Day: June 5, 2013

After the work on Lulu’s Crossing was done, my friend Jack Macmillan, on the left (he is also a neighbor and the former County Transportation Superintendent) and Vince Vecchione, who fixed our bog, on the right, settled in to talk, and I couldn’t wait to grab this photo.  They are old friends. At the end of a long day, they both settled down on opposite ends of Vince’s truck and started to Grunt And Grumble and they both settled into it, like pitchers in a bullpen chawing on their  pumpkin seeds.

It was Jack who recommended Vince to me after I called him about the pasture bog. Jack is careful about who he recommends to people, but he had no reservations about Vince.

There were several big men in trucks working around the farm yesterday, they are a community all of their own, they speak their own language, they work hard and when the work is done they gather around their trucks and they talk in a special idiom I have always called “Grunt And Grumble.”  These men know how the world really works, they manipulate giant trucks and machines, they rearrange landscapes, take down trees, pave roads, alter the path of streams.There are many exclamations, “yups,” and “uh-huhs” and “you betchas,” punctuated by winks, nods, shakes of the head.

These men belong in the country. They love their machines, most of them are hunters, they are nice and honest men, but you don’t want to tick them off if you can help it. They are great friends to have, bad enemies to make. If you try to bull your way through with them, they will find out in a flash and stare you into dust.

I have always enjoyed the company of these men, I love their stories, even if I can’t understand many of them and can’t offer too many of my own. In so many ways, they have made my life in the country possible. I am learning to do more of my own things, but they do many things I could never hope to do. Things that farms need.

True Grunt and Grumble is an art, it usually happens standing up and leaning against trucks or tractors. My friend Ben Osterhaudt is a gifted Grunt And Grumbler, his sentences are rarely more than a few words long. For true Grunt And Grumblers, stories are circular, they ebb and flow, are accompanied by chuckles and grunts, knowing smiles, telling silences, pauses fraught with meaning. The Men In Trucks have seen a lot, are good story-tellers, they remember details and have pinpoint payoffs and endings.

They rarely speak in full sentences, because in their secret understanding of one another, they know how most sentences will turn out. Sentences don’t need to be finished. They talk of jobs that were hard, friends who are sick or in trouble. They talk of great tractors they have known. They know everyone, have heard everything. You can not scoop them on anything – gossip, the weather, who is building what and when, who got divorced, whose kids are off the reservation,  and who is playing with fire.

They love their friends, are loyal to them, they value them in a way that is unusual for most of the men I know. They generally consider me helpless and it is important not to pretend to know more than you do. If you do that, they will vanish from your lives and confidence. They don’t use cell phones to communicate with one another, they met at coffee tables and convenience store parking lots and along the side of the road. I showed them Red working, and they are always much more impressed with a working dog like him than anything I might do, like writing a book. A working dog is useful.

As we were all standing by the truck, I realized that Vince and Jack were talking about taking an evergreen tree down that had grown up around the woodshed of the farmhouse. It had to go, said Vince, it was taking off the slate tiles on the roof. Yup, said Jack, too close to the house. It wanted to come down.

Vince said he would come back in a few days and take it down. I realized after a few minutes that nobody felt the need to mention this to me, as it was work that obviously had to be done, and there wasn’t much I could add to the decision, even though it was ostensibly my tree. Yes, thanks, I said, it does need to come down.  I would pay for this, I said, looking up and seeing slate tiles coming un-moored by the tree. Don’t worry about it, said Vince. I could have looked up at the roof every day for the rest of my life and never seen this.

This was all true, what Vince and Jack said about the evergreen. It has to come down. That was the end of it.  Then the conversation veered to jerks who hunt irresponsibly – this comes up a lot – and hunting stories, victories and defeats of their own. I have to be honest, I love these men, love the hard and good work they do, love the stories they tell of time and place and connection.  You can trust them with your life as well as your money. They are my first responders, and many have become my friends.  Real men do not cheat or steal, they value honor and integrity, they are proud of their reputations. I have never been a joiner, there are not many groups that would take me in, this is the way of my life and I’m good with it. But I have great respect for these men, they make the world work and they can turn a bog into a pasture in a country minute with a couple of big trucks and a good tractor.

Several people suggested calling this new pasture “Lulu’s Crossing,” and I think it’s a good idea. Donkey’s have long been among the most powerful symbols in the animal world, their history with humans is reach and deep, they are creatures of work, loyalty and great suffering. Lulu’s dilemma was a small story, seemingly not an important one, a donkey’s struggle to cross to a new pasture would not make any newscast in our world, yet Lulu’s plight touched a lot of people in many different places.

