Day: May 31, 2014

The writer, poet and novelist Wendell Berry asks of the economists and politicians who created the global economy, “What Are People For?” Not much in the new world of the Amazon warehouse worker and the ascending Corporate Nation. I live in Washington County, New York, a beautiful place that has, like almost all of rural America, been abandoned by the politicians and economists who find small towns to inefficient and outmoded to fit into the new global  economy.

Life is very beautiful here, it is also very difficult here, people are used to seeing their children leave to find work in the big cities where it is almost unheard of to life your work and your life.The people here struggle to find work but never give up on community or on the small details of life that make it a rich place to be. “What are people for?,” Berry asks the new economists, the architects of the globalism that has left rural America nearly in ruin.

Everywhere on the beautiful country roads, the farmers have put up Bluebird houses, you never have to go far to find one, and these lucky bluebirds can see a magnificent sunset every night they are in residence.

Fenceposts and stone walls are the arteries and boundaries of life in the country, they keep cows and sheep in, they preserve good will among neighbors, they mark territory. They are both beautiful and symbolic, they grow as naturally as grass. This one is one of my favorites, it is in Jackson, N.Y., my town.

Two weeks ago, Liam was a tiny thing struggling to recuperate from donkey bites and broken ribs. Today, he is a thug, so big he has to kneel on the ground to get mother’s milk. We are keeping him on the farm, soon Ted and Kim are leaving. This guy is still very close to his mom, loves to butt the other lambs in the head and knock them down and he is already eating grass. I hate to think of the hay bill.

The lambing issues continue on several levels. Ma’s twins are still small and she is still struggling to keep her udder full. We are responding with grain, supplements for her and the lambs.  As wild as the lambing was and is, the odd thing is that it really was quite normal for lambing. We had four lambs, lost one. Staying up night and day and dealing with all sorts of crises is really the norm in the real world of real animals. Two weeks ago, one of the donkeys bit and stomped Liam, who is now the size of a small bear. Since then, we have kept the donkeys quarantined in the side pasture. Today, we began our return to the Peaceable Kingdom, which is the hallmark of Bedlam Farm.

The donkeys didn’t bother much with the lambs, but Simon and Ted have been brawling all afternoon, Ted doesn’t want Simon anywhere near the lambs, and today he rammed Simon right in his private parts and got kicked in the head in return. The two were squaring off all afternoon in a major testosterone showdown. We stayed while things settled down a bit and put the donkeys in the rear pasture, Lulu’s Crossing.

The donkeys and the ewes and lambs are fine. Tomorrow, two of our sheep are departing. Ted the ram is going back to Vermont and he is taking Kim, our small Asian Karakul sheep. We don’t want or need all of this sheep, with these two gone we will have eight. Maria was upset at the idea of any of the sheep leaving, and we talked about it quite a bit. I think we need to carefully manage the number of animals here, we probably will return the two new chicks we have as well.

I knew Maria wouldn’t go for any of the lambs or their mothers leaving, and they are her sheep, so this is a good compromise.

With Ted gone, we will return the donkeys to the pole barn and the main pasture, the Peaceable Kingdom will return.

My town always had some yard sales, it is a big part of the underground economy here. The politicians and economists who push globalism and wipe out people’s jobs by the millions don’t come to rural America much, they deem it too inefficient and out of sync with the global economy. Trish came down out of her house in the hills to sell some stuff, she was chilly, she said, but she sold a lot of paintings, especially in the morning. Can I take your photo?, I asked. Sure, she said, I would have fixed myself up a bit better if I’d known. I said she looked fine, and she does.