in there.
I was trying to count today how many animals have died here since I moved to the farm in 2003. There was Orson, Rose, Izzy. Lambs, Winston the I, II and III. Carol the donkey. Sheep in the pasture, dead in childbirth, taken by disease, caught in wires, choked to death on weeds. Two steers send to slaughter, a cow sent to Vermont. .A dozen chickens, at least. One goat dead, two sent to other farms. Mother the barn cat and Lenore the oldest veterans on the farm, now that I think about it. Rabid and feral cats, raccoons, possums, skunks, stalked and shot.
Some animals injected, shot, dead of natural causes. Vets, large and small animal, syringes, pills, gauze pads, prolapses. Boxes of syringes and disinfectants. Each time I write about it, each time there is this flood of understanding, this gap of confusion and perspective, all so familiar to me now. The advice, questions, suggestions. Why say “killing Fran?” Why not call it something else, something pretty? I seem to always be explaining it, when from this end, nothing could be more natural or more obvious. Even today, with Fran. Get a guard dog, shoot the fox, higher fences, more voltage. We love animals so much, but we sometimes seem such strangers to their lives, as if we can spare them the reality of the world.
But the donkeys are guard animals, I think. The foxes don’t come into the pasture, they attack well outside of it, no dopes. The barn cats will not be confined to pastures or barns, they would, I suspect, be more comfortable dying, these freest and most independent of creatures. And do I want a killer guard dog waiting for Red to come in and herd the sheep? Or Lenore to wander into the pasture? Or Frieda to get loose and plunge into battle with him. Or some farmer’s kid wandering into the pasture to say hello to Simon?
I know these thoughts are all well meaning, and thanks for them – sincerely. But I don’t need or want advice, or help from the outside. I’ve been through this many times, and it is not a drama or crisis here, just the way life works. I’m sorry to say I know it all too well. I need help understanding banks and politics, not foxes and hens. The ballet of life, I call it. I have now been on the farm long enough to not be able to remember all of the animals who have died here. And long enough not to want to. Animals die, animals come. Rose and Izzy gone, Red on the way. Two donkeys, then three. No chickens, now four.
It is the ballet and the parade. Let’s say the dance of life.
A farmer once told me that a farm is not a stable and quiet place interrupted by occasional dramas and challenges, but one continuous drama and challenge interrupted by occasional stability and quiet. This is so. Minnie was apparently attacked by the fox last night – he got a huge chunk of her hair around her nick, a few small bites. Don’t know how she escaped or where she was but barn cats are a lot tougher and smarter than chickens, and she probably slipped away and got up a tree or pole.
She usually spends the night out behind the farmhouse, sleeping on the stone wall or a car hood. She seems all right, got some ointment on her, she’s going to the vet in the morning. She’ll be in a crate inside the barn tonight. We can’t keep the barn cats locked up for good, just hope the fox gets distracted and Minnie gets savvier about it.
One of the unwritten rules of rural real estate is this: when you buy a house, you check and make sure there is a septic tank – usually nobody knows – and if there isn’t, the seller pays for one. Otherwise, you take the old farmhouses pretty much as they are. The good people from Snell Septic in Easton came by the New Bedlam Farm yesterday to locate our septic, and we had a great time watching them, listening to the wonderful stories of things they find and seeing how they work.
First off, they flush an electronic mouse down the toilet and locate it with a receiver above ground. Then they dig where the signal is. We found not one but two smallish (100 gallon tanks) and everything was working as it should be. We get the inspector’s report Friday but he was drooling over the workmanship of the house much of the time, so I don’t think there will be any problem. We had a lot of fun with Chris Preble, the realtor and the crew from Snell.
I think if you can have fun looking for a septic tank, you can enjoy much of life.
Tuesday Maria held an artist lunch on the porch at Bedlam Farm. She assembled the artists whose work will be shown and sold at the “Anointing The Goddess” show, the last Pig Barn Art Gallery Show to be held at Bedlam Farm on June 23-24, ll to 4 p.m. (details on her website.) Before her art shows, Maria always invites the artists over to talk about their work and meet one another, and it was fascinating to hear each of them talk about their work.
Technically, I’m one of the artists – my photos, all featuring Bedlam Farm’s animal and floral goddesses, will be sold at the show, along with my books and notecards, but I see myself as a writer not as an artist and feel I do work that is quite different than these very gifted women. I did get to cook lunch – wheat fusilli pasta with pine nuts and pesto, roast vegetables: cauliflower, broccolli, sliced sweet potatoes, asparagus, red pepper, garlic sprinkled with feta cheese and baked for 45 mins.) Maria took videos of the artists and is putting them up on her website today. Clockwise, Kim Gifford (3D photo collage, amazing work); Diane Swanson, paintings; Joyce Zimmerman, 3 D collages, Donna Wyndbrant, pen and ink paintings, and George Forss (visiting to take some panaroma shots).
We have not yet sold Bedlam Farm, but we have bought a new home and are closing on it in late July.
“Are you afraid?,” someone asked me yesterday. No, I asked. “Are you crazy?,” asked another, selling a house in this market. Perhaps, I said.
Maria was in her element Tuesday. She is a natural curator. The show is very different, very exciting. Red may be here, and some sheep too, but I’m not sure. Simon, Lulu and Fanny will be around, and Lenore and Frieda too. Frieda will walk around with me, but will not be cuddling with you, so don’t even think about it. Be great fun.
