20 March

Frieda and My Dream: “Trust Me.”

by Jon Katz
The Frieda Dream
The Frieda Dream

Frieda is getting older, we aren’t sure of her age, but it’s probably between 10 and 12. She is slowing down some, thinning out, dealing with arthritis. She still chases trucks, but rarely brings them back anymore. I sat with her tonight while Maria was at yoga class and she put her head in my lap and I remembered her of the year she spent in the barn at Bedlam Farm while I tried to get her to let me put a leash on her. It took me most of the year. I very much wanted Frieda to come into the farmhouse by Christmas – Maria hated the thought of her living out in the barn, we were hauling wood to the stove day and night, but she couldn’t be near the other dogs, she kept trying to kill them. I was stumped, we had progressed but not nearly far enough. I remember pleading with her in frustration. “What can I do?,” I asked. “I just feel that we are stuck, that I can’t break through to you.”

I had a dream that night. In it, I was walking in the Adirondacks where I knew Frieda had been abandoned and had lived for years.( I had taken her back to see how she reacted for the book I just finished writing about her.) In my dream, Frieda was running alongside of me for the longest time. And then I came to a clearing and she was sitting there waiting for me. I heard a voice – not from Frieda – that said two words: “trust me.”

When I woke up from the dream, I understood the message. I knew what I had to do. On Christmas Eve, while Maria was working, I went to the barn, reached in and put a lede on her – she grabbed my arm with her teeth, but did not tear it off. I said, “let’s go, we are going to do this.” The dream helped me understand that while I had tried everything, trust was the one thing I had not tried. I didn’t trust Frieda, was afraid to trust her. That night, I walked her across the road and up to the farmhouse door. I opened the door. Izzy, Lenore and Rose were all standing there staring at us, Rose had her hackles up, she was ready to make a stand.

I just walked in with Frieda and prayed, and dropped her lede. I just decided to trust her.  She looked around, and at me, and at the wood stove. She walked over to the warm stove and lay down and went to sleep by the warm fire. She never had a serious problem with any of the dogs. She sleeps by the stove every night still.  I was rarely so happy as when I heard Maria come through the door that night and shout, “Frieda! You are in the house.” She cried in relief. It was a Merry Christmas.

20 March

A Life Fully Lived: The Journals Of Florence Qua Walrath: Experiencing Death

by Jon Katz
Experience With Death
Experience With Death

Death is a presence in Florence Walrath’s journals, and from an early age. Death is hidden from us today,  the aging kept out of sight, especially from children. Death rarely happens in the home. But it was all around Florence, at every stage of her life, perhaps one reason for her determination to live her life fully and independently and to the end. She always seemed to grasp what was important, and lived with urgency.  The journals are  a collection of anecdotes without a clear timeline or structure. Generally, the stories move through life in chronological order, but not always.  Here, Florence describes her first experience with death. It was by no means her last:

 “There One other experience that stands out in my mind, it was the time Mother and I were coming home from Salem, driving the same horse, Lord Percy. As we came to the overhead rail road crossing, there was a train on the track. We thought it was switching tracks as we had seen it do many times before. We went on slowly and still the train continued to back. When we  reached the top of the over pass, the train was in under us. The smoke rolled up through the plank which was spaced with wide cracks. Each time the grain gave a chug, more smoke poured around us. There was plenty of chugging below us. Mother talked to Lord Percy and handled him with ease. It was hard to explain just what the horse did. I thought he was down on his knees, he looked so low and yet his feet seemed to hardly touch the bridge. He came out the other side, struck into a fast pace as though nothing had happened. My heart went back in place I found out that day that horses were something besides a body and four legs.

  “In the summer I spent part time helping Grandmother. Gramp as well as being blind also was on crutches. I thought I was a big help taking him for a walk each day. Also to the barber shop. There were lots of children on the street. They all became my friends. There was an early apple tree in the yard, chickens in the barn, a creek back of the barn. I enjoyed their old shelf clock with a dog picture on it, the cracker jar that always sat on the table. It was hard for her to keep it full, they taste so good. Blanche stayed one year with them and entered  high school. A few years passed by and Gramp became sick. Dad was up taking care of  him while the boys and Mother took care of the farm.

