I think of Rose in the mornings some times, when she and I would walk the sheep over the big hill at the first Bedlam Farm, and then again on days like today, when there is so much hard ice all across the ground. She’s been dead about two years.
Today I felt a grab wave of feeling, of love and appreciation for Rose, one of the greatest dogs I will ever know. I don’t often think of the past, it does not interest me much, the present is all I need, but one night with Rose came flooding back to me today, it was such a powerful memory I had to sit down and absorb it. It was the ice that brought it up.
I had been on Bedlam Farm just over a year, we were struck with an awful winter, blizzard after blizzard, temperatures well below zero night after night. The sheep were struggling up in the Pole Barn, surrounded in huge drifts, we had to check on them often. Rose and I were alone all of that winter together, she was never far from me.
It was a very hard time for me, I was quite overwhelmed by the farm and that winter and great loneliness, I remember the icepack behind the farmhouse was so awful I had to crawl across it on my hands and knees with the water hose from the basement wrapped around my waist, Rose slipping and sliding alongside of me. I would shovel by the pasture gate to keep it from blocking, check on the water, haul some hay up.I remember that Rose was always around me.
One night, it was especially cold. It was a January night, we had just come through another Canadian howler, Rose and I went out late at night to check on the sheep, it was an awful storm Bedlam Farm is in a beautiful but remote place. In the storm like that, there a sense of total isolation, I could see no lights or any sign of civilization. I didn’t know any of the neighbors, there was one friend I knew, he lived a few miles away. I could call him for help but it never occurred to me to ask for help then, I never had.
Rose and I had checked on the sheep, stuck up in the Pole Barn, and I got our one donkey Carol to come inside the barn, and out of the freezing wind. It was about 30 degrees below zero that night, my eyes and nose were running and tearing so badly I could hardly see, the driving wind had iced up my glasses, it hurt to breathe, I was almost blinded. I couldn’t see the ice packed under the fresh snow, I just remember my feet coming out from under me and then I remember nothing. I know it was just before midnight when we went out, as I had looked at the clock.
Then, the next thing I remember was something in my ear, something sharp, a sharp sound and the feeling of something pulling at me. It was all so fuzzy, I remember a piercing pain in my fingers and toes, I remember a deep drowsiness coming over me and this sharp noise and after a few minutes I opened my eyes, I heard a whining, then a bark, then more whining and felt a stab coming from my ear. I turned my head and I was looking into Rosie’s eyes, she was nipping at my ear, barking and whining to wake me up. Get up, get up, she seemed to be saying to me.
“Rosie,” I remember saying over and over, “Rose, what is happening?” She wouldn’t quit, she kept barking and whining in my ear until I stirred, rolled over and tried to sit up. I couldn’t quite stand up, I felt too sleepy and weak but Rosie kept at me. I reached into my pocket for my cell phone, I dialed my friend’s number, I said I had fallen and was lying outside, I said I didn’t feel right, my body felt so numb and then I crawled under an overhang by the basement door, at least out of the wind and the snow, Rose coming inside with me, watching me, quiet now.
And then, cars and trucks pouring into the driveway, calling my name, flashing lights, voices over crackling radios, blue strobes, pocket lights, big and brave country men calling my name and Rosie barking and I was suddenly but gently picked up and carried into the house. They took off my choes and gloves, they told me I had frostbite on three toes and two fingers, I could see how white they were. Rosie, always uneasy around strangers, hung back by the living room, she stayed away, but watched. They gave me something hot to drink, they gave an injection, they rubbed my fingers and toes to get the circulation going. They drove me to the hospital in am ambulance, moving slowly in the near whiteout, my toes and fingers treated for frostbite – Rosie stayed behind – I would not stay the night, the good people in the rescue squad, which my friend had called, took me home, I got many lectures on what to wear, on going outside alone in a storm like that, on walking on an ice pack, on frostbite.
“Hey,” one of the big men said after I told them what had happened, “your dog saved your life. You were in the severe stage of hypothermia, you got frostbite, you are lucky to be alive.”
I was much better prepared the next time I fell on the steep hills of Bedlam Farm. I had the right thermal boots, heavy winter gloves, a good parka, grips for my shoes. With all that, I fell fairly often on the farm, I damaged my back, my fingers and toes still protest the cold with authority. Every time I fell, Rosie would be by my side, barking, nipping at my ear until I got up and started moving. I was Rose’s main job, she seemed to sense that I was a menace, she always had my back. I am grateful to have written her story. People get upset with me when I write that I don’t mourn my lost dogs much, nor do I miss them too often. I don’t often think of Rose. When I do, it’s most often when I am herding sheep with Red or looking at hard black ice.
I am so lucky in my dog life, I live with Lenore, Red and Frieda, three wonderful dogs that remind me every day how lucky I am to have them. There is just not much room in all of this – a life on my farm, with Maria, the donkeys, the barn cats – for nostalgia. But once in a while, when there are days like today and I struggle to maneuver over the ice, I think of that awful feeling when you start to fall, your stomach seems to be rising right up out of your chest, I think of Rosie, of our winters together alone, of how she saved my life that night, and got me up on so many other nights, and watched over me faithfully and always, and I feel a stab of great pain.
I’m thinking of you Rosie, and thank you once more. I hope you are running in those golden fields, green grass to the horizon, sheep in a great mass all around you, good work without limit to fulfill your big heart and great spirit. My wish is that you have moved on, forgotten me and our life together, and found new reasons to live and work and watch out for the humans in your care. Much love to you, I do not fall much any more, you would be proud of me. (more…)
