17 April

Minnie The Chicken Cat. Smile.

by Jon Katz
The Chicken Cat
The Chicken Cat

The best explanation I can come up with for Minnie is that she has decided to give up the life of a cat and become a chicken. Yesterday, Maria reached under her while she was napping in the big barn on some hay and she pulled out an egg. Minnie was napping there, but it looked like she was trying to hatch the egg.

And of course, it is not common to see a barn cat napping on a rocking chair with a gray hen. Nor do chickens usually hop up next to barn cats. I confess I have no idea what’s going on, but I could take a photo of this every day. It’s like looking at a photo of Lenore, you just have to smile. And smiling is a good thing this week.

17 April

The Manure Chronicles. Inside The Farm

by Jon Katz
Manure Chronicles
Manure Chronicles

Our friend and neighbor Jack Macmillan came over this afternoon with his tractor and his wife Kim to tackle the manure pile that remains from winter. Jack is a maestro on that tractor, he played it like a fiddle. The pile was about 10 feet long and five feet high. Every morning, after we feed the animals, Maria and I grab a shovel and a rake, and I rake the manure into the shovel (it is big) and she hauls it out to the manure pile, which grew rapidly once winter came and the donkeys and sheep were in the Pole Barn much of the day and night with nothing much to do but eat and poop.

We discuss our manure constantly. How much? Where will we put it? Will there be more in the summer? Should we add other piles or keep growing this one.  There was plenty of manure in the barn today and it was sunny and warm, so Jack may be back here in the fall. Kim was surprised we were so excited about moving the manure pile, but we explained to her that this is a momentous moment for us.

For one thing, it will smell better. Maybe I won’t get knocked into the manure pile if there isn’t one. Also, we have cleared out the tires, now the pile. Nice open view. We consider every improvement of our new farm a sacred rite. And we talked about manure and shoveled it all winter. Everybody with a farm and animals talks about manure. I have been studying it for years – how it turns to powder, the different kinds of manure different animals produce.  Sheep leave small little pellets, cows drop staggering loads. Most of the donkey manure appears as golf ball size droppings. Heavy and wet, hard to shovel. Ask Maria. Jack and Kim took a trailer haul for our garden and Jack left us a good pile for our gardens. We are talking about manure again – where in the garden shall we put it? Below, Jack and Red survey the good work. Tomorrow, dinner with Jack and Kim to celebrate the removal of the manure pile. Photo Album on Facebook, of course.

All Done
All Done

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Manure is a seminal, little-heralded part of life on a farm when there are livestock. You don’t hear much about manure, but I can tell you we talk about it every single day here. We have three donkeys and five sheep out there and they produce a quite shocking amount of manure (I remember when I had three cows, I couldn’t believe it). We deal with manure all of the time, it is perhaps our greatest creative challenge.

17 April

Putting Dogs In Their Place

by Jon Katz
Dogs In Their Place
Dogs In Their Place

Every since I began writing about dogs – I did not come out of the animal writing culture, but the commercial fiction and non-fiction and media world – I’ve had a sense of tension between myself and elements of the dog loving universe. At first, there was considerable hostility because I was new, was an outsider, and that seethed for awhile. Then I made the decision to put Orson down, and that seemed to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Death is not respected in much of the animal world. Some of the border collie people disliked my books and decisions about border collies. These conflicts flared and cooled, rose and fell. They go on still, but in a more muted way, I suppose because I am still here, am still writing books and it is perhaps difficult to argue that my border collies have a bad life living on farms with sheep out the back door.

Still, I sometimes feel apart, which is not always an unhealthy thing. Something it can spark discussion, creativity and growth. And I have always felt it in my life, why should it be different now? I think there is a gap sometimes between my own idea of the proper place of a dog in one’s life, and the ideas of many of the people who read my work, even those who like it.

