Maria does not do everything well – she doesn’t cook much, shop at all, clean a lot, or wash socks very often – but she does an amazing number of things wonderfully, I married well, better than I had any reason to know. My former girlfriend is a gifted artist, as many of you know, but she is also a killer hay-tosser, she scampers up the rickety ladder like a monkey and flings bales of hay around like they were dishtowels.
She is handy with a hammer and nail, she loves to paint doors and windows, she pushes a hand-mower like a fiend, gardens, is obsessed with washing dirty dishes – they never last more than a minute in the sink. She knows how to make wood stoves burn efficiently, stacks firewood, takes no guff, manages finances, runs a business and a blog, takes photos, hangs curtains, re-arranges art objects on windowsills, speaks to every animal here every single day.
I love this photo of her sticking her head out of the hay loft to yell at me about hiring a tractor to make a path to the water in the pasture, it captures both her energy, her radiance and her cheerfulness. Sometimes I look at her – every day – and wonder how such a wonderful thing could happen to me. And she is even washing socks once in awhile.
It was just a few minutes before midnight when the eerie howls and yips of the coyotes echoed through the Bedlam Farm pasture on All Souls Night, the howls were closer than they had ever been. The chickens huddled together in their roost, the sheep ran into the Pole Barn to hide behind the donkeys, who rushed out snorting out to stand in a half-circle in front of the trembling ewes.
Inside the barn, the rats melted into the stone wall, the barn cats began to go mad, leaping across the top of the hay bales high up in the barn, the full moon lighting up the cobwebs, exposing the mice in their sudden flight as the cats danced in the moonlight, as they did every night when the humans slept. Inside the farmhouse, the dogs howled back at the coyotes, the howls inside and out combining in a bone-chilling chorus that filled the night and drove the small animals of the world underground.
Simon and the donkeys stepped forward, towards the howls, but they were not prepared to see the coyotes just a few feet in front of them, so close they could see their breath steaming in the cold night, their bright yellow eyes glowing in the light, sending the sheep into a circling panic in the barn. Peering through their barn slats, the cats hissed and made moaning signs of fear and alarm. The dogs in the farmhouse were in a frenzy, the donkeys pawed the ground, uncertain what to do next, the pack of coyotes had never come this close. The chickens clucked softly, then went silent, as chickens do, awaiting their fate.
Then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, an old white pony, swayback, his eyes clouded with blindness, was standing in between the coyotes and the barn, he was standing calmly with his head down.
Simon lifted his head, his ears back. “Rocky,” he said. “You are back.”
Rocky turned his head to Simon, his ears swiveling to find him. “No,” he said. “I’ve never left.”
***
Inside the farmhouse, the humans heard the noise, and opened the door to let the dogs out, to run off the coyotes, and in the deepening mist, all three dogs charged to the pasture gate, barking furiously in a frothing frenzy, jumping over the small gate and rushing into the pasture, as stunned as the donkeys to see this pack of coyotes just a few feet away, right in front of them. Inside the farmhouse, lights came on as the farmer and his wife scrambled to get their clothes on, but when they rushed outside – the farmer had his rifle, loading it with bullets as he ran – but when he got there, there was nothing there. They could not see or hear any dogs, any coyotes. There were no donkeys, no sheep anywhere to be seen, no barn cats, the pasture was quiet, still, absolutely silent.
The farmer and his wife were confused, alarmed. They circled the pasture and then the farmer told his wife they best get back inside the house and wait. He felt a creeping sensation up and down his spine, he did not wish to think of what kind of thing might have driven all the animals away, he did not want to see it or find it, he feared for his animals, for his family. The farmer and his wife went into the house, closed the door, turned the locks and made sure all the windows were locked tight. He kept his rifle by his side, took out his prayer book and when the lights suddenly went out, he and his wife put their arms around one another and prayed. It was deathly silent outside, the howling had ceased, there was no barking. They thought they heard what might be song, but they knew that could not be possible.
***
Inside the barn, a different world – invisible from outside – had emerged out if the darkness and the night. At midnight, the moon came out behind the clouds, moonbeams streaking through the barn, a signal, it seemed. The chickens began to cluck, the cats shrieked and hissed, the donkeys brayed, the sheep baaahed and the dogs barked, not in alarm, but in joy, as if they had found a pile of greasy bones. Powerful beams of moonlight streaked through the holes in the barn roof, the bats circled madly overhead and the rats and mice began to line dance with one another, all fear had gone from the pasture, a great understanding had come upon them all, this night they were brothers and sisters, not hunters and prey.
The dogs and the coyotes formed a circle all mixed together and the circled moved around and around in the light in a dizzying spin, a new kind of howling emerging from the center of the barn, the bats formed a halo over the animals below, the spiders danced in their webs, and even the barn flies buzzed in celebration. The animals broke into song, a chaotic chorus of shouts, grunts, barks, meows, squeaks, brays and neighs – joyous hymns to Mother Earth and the lost and forgotten spirits of the animal world.
Between songs and dances – the rafters shook with all of the jumping up and down, the hooves thundering, paws skittering across the dirt floor, the spiders – temperamental artists of the animal world – began working on a celebration quilt portraying all of the animals of the world gathering together in a Peaceable Kingdom, they called their quilt “The Promise Of The World.” They knew their beautiful work, backlit by the moon, would be gone by the next night.