 One afternoon Mother, Blanche and I drove up to see him. He was  bad and Mother called the boys to take care of things at home and we stayed all night. We had our little toy poodle and she barked off and on all night. Gramp was breathing so hard it upset the dog. I did not sleep that night. The next morning about ten, Grand-dad passed away. I was with him at the time, my first experience with death.  Somehow, the visits were never the same. After Grand-mother gave up the house, I helped clean it. She gave me the shelf clock and the never to be forgotten cracker jar. Mother late gave me the parlor chairs. Aunt Mabel gave me the maple rocker that Gramp always sat in. Later I bought the old desk or secretary. Nice to have these things I remember so well.

Next: The Great Cambridge Fair.

 

20 March

Winter Pasture

by Jon Katz
Winter Pasture
Winter Pasture

There is no complexity to the winter pasture, no varieties of color, no shapes and sizes and twists and turns to catch the eye. It is simplicity itself, a suggestion of repose, of waiting, of expectation, as if it knows the riot of color and life that is stirring right below the surface, waiting to Spring out. The winter pasture revels in its simplicity and quiet, and challenges me to do the same.

20 March

The First Rescue

by Jon Katz
First Rescue
First Rescue

Donkeys are the animals of legend, spirituality, work and adventure. They have always been portrayed as the partners of humans on the journey through life, through chance. Napoleon rode a donkey across the Alps, Sancho Panza rode Dapple across Spain seeking dreams and angels and Jesus and the Holy Family rode donkeys through the Holy Land, Juan Ramon Jimenez rode a donkey to a Nobel prize.

A donkey is the first recorded animal rescue in human history. According to legend, a farmer was about to slaughter his donkey, he was too small and weak to work. His children prevailed upon him to tie the donkey to a tree in the hopes someone would want him. The next day two men appeared and asked about the donkey. Nobody wants him, said the farmer, he is useless. “Jesus Christ wants him,” said the two disciples and they brought him to Jesus who rode him into Jerusalem. Jesus accepted the donkey, treated him well, and rode him until his death.

In a curious way, and regardless of faith, this story, in the Old and the New Testament, set the template for animal rescue, for human beings taking into their lives animals who were neglected or mistreated. Animal rescue became an act of human faith, a testament to the better side of being a human being. Writing my book about Simon, I am struck at how his life mirrors this ancient story – abandonment, neglect, salvation, rebirth and a partnership with his human being. Donkeys carry the richest spiritual history in the animal world.

20 March

Lenore’s Couch. People And Dogs.

by Jon Katz
Lenore's Couch
Lenore’s Couch

Lenore’s couch is a story of people and dogs, of love and comfort, of furniture and the wondrous interplay people and the animals they love. My dogs are not permitted on the sofa, and don’t go there. The one exception occurred in the other Bedlam Farm, two years ago. We had an old couch we didn’t sit on, we were going to throw it away. One night I was sitting reading on the sofa, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, Lenore was sitting  next to me with her head on my lap. You know how it it. It was the cutest, sweetest thing, and Lenore just melts my heart, I love her to death and so I said okay, just this one time.

That was it, of course. I had a reading chair and Maria didn’t use the sofa, so Lenore ended up taking it over. We called it Lenore’s Couch, and that’s what it became. When we moved to the new farm, we were going to throw it away, but I told Maria, I have some space in my office. Let’s let Lenore keep her couch. So we did, and she loves it, no other living thing ever goes on it. Red is always by my feet, Frieda on her dog beds. Every now and then, I turn away from my computer and I smile seeing Lenore on her couch. This is why dogs get to sleep inside our houses and raccoons do not. Dogs know how to work us.

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