Donkeys are guard animals, the reason I got them in the first place at Bedlam Farm, to guard the sheep. Lulu is the most vigilant of our donkeys. Like Zelda, she is the watch animal in her flock. She is always scanning the horizon for intruders, predators, deer, coyotes, foxes. She senses animals, hunters, even geese in the air. She is the quietest of the donkeys, the most standoffish, the least drawn to people, although she loves for Maria to brush her. She is awfully smart, the first to sense a purpose if we try and get them in the barn for the vet or the farrier. She is intuitive, she anticipates behavior, reads intentions.
Florence is still a presence in this house, a spirit perhaps. As happens with new houses, it is our house now, and not anybody else’s. We bought some pieces of her blue glass, and that is mostly what remains of her time. Everything else seems different. Rocky was a metaphor for her life, and as her granddaughter said, when he died it was no longer Florence’s farm and the transition seemed complete.
It is not as simple as that. I got to meet Florence, talk to her and her spirit remains in the place for me. In its sturdiness, hardiness, simplicity, character. We are doing well by her place, bringing it back to life, bringing it up to speed. It will take more time, and more money, of course, but when I think of Florence I think of courage and determination, a simpler and more meaningful life. I mean to have the same thing.
When you live around sheep and donkeys, hay is something you think about and pay attention to. Hay is the glue, one of the threads of life on a farm with animals, and I was thinking about hay a lot today, listening to that timeless sound of sheep and donkey jaws crunching away at it.
We have very good hay from Nelson Greene, the farmer, who has been cutting and selling it as long as I have been alive. We keep our hay in the barn, and it is moist, green, fresh. One of the most satisfying feelings in the world is having hay in the barn before the snows come. It is a wonderful smell, too. Mice love hay and so do barn cats. The chickens sometimes get themselves into the barn and sit up on hay bales and cluck softly, gossiping to one another.
I am constantly feeling and sniffing and considering my hay. And I drive Maria crazy studying how the animals are doing with it. Am I giving them enough? Is there too much on the ground? Can they pull it through the feeder bars? Should I give more, give less? Sheep are not respectful of hay, they pull it on the ground, dump and pee on it. Donkeys are very appreciative of hay, perhaps mindful of their long history without much of it to eat. They pull it out in clumps, nose through it carefully, leave little lying around.
Often I will go into the barn and pull out another leaf (there are about eight leaves to a bale) or two if think they are especially hungry. Or if it is very cold and they need energy. Or if they look pleadingly at me. This week, it was two leaves morning and night for donkeys, one leaf morning and night for the sheep. Not a lot of hay for big and active animals, and there is not much left on the ground. Each morning I collect all the fresh leavings in the barn – hay sheds when you pick it up – and put it in a bucket, it can be reused. Farmers always say that hay is cash on the farm, money. I remember that. I love the smell of hay, in the barn and in the feeder.
And I love walking out into the pasture with hay, the animals gathered intently around the feeders, baaahing and braying at me. If the temperature plunges, I give a little more. If there is grass on the ground that they can graze, I cut back. Our animals are all of a good weight and are mobile, fit and healthy. I credit hay with that.
I appreciate hay. It is humble and little remarked on, but on a farm, it is the fuel that makes the place go.
In 1944, E.B. White wrote that when he was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; “today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.” This was nearly 75 years ago, before the rise of television, cable news and the Internet. When Write wrote those words, tidings meant radio and newspapers.
I remember people in my childhood being happier, too, although I suspect there are few generations that don’t say or think that. Nostalgia is a human condition. Everybody thinks the old days were better.
It is perhaps true that the less we know of the outside world, the more we look more closely around us, the fewer disturbing tidings – photographers learn this – and we could bury ourselves in simpler and fewer tidings: family, community, neighbors, nature. There is a widespread feeling today, advanced generally by corporate media companies who make a lot of money off the idea, that we need to be well informed. Their definition of well informed is addictively wallowing ourselves in disturbing noise and images. In looking to be unutterably sad.
Many more people were dying awful deaths when E.B. Write wrote those words – the Normandy invasion had just begun – than are dying horrible deaths today, yet most people believe just the opposite, because they can see all of this death and misery on You Tube live, and then hear people fighting about it on cable news, our collective outrage outlets. I don’t know anyone who watches cable news who isn’t angry or unhappy, a good reason for me to stay away from it. This morning, I nosed around the Internet after a neighbor came by, much disturbed, to talk about the “fiscal cliff,” and the arguments raging around it.
It’s a perfect story for modern media. Eternal and meaningless argument and lots of things to frighten people about. My neighbor told me his taxes will go up, and he will pay more for Medicare and will lose his Social Security. What did I think?, he asked. I said he should find something to do, maybe take up the fiddle, go hunting, or take his grandson to a basketball game in some nearby city. And before you go, I said, call up the cable company and cancel the service. He left, a bit discouraged. Not what he wanted to hear. He seemed unutterably sad. I went online, saw all the accounts of leaders yelling at each other, and I went out to feed the donkeys some cookies.
The idea goes that the world is a dangerous and complex place and we need to monitor it – at our own expense – every minute so we can see the end coming and be prepared for it.
If you spend much time peering beyond your own life, neck deep in tidings, you will see little to lift you up and make you happy. What I see most days makes me happy. Neighbors asking if I need anything. Donkeys grazing. Red herding sheep. The chickens industriously patrolling the ground for seeds and bugs. Am I hiding from the world? Burying my head in the sand? Ill informed? Leaving others to fight the good fights? Maybe. Mostly, I hope so. I am working hard to peer at my own tidings. To be moderately happy for my short stay on earth. Maybe even substantially happy.
Red is a professional. It has taken him months to establish the right relationship with our sheep, and them to begin to trust him as well as respect, and sometimes fear him. At its best, the working relationship between border collies and sheep is one of protection, respect and mutual connection. The well-trained working dog does not hurt his flock or push them farther than is necessary. Red has a genius for this relationship. In the morning, Red gets the sheep and brings them to the feeder. He then stops far enough from them so they can eat, and in the past few days, they have been following his lead and trusting him to watch while they eat.
It is a beautiful thing to see a dog like this, trained on a farm in Ireland, work every day to communicate with his flock, use no more pressure than is necessary, and then make them feel safe and protected by him. His job is not just to herd or move them, but to guide and watch over them. Just a few weeks ago, Zelda would never have stayed this close to Red while eating. She would have led the other sheep as far as she could get. That is changing, a touching and powerful thing to watch and see.