In the center, Rocky, the blind pony, chewed hay alongside Simon, his nemesis, the creature who had driven him from his home. There was no bad feeling between them, just respect and understanding, each had lived his life.
The two animals stood side by side, as they had never done, and from them a bright glow and feeling of energy spread outward to all of the other animals, they cast the spell, they were the source of it. “What else can we do tonight?,” shouted Rocky, “to celebrate the madness and joy of finding God everywhere.” As the humans cowered in their living room of their farmhouse, the ancient spirits of the animal world, the souls of the pasture, big and small, danced and barked and shouted to one another until the first light of the sun came up over the pasture – it was their time, and they all knew it on this enchanted night – and then, just as suddenly as it had filled, the barn emptied, the pasture was covered in mist, the small creatures of the night retreated to their pastures, the sheep to the barn, the donkeys to the field, the coyotes disappeared into the woods as silently as they had come.
Rocky, still aglow, shrouded in mist and mystery, prepared to take his leave. “Goodbye,” Simon said, “thanks for coming,” and the two old creatures together repeated the ancient prayer of the animal world:
“Glory to us. This was once our world, and this shall one day be our world again.”
****
In the morning, the farmer and his wife unlocked their door and peered out. A dead mouse was lying by the door. The dogs were asleep on the back porch, out in the meadow the donkeys and the sheep were grazing, the barn cats had vanished into their hiding places for the day. The farmer and his wife walked quietly out to the barn opened the door and both gasped. Hay was strewn everywhere, the dirt floor looked as if a herd of cattle had trampled on it, shelves and buckets were strewn all over, and the farmer’s wife touched her husband’s arm and pointed to a beam of light coming from the sun. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she said, of the gorgeous and intricate spider quilt reaching across the wooden beams of the barn, it was a collage, it showed donkeys and sheep and dogs and cats and mice and coyotes gathered in a field, dancing in the moonlight together under a banner which glowed in the light and read: “The Heart Holds That Which Can Never Be Touched.”
I’ve been doing a photographic and word series on Red’s world, a beautiful place. There are parts of Red’s world I can enter, parts I cannot reach, and sometimes, I give him the freedom to live in his own world apart from me and people, in it’s most natural state.
Sometimes I just leave him alone with the sheep, as happens in the British Isles where border collies take the sheep out to pasture for the day and bring them back into the farm at night. Border collies in America rarely get to do that, I imagine Red did that in Ireland, that was his world. Yesterday, as I sometimes do, I left him in the outer pasture with the sheep, he lay down and watched them graze, and after a few minutes they settled and began grazing, and I left them in peace and came back an hour or so later. Red was just where I left him and the sheep had moved back a bit to graze near a bush and I thought this is a gift to Red, leaving him alone in his world to do what he was destined to do.
Sometimes I can enter Red’s world, sometimes I can share it, but there is a part of animals and their world that human beings can never reach and see, and that is the beautiful mystery of it.
If you want to listen in or participate on “Live Talk Nation,” a live online discussion of my new book “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story,” due out November 12, you can check it out and sign up here. If you wish to pre-order the book through Battenkill Books, my local bookstore, you will be eligible to win one the following: one of 100 free bags of the most excellent Fromm Family Food, a printed and matted photo of Minnie the barn cat with her hen friends, or some free copies of the book. You can pre-order “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story” here: or you can order it easily here. If you have already pre-ordered the book, you are still eligible for any of these prizes (not like the old book tours, is it?).
If you can and would like to subscribe to my blog and pay me for my work, you can do so here. If you don’t have the money you are very welcome here, the entire blog will remain free to you permanently. You did not turn your back on me, I will not turn my back on you.
And finally, bedlamfarm.com will be down for maintenance between and 3 p.m. today. This will give me time to finish up my Bedlam Farm Halloween Story and post it in time for tonight.
Simon and Red are two of the most iconic animals I have ever lived with, and it is ironic to me that both are relatively new to my farm and my life. Simon, as many of you know, came courtesy of the police, who took him off of a farm where he was being starved nearly to death and charged the farmer with animal neglect. Red came to me through the generous heart of Dr. Karen Thompson, a border collie breeder and person of great faith who believed Red and I belonged together.
Red was originally from Northern Ireland and I have yet to get all of the details of his back story, save to say he was having a rough time there. Neither Simon nor Red is having a rough time now, both are much at home their, in their element, living their lives. Initially, Simon tried to stomp and kick Red, as donkeys will do with dogs, but lately, I see them hanging out together more and more in the curious ways of animals who change roles and behaviors in ways that are mysterious to us.
When Red is working, he is both incorruptible and not distractable, Simon is easy going, sociable and affectionate. He is also, like most donkeys, intensely curious and I think lately he is very curious about Red and sheepherding, when Red take up his vigilant stance, Simon comes over and stands behind him, as if trying to mimic him. I have to say I have no real idea what Simon is doing, but it does look as if he is trying to herd the sheep sometimes. I will never know, but the image is definitely iconic, as if these two amazing creatures are both posing for statues or their place in history. In a way, I suppose they are.