Lulu was not in trouble, not starving, not threatened, but people everywhere were rooting for her, wanting her to make it, overcome her fears, take the leap of faith, cross the muddy bridge. I suppose you don’t have to be a shrink to get the symbolism there, our own desires to overcome our fears, take the leap of faith, cross our own bridges into new pastures.

Animal are powerful symbols for human beings, our connection to our own heritage, to the natural world. Their stories are almost always really about us, only sometimes about them. I want my animals to live in a safe and nourishing world, because I love them, sure, but because that’s the kind of world I want to live in, want to be in. If I can do it for them, perhaps I can do it for me. I’m glad I didn’t push or pressure Lulu, I knew she would get there in her own time. I was also getting a message indirectly inspired by her that we needed to clean up that mess, get to the new pasture, have the extra  grass and space on head in our increasingly unpredictable climate. Another step towards making the New Bedlam Farm ours.

This is what we do with our animals, we give them every opportunity to live their lives fully and realistically. The pasture was there, was old and much used, we needed to bring it back to life.

Lulu, of course, was all of us, standing in our own fields, looking at our own muddy bogs. How many times have we balked, hesitated, turn back,  how many times have we gone forward. In my own life, buying Bedlam Farm was my watery crossing, and I was Lulu fussing over whether or not I should jump. The water was deep and muddy, and I wanted to run back and yell for everybody to run with me, but I am so glad I did cross over. Every good thing in my life today, from my love to my relationship with my daughter to my photographer and many of my books and the blog came from that decision.

Lulu’s dilemma reminded me to be patient, in prodded me to improve the farm, open up a path to the woods, to give the donkeys a chance to live in an environment they live, to get more grass to graze. In the process, I met some  good and helpful people who will help us grow the farm, and slowly and carefully bring it back to life. Lulu’s Crossing made me feel very good, a very small thing, yet still a kind of victory for everyone who dares to hope, who sheds the chains of fear, who steps forward into new and rewarding spaces.

And of course, we love happy endings. Donkeys deserve as many as they can get.

Come and see the work done today. In ways I am just beginning to understand, it was important:

Lulu, Fanny and Simon spent some happy time exploring the paths, hills and deep woods of the new pasture. Lots to eat, lots for a curious donkey to explore. It feels good to open up this old cow pasture and see it used again. It feels good to know there is enough grass for the summer. It also feels good to give the donkeys their own Disneyland, a perfect place for donkeys to nose around and eat and explore. Feels nice. Thanks to Lulu, this was done the right way. Perhaps that’s the point.

Lulu crossed into the new pasture around 4 p.m., an hour or so after Vince Vecchione smoothed over the gravel and rocks he put over our new 20 foot pipe. The crossing is now wide and dry and the sheep came rushing ahead of her, and then turned and waited for her. Simon and Fanny came right behind her. The donkeys circled the pasture fence, checking the boundaries and the fence line. As we suspected, they loved it back there, and we were especially grateful to Vince for working so hard to finish this today as the forecast calls for heavy rains on Thursday and Friday.

Lulu didn’t hesitate for a minute, whatever was bothering her all week – the mud and water most likely – was not bothering her now. The new pasture is exotic and mysterious, there are bones of dead deer, old cars buried in the woods (I’ll get a photo of them tomorrow), bushes and trees, grass and shrub, and Vince even dug out the pond that was at the edge of the pasture, giving us a pond and the donkeys and sheep fresh and running water all year round. A big thing on a farm. I’ll post photos and a video later tonight and I’m scrapping my old podcast now there is a resolution.

A lot of people have been paying attention to Lulu’s dilemma, it worked out. The new pasture is a good idea, I can see it benefiting us in many ways for many years. I think Maria is convinced.

I’m happy for Lulu but I am even happier for us. A new fenced-in pasture with water is a big thing, and we now also have easy access to the woods behind the farmhouse. Grateful for Todd Mason and his five-wire fence – the animals respected it today – for Vince and for Jack Macmillan who steered me to Vince. Nice day for donkeys but even nicer for our farm. Photos and videos later.

It is always amazing to me to see how men in big trucks can rearrange the world and work miracles. Vince Vecchione handled his tractor like a Stradivarius and cleaned up the bog, dug a burrow, inserted a huge pipe, drove in truckloads of gravel and smoothed it out. We are taking Lulu there shortly. Photos and videos to follow.