Recently someone expressed shock that I read and reviewed books that were not only about dogs (in fact, never about dogs). “What?,” someone asked. “No animal books?” One of the first responses to my tattoo was from someone asking why the dogs were the tattoo was not of the dogs, as opposed to my wife or other symbols of my life. People are puzzled that I have no wish to cross the Rainbow Bridge and find all of the dogs in my life waiting eagerly for me to throw balls and romp with them for all eternity. When I meet people, I am often told about their dogs in great detail, as if I couldn’t possibly want to know anything else about them, or could not have anything else to say about me.

A friend of mine often speaks passionately about her dog as her best friend, partner in life, lover, closest companion, source of most of the warmth and comfort in her life.

Listening to her, I fear for any human lover she may encounter. He or she couldn’t possibly meet those expectations. I hear that a lot, from many people, and I respect other people’s choices  I wince when I read or hear people emotionalize dogs in that way, it cannot be easy for them to be needed in this unnatural way. To me this projecting distorts the role of the dog and diminish the worth of human beings in our lives. They are not supposed to be our emotional partners in life, they are simpler, their comfort zone is narrower, easier.

It is clear by now to anyone paying attention that I love my dogs, give them good and healthy lives, earn my living from them, derive immense joy and pleasure from them.  Red has sheep out the back door, Lenore has her own couch, Frieda is very fortunate to be living in the world. But I think often of their place. It was wonderful when Lenore kept love alive for me when I was alone at Bedlam Farm. Maria is better, in many ways, including some best not discussed on the Internet.

I often thought of Rose as my partner at Bedlam Farm, yet wonderful dog though she was, she had no way or ability to keep me from nearly destroying my life, making awful decisions, spending all of my money, and living in impulse and panic. That was not in the job description of a dog.

So in identify terms, I land here:  I love dogs, am fascinated by them, could write about them forever and probably will. They do not fill the role of humans in my life – lovers, friends, soulmates. They are not therapists, psychologists, seers or empaths to me. Because I love dogs, it does not follow that they must be the center of my life. Loving them does not mean that I can only read books about them, only write about them, only get tattoos about them, only talk about them, or wish they came to my readings so they can distract me and other people. I do not mistrust people who do not love dogs, as many people tell me they do. People have a right to dislike dogs. This kind of dog-centric thinking seems excessive to me, a loss of perspective, an unnatural role for both dogs and humans. It seems selfish to me, a projection of what we need rather than what they are.

For me, dogs do best when they are recognized as simple animals, loving, faithful, sometimes protective, attentive companions. That is their historic role,  a big place for them, and I am happy to put them in their place.

Everyone needs to make their own choices about life, but I work to keep dogs in their place, even though it keeps me, as usual, somewhat outside of the tent. I am learning that this is my real default position in life.

17 April

Grass! Thank You, April.

by Jon Katz
Thanks, April. No More Hay
Thanks, April. No More Hay

This morning, for the first time this year, we did not bring hay out to the donkeys and the sheep. We opened the gate to the sheep pasture and they all came thundering in and went to their happy work of grazing. Ruminants will eat hay, but it is grass they love, grass that is good for them. We had a happy crew this morning. Soon we will open up a third pasture and leave the sheep to theirs all summer. Red was celebrating too, doing one of his spectacular outruns of joy, it seems.

This is a big day for anybody with animals on a farm. No more hay until late October, maybe later. Thank you April, you bring many good things to us.

17 April

Maria’s Cactus: Imagine Your World. I can despair with you.

by Jon Katz
You Can Despair With Me
You Can Despair With Me

Mary Oliver wrote in one of her wonderful poems that you can despair with me, and I can despair with you, and so let’s move on. Maria’s cactus is an imagined world if you look at it carefully enough, long enough, and in the right light.

I love that poem, and I love that thought. We all know sadness, we all know pain and loss. Is mine better or worse than mine, and sometimes – often, for me – I am reminded that so many others have so much more to despair of than me. In the Kabbalah, a prophet writes that the key is wisdom was learning that everyone’s suffering is worse than his. So he moved on from his despair.

We control so little of life, that much, at least is our choice.

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